Quiet Please!

Spike the dog is desperate for some shut-eye, but finds sleeping impossible with Tom and Jerry causing a ruckus around the house. The stressed-out bulldog warns Tom that he'll skin the cat alive if he is woken one more time; Jerry naturally takes this as his cue to try and make as much noise as possible.

'Quiet Please!' won an Oscar for best animated short in 1945, but to be honest, I cannot see why (unless, perhaps, there was not a lot of competition that year). The cartoon is admittedly funny, with the usual plethora of violent gags providing laughs mostly at Tom's expense, but it is pretty standard fare for the cartoon cat and mouse and nothing we haven't seen many times before.

Spike is stressed out and in need of a good sleep. Which is kind of hard to do when Tom is chasing Jerry, blasting at him with a shotgun and trampling over poor Spike. Threatened with silence or death, Tom backs off, but has to deal with Jerry running around deliberately making noise.

This short won an Academy Award back in 1945, but I wouldn't really say that's THAT funny. For a T&J cartoon it's pretty much in the middle. Yes, there are laughs but not Oscar material laughs and it's not too inventive. There is actually some dialogue too, further proving the awful 1992 movie wrong, but no one is credited for providing the voices.

This Tom and Jerry cartoon features Spike the dog trying to keep everything quiet so his little boy can nap. But, as usual, Tom and Jerry make a huge racket trying to kill each other. So, Spike threatens to beat Tom up if the noise continues (how Jerry didn't get the blame, too, is beyond me). Despite this imminent threat of severe bodily harm, Tom wakes the pup again and again and even goes so far as tossing the puppy about and getting him covered in mud. Tom seems to definitely have a death wish. Plus, Jerry takes full advantage of this and again and again does what he can to wake the pup--knowing Tom will get the blame.

This cartoon gets high marks for being a lot of fun. Also, like all Tom and Jerry cartoons of he 40s, it has absolutely top-notch animation. While this cartoon isn't quite as original as some Warner Brothers cartoons, the animation is clearly superior. A wonderful toon.

This cartoon won the Oscar and was an excellent choice! Poor Tom! The lullabye he sings to Spike is just hilarious! This is one of the better Tom and Jerry shorts and one of seven that won Oscars. The only chase cartoons that are their equal are the Coyote and Roadrunner. Not the best Tom and Jerry, but right up there. Recommended.

"If I hear one more sound, I'm going to skin you alive!"

That's all Jerry needs to hear after eavesdropping on Butch's threat to Tom. Poor Butch had been trying to take a nap and been constantly interrupted by Tom making a racket chasing Jerry around the house.

The lengths Tom goes to keep things quiet, and the things Jerry does to produce noise so that the big bulldog will wake up and beat the tar out of the cat are all very funny. There are some excellent sight gags connected with the above, many defying the law of physics!

This cartoon also featured the first time I've ever heard Tom sing a lullaby to Spike, and that was funny, too. "Go to sleep, go to sleep, close your big, bloodshot eyes," is just one of the verses he sings. "You're a dope, you're a lug, and I hope you don't wake up."

My favorite "bit" was Tom's drum solo on the out-cold dog.

This cartoon, by the way, won an Oscar. I have no arguments with that.