Muscle Beach Tom

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (May 2008) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Muscle Beach Tom Tom and Jerry series
The title card of Muscle Beach Tom.
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Produced by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Story by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Music by	Scott Bradley
Animation by	Lewis Marshall Kenneth Muse Ed Barge Irvin Spence
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	September 7, 1956
Color process	Technicolor, CinemaScope
Running time	6 minutes 45 seconds
Preceded by	Busy Buddies
Followed by	Down Beat Bear
IMDb profile

Muscle Beach Tom is a 1956 Tom and Jerry CinemaScope cartoon directed and produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The cartoon was animated by Lewis Marshall, Kenneth Muse, Ed Barge, and Irven Spence, erroneously credited as Irvin Spence. The cartoon's music was composed by Scott Bradley and the backgrounds were created by Robert Gentle.

[edit] Plot summary

A sign is shown that says "MUSCLE BEACH" and the camera zooms to the right as various weightlifting acts are shown.

Tom and his girlfriend dump their beach equipment on top of a sunbathing Jerry. An irritated Jerry squeezes himself out and moves his beach towel further down the beach, until Tom sticks his parasol right through it. Jerry moves yet again, but finds himself covered in Tom's discarded food, with a tomato, bread crusts, and finally a banana skin being hurled at him. Jerry marches angrily up to Tom and slaps him in the face with the banana skin. Tom's response is to shove a balloon in Jerry's mouth and deflate it, causing Jerry to inflate into a balloon. When he releases Jerry, he whooshes off into the distance.

Tom gets back to his girlfriend, but finds that she has gone missing. Butch has got her attention, impressing her with awesome displays of weightlifting. Butch pulls a slingshot-like stretcher out, but Tom causes the strings to catch onto Butch. Butch latches one end to an anchor and the other end to Tom, causing Tom to be launched into an umbrella and into a pillar. Tom attempts to run back to Butch and get his revenge, but Jerry latches one end of the hanging slingshot to a hook on the pillar, such that when Tom tries to grab Butch, he only manages to strip the other cat's tail before being pulled back into the pillar and crushed. Tom waddles like a stool until he meets a crab on the beach, which is scared out of its wits.

Butch is entertaining the girl cat by lifting more weights. A jealous Tom tries to out-muscle Butch, with each cat lifting progressively larger weights; he lifts something Butch can't but ends up being flattened by the weight of the barbells.

Butch and the girl are dancing to conga music while Jerry looks on; Jerry is dancing with a banana skin! Butch rolls on a ball and bats it away akin to a seal. Tom spots him and digs a hole in the sand behind Butch for him to fall into. When Butch comes close but still doesn't fall in, Tom throws him in and pats down the sand, then starts dancing with the girl cat. Butch recovers and pulls Tom into the sand, then jumps out and resumes the dance. Tom clips a crab onto Butch's shorts in retaliation. Butch jumps up and then does a brief dance with Tom before he throws his rival into the trash bin.

Tom tries to go for the well-muscled look by stuffing his bathing suit with balloons. The sheer number of balloons causes Tom to rise a little bit over the ground, but he cleverly ties an anchor to his body. Tom storms back to the campsite. Butch pulls his muscles into a heart for his girl and Tom bops him on the head. Butch hits Tom back and causes all the balloons to shift to Tom's belly, then hits him again and returns Tom to normal. Tom then swings the anchor around and knocks Butch unconscious.

Tom flexes his "muscles" for his girl and seems to have a good time. Then, he hears Jerry nibbling his celery. Tom flips the lid of the basket onto Jerry and knocks him out. Jerry unties Tom from his anchor, meaning that Tom has to grip onto his beach umbrella to stay down to Earth. Jerry then inflates Tom to extreme proportions with a gas canister, and then pricks Tom with a safety pin, causing Tom to whoosh off into the distance.

Jerry then attempts to impress the girl cat by lifting a tomato mini-weight, but is crushed just like Tom was earlier.