Mouse Cleaning

Tom & Jerry are one of my favorite characters from Hanna/Barbera along with Penelope Pitstop and Scooby Doo.

This short is a fairly good, and it has a couple of good gags like Jerry scattering ash from the ash tray in a way like a marching band drum, and in the end where Tom in blackface does a Stepin Fetchit routine. Of course, cartoons from the 1930s to the 1950s contain gags that included stuff that appear to have racial or ethnic prejudice, which were a common place in American society at that time, so keep that in mind.

So like I had said, this is a fairly good short. But one last thing is that I didn't get the old horse gag, I mean what's it going' do? stink up the whole house? or crap everywhere?

*NOTE* 6/10 Stars for a mediocre gags and one that didn't make sense (to me)

Mouse Cleaning might just feature a new take on an old idea—Tom must prevent Jerry from causing a mess, or he's out on his ear—but, thanks to some very funny gags and one delightfully un-PC moment (thankfully left intact in the version I saw), it actually proves to be a pretty enjoyable cartoon.

There is plenty of fun to be had from watching the mischievous Jerry mouse trashing Mammy Two Shoes' house, and Tom's desperate attempts to return the place to its original spick-and-span condition are a delight to behold. Hilarious highlights include the mouse squirting ink into a bucket of water being used by Tom to clean up a mess, Tom juggling eggs and balancing a pie in an effort to prevent further chaos, Jerry leading an old horse into the house (a brief moment, but very funny), and the mouse inking up an exhausted Tom's paws and then getting the poor cat to chase him all over the house.

And that un-PC moment? Well, Jerry redirects a coal delivery so that it pours through an open window. When Mammy sees the ensuing turmoil, a black-faced Tom adopts a negro accent and slowly slips away.

Tom is given an ultimatum once again, he's out for good if the house is not clean when his master comes back from shopping.

OK, it's pretty much like the first Tom & Jerry short "Puss Gets the Boot", except for not breaking things it's about not dirtying things: Tom cleans and scrubs while Jerry does the exact opposite. It's not too hard to guess how it'll end...

The artwork is not bad if not anything to write home about and there are a couple funny sight gags, like Tom kissing his masters finger. Whenever these cartoons brought a new character to the screen (s)he had a purpose, be it a rival cat or a love-stricken buzzard. This one has a horse that could have been something but stays in the picture for 10 seconds doing nothing - either the writers lacked imagination or the animator thougth that a hay-eating-horse is the funniest thing on earth.

On a positive side Tom has probably never had a more feline moment when he goes to sleep and stretches his feet and toes. If you own a cat you'll know what I mean when you see the moment.

Although Jerry has tormented Tom in every cartoon, in this cartoon his anarchistic malice, especially pouring the ink into the cleaning water reminded me a lot of Harpo's pranks in those Marx films, where Harpo could shred unsuspecting peoples clothes and paperwork with a big smile.

So there. It's worth a look and not that bad as I may make it sound, just average.

Mammy-Two-Shoes (not dubbed by the PC-brigade in the version I saw) has just finished cleaning the whole house when Tom bursts in the door, covered in muck, chasing Jerry. She freaks and tells him to keep the house spic and span until she gets back from the store. This he has no problem doing, but Jerry, for no other reason than to be mean, decides to wreck the place so Tom works himself to death picking it up after him.

There are some good gags but I'm surprised no one complained at the final bit where Tom, covered in coal dust (now looking like a black cat) pretends to be some other cat to Mammy-Two-Shoes and acts like a retarded, cotton-picking 19th century slave. I don't find it offensive, he's probably just mimicking Jim from Huckleberry Finn but it's this kind of thing that cartoons got away with back in the day and something you'll never see in the airbrushed, static, PC crap of today.

No one is credited for Tom's voice or Mammy-Two-Shoes'.

Just rewatched this classic Tom and Jerry cartoon on YouTube. It's the one where Mammy Two-Shoes (voice of Lillian Randolph who I knew from my favorite movie It's a Wonderful Life as well as from the radio show "The Great Gildersleeve") threatens Tom eviction if she sees one spot in the house when she comes back. Naturally, Jerry will do everything to Tom so he gets his just desserts! When I first saw this in the late '70s on afternoon television, they actually showed the cat in blackface at the end and speaking in the now unacceptable dialect of the stereotypical Negro. Despite that, this is one of the most hilarious cartoons ever! I mean, it's so hilarious seeing Tom frantically cleaning up while Jerry the mouse sabotages him at every turn! William Hanna and Joseph Barbera really topped themselves with this one and perhaps one-upped M-G-M colleague Tex Avery as well. So on that note, I highly recommend Mouse Cleaning.