The Cat Concerto
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Cat Concerto | |
| Tom and Jerry series | |
 The title card of The Cat Concerto. |
|
| Directed by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
|---|---|
| Story by | William Hanna (unc.) Joseph Barbera (unc.) |
| Animation by | Kenneth Muse Ed Barge Irven Spence |
| Music by | Scott Bradley |
| Produced by | Fred Quimby |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date | April 26, 1947 |
| Format | Technicolor, 7 min 49 secs |
| Language | English |
| IMDb page | |
The Cat Concerto is a one-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Tom and Jerry series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on April 26, 1947 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. It was produced by Fred Quimby and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with musical supervision by Scott Bradley, and animation by Kenneth Muse, Ed Barge and Irven Spence. It won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. In 1994 it was voted #42 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.
[edit] Plot
The plot centres on a formal concert, where Tom, a piano virtuoso, is giving a piano recital of Hungarian Rhapsody Number 2 by Franz Liszt. Jerry, who has been asleep inside the piano, is rudely awakened by the hammers and angrily sits on top of the grand piano to conduct (intimidate) the cat. Tom cannot abide this, and flicks Jerry off the piano. All the while, Tom continues playing without any interruptions.
Now Jerry arises from under one of the keys. Tom hammers down on the key, while Jerry runs back and forth underneath. As Tom lifts his paws from the keys, the piano continues playing. He looks over the edge of the piano and spots Jerry playing the felts from inside. Tom knocks the rodent out with a tuning tool. Jerry gets revenge by slamming the piano lid onto Tom's fingers, flattening them. But he resumes playing, as Jerry attempts to chop off the cat's fingers with a pair of scissors. When this fails, he substitutes a mousetrap for some of the keys. Now Tom's finger does get caught and swells to ballooning proportions.
Jerry prances up and down on the piano, upon which Tom climbs and proceeds to play - with his feet. As Tom gets back down to play with his fingers, Jerry dances around on the felts, changing the tune from the Rhapsody to "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe". Tom snatches Jerry in his fist and throws him into the piano stool. Jerry crawls out of an opening and manipulates the seat's controls, cranking it up, and then sending it crashing down.
Still playing, Tom stuffs Jerry into the felts. The felts take on a life of their own, bashing Jerry about and squashing him to and fro. Jerry manages to break off some felts and plays them on the strings, faster and faster, so that Tom simply cannot keep up. No longer in control of the piano, Tom tries to keep up appearances but collapses in exhaustion after finishing the tune. Jerry emerges from the piano to thunderous applause and takes a bow.
[edit] Controversy
The Warner Bros. animation studio released a very similar cartoon the same year MGM released The Cat Concerto. This cartoon, named Rhapsody Rabbit, featured Bugs Bunny and an unnamed mouse. It otherwise had a very similar plot to The Cat Concerto: both even the same piece by Liszt. Both MGM and Warner Bros accused each other of plagiarism, after both films were shown during the 1946 Academy Awards ceremony. Ironically, Warner's current parent Time Warner now owns the Tom and Jerry cartoons as well.
[edit] External references
- The Cat Concerto at EOFFTV
- The Cat Concerto at the Internet Movie Database
- The Cat Concerto, a section of Nicola Watts' "Cartoons and Music" 1997 Multimedia Analysis and Design project at the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) at the University of Glasgow.
