The Zoot Cat

Tom has his whiskers permed, and he's strutting his stuff going to impress his sweetie. He's got Jerry all packaged up as a special gift. At the door, he presents the gift, dances, sings, doing whatever he can to impress her. She isn't impressed (women are so moody). She tells him, using a half dozen expressions of the day, that "You don't send me." She throws Jerry in his face, saying, "Here's your rat, cat!"

Tom overhears a radio commercial urging guys to get a zoot suit to impress the gals. He makes one, goes back to see the girl and - wham! - she's impressed now.

The dialog in this short is fantastic. I wish they had English subtitles so I could catch all the hip phrases. The rest of the cartoon has Tom interrupted in his quest for admiration by Jerry, of course, and the two chase each other in the final few minutes.

This was one of my favorites as a kid, liked it even more after I started listening to my dad's records in high school, and have come to appreciate it ever since.

Along with 'Little Red Hot Riding Hood' this is the coolest cartoon ever produced. Especially because it deals with an American subculture as opposed to 'popular culture'. For example Warner Bros often caricatured Bing Crosby or Sinatra whereas (at MGM) Louis Jordan would later be used a few years later in 'Solid Serenade'.

While most perceive jazz as their grandparents 'music', this was when your grandparents were young and jazz was associated with sex, reefer smoking, and degenerates. At the extreme Hitler was rounding up young Aryans, some meeting the same fate as the other 'undesireables' for listening to jazz.

While I won't get into specifics, it is vital to realize when this 'short' was released (Feb. 1944), that in June of '43 Los Angeles passed a resolution criminalizing the wearing (and 'wearer')of zoot suits in public. And the man who made the look popular Cab Calloway was banned from the airwaves (12/41) for improvising the national anthem.

While I think PC is out of control and an oxymoron (I am Japanese and liked Hashimotos and Fuji from Super Dave Osborne) it is one thing to be complacent and another to be promote racism.

So while some will defend other studios racist cartoons as 'the times' there are discernible differences between say 'Uncle Tom's Cabana' and 'All that and Rabbit Stew'. A better description would be the 'places', Warner Bros' theaters were located in the south and the Midwest in a segregated country, the latter would only reinforce long held 'truths'. Although these were intended for adults, cartoons are kid friendly.

However to judge history with modern 'values' is unfair and has to be put into context, makes this cartoon quite remarkable.

I urge everyone to read about what Elanore Roosevelt correctly termed race riots but what is known as the 'Zoot Suit Riots'

Tom is trying to impress a female cat by grooming his whiskers, offering Jerry as a gift and trying his damnedest to be smooth. But it doesn't work and the girl tells him to take a hike.

Not discouraged, Tom fabricates a sophisticated-looking suit out of an old hammock and tries once more. This time she falls for him and they start to play around. Obviously Jerry is going to ruin it for him and end up with the gal himself.

What's weird about this cartoon is that Tom and Jerry actually talk, which is not something I thought they ever did until that awful movie in 1992. Either way, it's still a rather funny short.

Here's one fact that I had forgotten. The much lauded "talking" between Tom and Jerry in the feature film a few years back WAS NOT THE FIRST TIME THEY TALKED! They didn't say more than a couple of lines, but, BOTH Tom and Jerry spoke actual words in this cartoon! So much for Hollywood "Myths". I guess the screenwriters overlooked this episode.

It's a fun outing, like most of Tom and Jerry's adventures. Tom's trying to be hep to impress a local female cat, and Jerry's only making things harder on Tom than normal. Good fun, and wild to hear them speak.

Tom uses material from hammock to made his zoot suit. He tries to be the hippest cat around with the suit, and try to attract a certain feline. Jerry the mouse always get in Tom's way of romancing a female. The Zoot Cat is one of the funniest in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.