Blue Cat Blues
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| Blue Cat Blues | |
|---|---|
| File:Blue Cat Blues title.JPG | |
| Directed by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Produced by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Animation by | Ed Barge Irven Spence Lewis Marshall Kenneth Muse |
| Layouts by | Richard Bickenbach |
| Backgrounds by | Robert Gentle |
| Color process | Technicolor CinemaScope |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Running time | 6' 48" |
Blue Cat Blues is the 103rd one reel animated Tom and Jerry short, created in 1956, directed and produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera with music by Scott Bradley. The cartoon was animated by Ed Barge, Irven Spence, Lewis Marshall and Kenneth Muse, with layouts by Richard Bickenbach and backgrounds by Robert Gentle.
Unusually for a Tom and Jerry short, Jerry "speaks", narrating the story in voiceover via Paul Frees. This cartoon was released on November 16, 1956 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and marks the final appearance of Butch in Tom and Jerry cartoon shorts produced before 1959.[1]
Plot
A depressed Tom is sitting on the railroad tracks, bent on suicide. Watching from a bridge crossing the tracks from above, Jerry sadly relives "the story of a cat with a broken heart" in his head.
He relates the events leading up to Tom's depression, beginning with Tom and Jerry as friends, until Tom found himself attracted to a female opportunist cat. She reciprocates his feelings for the time being, but Tom's rival, the much richer Butch, lays his eyes on her as she swings from a swing up to his penthouse. He rudely intrudes by grabbing the female right off the seat and kissing her. Knowing how rich Butch is, the cat immediately dumps Tom and becomes Butch's prize.
Tom tries to win the cat over with presents, such as flowers, perfume, diamond rings, and a car - going as far as selling himself into slavery - but she is no longer interested in Tom, as Butch's presents are much bigger, more expensive, and outlandish, to the point that she begins to treat Tom as if he does not exist. Having gone completely broke and into deep debt, with a broken heart to boot, Tom overdoses on milk and lets himself drift away into the gutter only to be saved by Jerry. Just when his misery could not get any worse, he learns that the cat has now married Butch as he sees the two drive off with a Just Married sign on the back of their car.
However, while Tom is suicidal, Jerry is content with his girlfriend named "Toots" and he knows that she loves him back. That is, until he sees her driving off with another rich mouse (who looks like Tuffy), with a Just married sign on the back of their car. Now that he has lost his girlfriend, a suicidal Jerry joins Tom on the tracks. They sit and wait for the train as its horn sounds audibly as the cartoon comes to a close, leaving it uncertain if Tom and Jerry do commit suicide or not.
Themes
This is one of the very few shorts in which Jerry is not an antagonist, instead he is extremely sympathetic to Tom's plight and even tries to stop or intervene to the point of saving the cat's life. Overall, it's futile, but it shows a rare moment of pity towards a character that a lot of fans feel usually goes out of his way to provoke Tom into harming himself or others. In this cartoon, Butch serves as the main antagonist of it.
The short is often praised as very realistic, and its gloomy tone has won praise for not editing the very bleak situation Tom gets himself into. Although he begins "drinking", his beverage is milk instead of alcohol, although it apparently has the same effect; he tries to commit suicide twice, once passively (saved by Jerry at the last minute) and finally at the train tracks with a similarly broken-hearted Jerry next to him. Both alcoholism and suicide are often taboo subjects and both are never mentioned or represented in modern American animation, since most modern American animation is catered to younger audiences, but Tom and Jerry are targeted to audiences of children, teenagers and adults.
Notes
This short rarely ever airs on Cartoon Network for unknown reasons.