Jerry and Jumbo

Boy, they really stretch credibility here, right from the start....but it's a cartoon and, as we all know, "anything goes" in animated shorts. Here, a baby elephant on a circus train falls out of a compartment, rolls down a hill, tumbles through the front door, over furniture and lands in Tom's sleeping basket! Yeah, right!

The story centers around the elephant being painted to look a big version of Jerry and you know who is going to get the short end of the stick regarding violence and pain.

There are good sight gags in here, different things, mainly with the little mouse/big mouse theme. Another major element is the incredible sucking power of the elephant's trunk. It's a solid entry in the Tom & Jerry collection with a good mix of comedy and cuteness. One wonders, though, during all the commotion, where were the people who own the house?

And that includes almost all cartoons animated in the years 1944-1952. Jerry and Jumbo was animated in 1951, but released in 1953. These cartoons had the best look/animation, still Tom & Jerry developed in that era few times: I would say 1944/45, next 1946/47, then the "classic" look 1947-1950, and 1951/52. Gags were great, not too cute like in later years and not too slow just like in the early years. The cartoons from first 3 years were with more than 8 minutes a little bit too long and not that fresh and naughty like the cartoons from 1944-52 with the great ideas.

Ps.: Rhapsody Rabbit was made the same year The Cat Concerto was made (1946): From Wikipedia "Both MGM and Warner Bros. accused each other of plagiarism, after both films were shown in the 1947 Academy Awards Ceremony. Technicolor was accused of sending a print of either cartoon to a competing studio, who then plagiarized their rival's work. This remains uncertain even today: though Rhapsody Rabbit has an earlier MPAA approval number and release date, MGM's cartoons took longer to make." That one goes to an early review by another user.

A baby elephant falls from a moving circus train and rolls into a house, landing in Tom's basket. Jerry befriends the new arrival, disguising it to look like a giant mouse in order to terrorise Tom.

In the world of Tom and Jerry, a painted pachyderm (its trunk rolled up and coloured black) looks just like a giant mouse; if you can swallow such a silly concept, then Jerry and Jumbo should deliver lots of laughs, the highlight for me being the classic 'mirror' routine whereby Tom runs to and fro past a gap in the wall, the mouse and the elephant taking it in turns to mimic the cat's movements.

There are lots of laughs to be had as Tom tries to figure out what is happening, before the baby elephant's mother arrives and joins in on the fun, becoming an even larger 'mouse', all of which sends the poor cat completely off his rocker.

The cartoon does start off a tad too slow, and the story is on the predictable side. But Jerry and Jumbo is a rock-solid Tom and Jerry cartoon, that is both hilarious and cute. The animation is really nice and colourful as these cartoons usually are, and the music is delightful. The sight gags serve their purpose well too, the best being the running gag of Jumbo sucking things with his trunk with such powerful force, and the ending is very unexpected in a good way. The pacing is in general brisk and efficient, and the characters are great, the best actually being the very cute elephant Jumbo. Overall, a rock-solid cartoon with a lot going for it. 8/10 Bethany Cox

A little circus elephant ends up in the home of Tom and Jerry. When some strange things happen Tom thinks it is Jerry who causes them, but in fact it is the elephant. When Tom gets mad at Jerry the elephant helps the little mouse and they start working together.

The short starts a little boring but once the elephant dresses up as a mouse to give Tom a hard time it gets hilarious and I had a very good time.