The Mouse Comes to Dinner

Mammy-Two-Shoes (who was actually NOT dubbed in the version I watched, would you believe) has set up a huge banquet for guests of some kind, who will be arriving soon. Tom sneaks into the dining room and calls his girlfriend Toots, inviting her over.

Using Jerry as a reluctant butler Tom tries numerous times to impress Toots and fails again and again. What was surprising about this cartoon is that it's a bit crueler than usual. The violence and pain were on level with an episode of Itchy and Scratchy. There is even one moment of torture in which Tom holds Jerry, in a teaspoon, over a candle.

Hey, I'm not complaining. I'm not some nut who is against cartoon violence. I actually thought that this one was damn funny.

This is a hilarious Tom and Jerry short. Tom gets his tail and butt on fire and runs for water. He is just about to sit down for some relief when Jerry puts a chafing dish under his flaming butt. He sits down and sizzles for a few min! He thinks he is getting cooled off, but he is getting heated up....A LOT!. He then realizes what has happened and flies off the surface, only to have his rear end stick to it. His butt comes free and he smashes through the roof with the flames from his butt trailing behind him. When he lands back to Earth, he is too dazed to realize that he could sit in the punch bowl to cool his rear. He just sits there while Jerry and Toots paint "SS Drip" on his burned backside. How embarrassing for him. He tired to show off and ends up with his rear end burned off and sinks into a bowl of punch. What a day!!!!!!!

Mammy Two Shoes has laid the table for a banquet, so Tom seizes the opportunity and invites his girlfriend over for a spot of dinner. Jerry is Tom's reluctant servant, but it's not long before the little mouse is free and causing trouble for the cat and his gal.

This episode of T&J is pretty par for the course as far as the comedy goes: there is plenty of unremarkable slapstick, with the contents of the table used as weapons. What makes this one a little more memorable, however, is the degree of pain dished out by the characters. The arch-enemies always take a severe clobbering, but this time around both get hurt a little worse than usual, with Jerry being sat in a spoon and heated slowly over a candle, and Tom having his rear set on fire. Yowch!

This is one of my favorite Tom and Jerry featurettes and I rank this one up there with other classics starring them that I'd consider the best. Tom invites his girlfriend, Tootles, over for dinner, but Jerry gets in on the meal unannounced and he just won't let them have this event to themselves. This is the rare time (if not just one of those rare times) in which we get to hear Tom and Tootles speak, and Tom has solely one line throughout the entire cartoon. I find the little dialog they have interesting. I agree with one of the other reviewers who mentioned that this would be perfect for Thanksgiving. I remember this one well. Full of hilarious moments. This one is not to be passed.

The Mouse Comes to Dinner (1945)

*** (out of 4)

Tom gets a cute cat to come over to dinner so he obviously wants to impress her so he makes Jerry serve the food, which of course ends up with one fight after another. THE MOUSE COMES TO DINNER is certainly an entertaining film that manages to go at a very fast pace and of course there are plenty of laughs as well. This film offers up some rather creative fights and especially the sequence where Tom keeps biting his own tail. Another highlight is the scene where the poor cat is too stupid to realize that he's on fire and not in a good way. As you'd expect the animation is top-notch as are the sound effects, which certainly add a few nice laughs.