The Zoot Cat

This was one of my favorites as a kid, liked it even more after I started listening to my dad's records in high school, and have come to appreciate it ever since.

Along with 'Little Red Hot Riding Hood' this is the coolest cartoon ever produced. Especially because it deals with an American subculture as opposed to 'popular culture'. For example Warner Bros often caricatured Bing Crosby or Sinatra whereas (at MGM) Louis Jordan would later be used a few years later in 'Solid Serenade'.

While most perceive jazz as their grandparents 'music', this was when your grandparents were young and jazz was associated with sex, reefer smoking, and degenerates. At the extreme Hitler was rounding up young Aryans, some meeting the same fate as the other 'undesireables' for listening to jazz.

While I won't get into specifics, it is vital to realize when this 'short' was released (Feb. 1944), that in June of '43 Los Angeles passed a resolution criminalizing the wearing (and 'wearer')of zoot suits in public. And the man who made the look popular Cab Calloway was banned from the airwaves (12/41) for improvising the national anthem.

While I think PC is out of control and an oxymoron (I am Japanese and liked Hashimotos and Fuji from Super Dave Osborne) it is one thing to be complacent and another to be promote racism.

So while some will defend other studios racist cartoons as 'the times' there are discernible differences between say 'Uncle Tom's Cabana' and 'All that and Rabbit Stew'. A better description would be the 'places', Warner Bros' theaters were located in the south and the Midwest in a segregated country, the latter would only reinforce long held 'truths'. Although these were intended for adults, cartoons are kid friendly.

However to judge history with modern 'values' is unfair and has to be put into context, makes this cartoon quite remarkable.

I urge everyone to read about what Elanore Roosevelt correctly termed race riots but what is known as the 'Zoot Suit Riots'

The Zoot Cat (1944)

*** (out of 4)

It seems Tom and Jerry fans are really split on this short as some consider it one of their best while others find it to be near the bottom. I'm somewhere in the middle, although I will admit that it's not one of my favorites. The story is pretty simple as Tom gets rejected from a pretty cat so he learns a few moves, throws on an orange and green zoot suit and tries to impress her. THE ZOOT CAT doesn't really have much of a story but it's basically a showcase for the music and Tom's dancing. The music score itself is quite good and certainly manages to make you feel its beat. Tom's dancing will put a smile on your face but it really didn't make me laugh. With that said, there's still enough charm to be had here and it was at least something different for the series.

Tom has his whiskers permed, and he's strutting his stuff going to impress his sweetie. He's got Jerry all packaged up as a special gift. At the door, he presents the gift, dances, sings, doing whatever he can to impress her. She isn't impressed (women are so moody). She tells him, using a half dozen expressions of the day, that "You don't send me." She throws Jerry in his face, saying, "Here's your rat, cat!"

Tom overhears a radio commercial urging guys to get a zoot suit to impress the gals. He makes one, goes back to see the girl and - wham! - she's impressed now.

The dialog in this short is fantastic. I wish they had English subtitles so I could catch all the hip phrases. The rest of the cartoon has Tom interrupted in his quest for admiration by Jerry, of course, and the two chase each other in the final few minutes.

Tom is trying to impress a female cat by grooming his whiskers, offering Jerry as a gift and trying his damnedest to be smooth. But it doesn't work and the girl tells him to take a hike.

Not discouraged, Tom fabricates a sophisticated-looking suit out of an old hammock and tries once more. This time she falls for him and they start to play around. Obviously Jerry is going to ruin it for him and end up with the gal himself.

What's weird about this cartoon is that Tom and Jerry actually talk, which is not something I thought they ever did until that awful movie in 1992. Either way, it's still a rather funny short.

Tom the cat tries to impress a girl cat by giving her Jerry the mouse and singing her a song. But she rebukes him for being to square. So he makes a makeshift home-made zoot suit and continues to woo her. This is one of the few shorts where Tom and to a little extent Jerry both talk. Whereas most Tom and Jerry cartoons are timeless, this one is dated and not as funny as normally. One of my less favorite shorts, it's still watchable though. This cartoon can be found on disc one of the Spotlight collection DVD of "Tom & Jerry"

My Grade: C

DVD Extras: Commentary by historian Jerry Beck where he talks about the animator, voice actress and the songs amongst other things.