A Caça ao Rato

I am a fan of Tom and Jerry, and have been for as long as I can remember. Mouse Trouble is not the best of their cartoons, but I like it. Where Mouse Trouble is not so impressive is in its predictable story and its somewhat obvious and generic title. However, the animation is very good for its time, with lovely backgrounds and the characters are drawn well. The music is wonderful too, as it nearly always it, while the sight gags are clever if quite violent too, particularly the one with the robotic female mouse and "Mice are suckers for dames". The pacing is good as well, while both Tom and Jerry are very entertaining. And I do agree, it does have a Roadrunner vs. Wile E.Coyote feel to it. Overall, I liked it, but I don't consider it a favourite like I do with The Cat Concerto, Mice Follies or The Two Mouseketeers. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This "Tom and Jerry" short called "Mouse Trouble" from 1944 is one that's fun and entertaining with action and chases and pain for Tom! As Jerry once again is more clever and wins the cat and mouse games. More tough for Tom to take is that his new master book called how to catch and trap a mouse clearly does not work! As bear traps, mallets, and a tree swing all backfires on Tom! Plus the final insult is even an electronic female mouse wind up does not even lure Jerry for Tom's lunch! Overall super great episode of the series!

T&J were always my favourite cartoon characters growing up, and this is one of their better outings. "Tom" decides to get all scientific in his quest to eat "Jerry" so he buys a book. The definitive guide to how to catch your lunch and eat it. Of course, the more cunning the trap the more "Jerry" makes mincemeat of it, indeed after a few failed attempts it seems the tables have been well and truly turned on the hapless cat! Poor old "Tom" just never seems to learn and the writer of this new manual has clearly never met a mouse as inventive and tenacious as "Jerry". There's a scene with a stethoscope that is genuinely laugh-out-loud and though much of the rest is fairly standard, explosive, fayre, this is still a fun opportunity for the never changing dynamic between the pair to, well, what do you think?

Tom once again attempts to trap Jerry, this time using a variety of ingenious methods which are described in his recent book purchase, entitled 'How To Catch A Mouse'.

An episodic T&J caper (as opposed to the usual, single, prolonged chase scene), Mouse Trouble is basically a series of quick fire gags, which sees Tom's different traps backfiring in amusing ways. I use the word amusing, because, unfortunately, they are very rarely hilarious, being way too predictable in their outcome.

This style of cartoon would be done much better (and again and again) years later by the brilliant Wile E.Coyote and Roadrunner.

Mouse Trouble (1944)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

If you go through the Tom and Jerry shorts in the order that they were released you'll notice that 1944 had some of the greatest films. That trend continues here as Tom orders a book on how to catch a mouse, which he reads and tries to do but Jerry isn't going to go without a fight. This short is basically broken up into several chapters as Tom reads from the book, tries what it says and then moves onto the next chapter. For the most part this is just one violent attack on the poor cat after another and of course it's fast and funny. The highlight is certainly the sequence where Tom tries to use curiosity to catch the mouse. There's no doubt that the funniest thing is just that high-pitched scream from Tom.