Blog 10, 4/5/2010, Tom and Jerry, by John Lyver

Tom and Jerry is a cartoon I am certain most of us are well aware of today. Tom and Jerry is the classic tale of Cat vs Mouse, or in the case of Tom(the cat) Vs pretty much everything else that isn’t a cat. Tom and Jerry cartoons are known mainly for their very funny slapstick humor. However, most people may not realize but it uses a  lot of music to help tell the story, there is not a lot of talking in these cartoons. Music was used to help tell the story ever since Disney’s Silly Symphonies and was also used Merry Melodies and eventually by MGM. Still most people tend to focus on the fact that Tom and Jerry can be rather violent  and for a children’s show, yet most would argue that cartoon violence is not the same as live action violence.

As Tom tries to catch Jerry and his friends episode after episode Tom uses different tacts in order to capture Jerry.  Tom is hardly successful in his attempts. In this cartoon “The Duck Doctor” Tom is even using a gun to shoot at Jerry’s bird friend. Perhaps this is an anti hunting episode. However, despite Tom being more heavily armed then Jerry and his Duck friend, Tom manages to still get hit with an anvil, squashed by it and in one scene flattened by a big pig. This violence is of course fake cartoon violence.

Hardly anyone takes the violence of Tom and Jerry and tries to act it out. In all my years of watching these cartoons it never occurred to me that I should strike my foe in the face with a shovel in order to see the head of the shovel take the form of the one being struck, in this case usually Tom. It just wouldn’t make sense even to a child to take a cartoon and act it out in reality, its clear even to small children that ‘cartoon physics’ is at play here in the Tom and Jerry cartoons, and that this type of behavior is not realistic in anyway. If this cartoon had taken on a more realistic type approach to its violence then perhaps it might be more dangerous for children.

The 1950s were a different time however, so I am not sure how people felt about these cartoons. I can only guess that since they have remained popular and well known even until today that not as many people as today would have issues with this lovable cartoon.

If you would like to see more funny examples of Tom getting pulverized check out this.

I commented on Amanda Cole’s Blog at http://amanda22192.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/10-does-any-of-the-nickelodeon-cartoons-have-a-finale/#comment-22

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