Intruso Esperto

Fine Feathered Friend (1942)

*** (out of 4)

Another fast and fun short has Tom and Jerry once again battling one another and this time a third party is brought into the mix. As Tom chases the beloved mouse, Jerry ends up finding shelter under a mother chicken who is constantly beating the cat to a pulp. As Jerry once again initiates Tom, the poor cat ends up crossing up with the chicken who makes him regret it. FINE FEATHERED FRIEND once again gets us out of the house as the cat and mouse fight outdoors and this leads to a lot of fun scenes. The highlight has to be the sequence where Tom grabs what he thinks is Jerry when in fact it's a baby chicken and of course its mother isn't going to be happy. There's a lot of fast action in this short and some very good laughs from the loud action.

One consistent plot type throughout this series is Jerry meeting an animal, and then that animals helps with Tom. Now, some of those shorts are very good. Fine Feathered Friend is not one of them. The short is not very interesting. It drags in every sense of the word. The short feels slow, dragged out, and like one gag could've been repurposed into a barnyard shirt focusing on multiple animals. The chicken is also not likable. It's not like most other cartoons, where Jerry's friend has a motive. The chicken hates Tom for basically no reason. The gag with Jerry accidentally going with the ducks is given a very long and boring setup. I just feel bad for Tom in this short. He did nothing. The only thing I enjoyed was Jerry's little chick peeps. It was adorable. Other than that, this cartoon is terrible, and I recommend never watching this.

Tom and Jerry are on a farm, more specifically in a hen house, where Tom chases Jerry, Jerry fights back, Tom gets in trouble with a big hen, hen pecks Tom a few times, Tom runs away, Jerry hides in the eggs, Tom comes back, feels under the hen where the eggs are, Hen wakes up and pecks him more, on and on. You get the picture.

I liked how the hen arranged her eggs with a billiards' triangle and a few other sight gags but, to be honest, I didn't think the humor was anything noteworthy.

At least the Tom and Jerry cartoons are branching out from their beginning ones which all took place in a home with "Mammy Two Shoes," a big black maid whom we never saw except for her feet and calves.

The artwork is here is the standout feature of this, I thought. There are really nice drawings of the inside of this barn, beautiful brown colors.

Again, this is another episode that I wish I could rate it a 7 and a half. This is another episode that takes place outside a house in the early Tom and Jerry shorts, I think it could have take advantage with it's setting ( A farm), but it doesn't really pay off.

The Story is that inside a barnyard, Jerry befriends a chicken, that act like a bodyguard, by thinking that Jerry is a chick, with this, Tom becomes the punch bag of the chicken.

There are some really good jokes, such as the chick screaming "MAMA!", I couldn't stop laughing at that. But, such as early Tom and Jerry episodes, it's slow on the pace, and there is sometimes much more personalization than action.

And such as early episodes of The cat and mouse duo, there is much more cuteness on it. The chicks and Jerry really add a adorableness level on it.

I Recommend to you take a look at it if you don't have nothing else to do.

It was BEFORE Avery had any real influence on HB's product, but it's scarcely the worse for it. A bit more leisurely paced than some may like (and the hen looks like a relative of "Tom Turkey's Harmonica Humdingers"); but a solidly-crafted effort, with flawless timing of the ofttimes-painful sight gags. Also, Bill Hanna's early mastery of the ANATOMY of film-making is really evident here. Some say there was no such thing as "MGM cartoon humor" before Tex Avery stepped in, which is so much poppycock. Films like this, or "Innertube Antics" (directed by George Gordan), prove it was well within the MGM staffers' capacity to do great, distinctive comedy.