Series Description

Tom and Jerry show was a 30 minute kids cartoon series on CBS about Tom, a cat with a never-ending taste for Jerry, a cute little mouse who was extremely good at avoiding becoming a meal.

Tom and Jerry Characters

Voices:

Tom the Cat
Jerry the Mouse
Spike the Bulldog
Tyke (Spike's Son)
Butch the Alley Cat
Toodles Galore the Female Cat (and Tom's love interest)
Mammy Two Shoes, an African-American Maid
Tuffy the Mouse (Jerry's friend)
Quacker the Cute Little Duckling
Lightning the Orange/Red Cat (and Tom's Foe)
Topsy the Gray/Brown Friendly Cat
Meathead the Mangy/Brown Cat
George and Joan the Owners of Tom and Spike
Jeannie, George and Joan's Teenaged Babysitter
Cousin George, Tom's Identical Appearing Cousin who is scared to death of mice
Cousin Muscles, Tom's Cousin with super-feline strength

Tom and Jerry Trivia

Tom and Jerry first appeared in 1940 as cartoons designed to be shown at movie theaters before the feature movie. By 1957 when the animation department was closed at MGM Cartoon Studios in Hollywood was closed, 114 Tom and Jerry cartoons had been created! This TV show premiered on September 25, 1965 on Saturday mornings and moved to Sundays in 1967. The final episode aired on September 17, 1972.

From 1975-1977 a new series aired titled, "The New Tom and Jerry Show". Another TV series called "The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show" hit the airwaves in 1980. "Tom and Jerry Kids" appeared in 1990 and "Tom and Jerry Tales" was broadcast in 2005. In 1993 there was a theatrical film titled, "Tom and Jerry: The Movie" and there have been numerous Tom and Jerry video games for just about every game system ever sold, to play online, for PC and even for your mobile phone!

We can expect that the 1960s Tom and Jerry cartoons will be around for a long, long time since they were filmed in Metrocolor and in a format that is easily convertable to widescreen format!

Since there was very little dialog on Tom and Jerry, music was incredibly important. Of course, pop music was used on the show but so was Jazz and classical music. The vast repository of music available from MGM films like The Wizard of Oz!

The cute little duckling, "Quacker" went on to star in its own segmenst on episodes of the "Yogi Bear Show" but its name was changed to Yakky Doodle.

While there was no blood or gore shown on Tom and Jerry, it was one of the most violent children's shows of its day. Jerry would sometimes actually cut Tom in half with a knife. Of course, Tom somehow easily and quickly re-assembled and was fine. Tom used every weapon and explosive imaginable in his attempts to kill Jerry. Jerry retaliated by sticking Tom's tail into an electrical outlet, hitting him over the head with clubs and chopping down a tree so it would fall on Tom. Attempted murder of a mouse by a cat and vice-versa isn't considered by most people to be violent in real life. It's just normal behavior. But today one wonders how parent would feel about exposing their kids to such violence.

Beginning with this TV show, Mammy Two Shoes' scenes were edited because of her speach and behavior that appeared very uneducated and almost "slave-like". This was naturally offensive to the Black community and Mammy was mostly replaced by a fat Irish woman although sometimes by other characters. Occasionally she was left in but new voiceovers were done to correct her negative stereotype.

In 2006 the UK channel "Boomerang" continued this effort to make Tom and Jerry more politically correct by cutting out scenes that portray character smoking cigarettes.