Baby Puss

One of the funniest Tom & Jerry cartoons ever made. Tom getting dressed up as a baby by a little girl is priceless in itself. Add Jerry, and a few alley cats to the mix, and you got one funny cartoon. Not to be missed!

This is one of my favorite Tom and Jerry cartoons. There isn't much plot, but everything that happens is just so delightful, funny, and beautifully animated, it's hard not to love. Tom's bratty alleycat friends are always fun to watch, and Tom is definitely at his most helpless and adorable. For old music fans, Baby Puss features a dozen great old standards brilliantly orchestrated.

This is one of my favorite Tom and Jerry cartoons from 1943. In this short, the little girl of the house forced Tom to play "baby," and he did not like it one bit! After the child leaves the room, Jerry peeks out from behind a dollhouse and sees Tom enjoying the milk from the bottle. He then mocks Tom by playing "Rock-a-Bye Baby" on the turntable and pretending to be a baby. I love that part. Tom is furious and chases Jerry into the dollhouse. Just when it seems that Tom has Jerry cornered, Nancy returns and scolds Tom again. Tucking Tom back in bed, Nancy threatens to feed him castor oil if he gets out again.

Jerry emerges from the doll house and runs to the window to get the attention of Meathead (from the short Sufferin' Cats! ), Butch, and Topsy, Tom's three alley cat friends, who are outside. When the trio sees Tom, they begin to make fun of him. When Tom confronts the other cats, they continue to tease and humiliate him. Poor Tom. Overall, I love this cartoon.

An annoying prepubescent white girl dresses Tom the cat up as a baby, a bonnet, little booties, a diaper, the whole nine yards. Tom only puts up with it to get the delicious milk and is having a good time until Jerry the mouse sees him which enrages him while the mouse mocks him. Later Jerry gets Tom's feline friends over and embarrass's him further. I hear some people say this one is too sadistic. Hello.. this is a Tom and Jerry cartoon people. If you think it's too sadistic go watch the ultra-liberal crap-fest that is "Captain Planet" This hilarious cartoon can be found on disc one of the Spotlight collection DVD of "Tom & Jerry".

My Grade: A

Even by Tom and Jerry's own violent standards, Baby Puss is disturbingly callous. It begins with an unusual premise - the usual 'owner', the plump black maid, is nowhere to be seen, and Tom appears to have been catnapped by an annoying little girl who wants to play mummy-and-baby with him. Tom puts up with this nonsense because he loves the bottled milk she feeds him, but this cosseted life comes to an end when Jerry invites Tom's alley cat friends to see how their leader is being humiliated. This leads to a lengthy slapstick sequence in which Tom is bullied relentlessly, and maybe it's because he's dressed as a toddler that I found this quite hard to take, especially the part where his head is blown up like a balloon and later stamped on repeatedly. I'm no wimp and I usually love violent cartoons, but this seemed too close to child abuse for comfort. Having said that, there are plenty of laughs and even - unusually for a 1940s cartoon - a couple of jokes about vomiting!