Part Time Pal

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Part Time Pal

Tom and Jerry series


The title card of Part Time Pal
Directed by William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Produced by Fred Quimby
Voices by Lillian Randolph (as Mammy Two Shoes, uncredited)
Music by Scott Bradley
Animation by Michael Lah
Kenneth Muse
Ed Barge
Ray Patterson
Pete Burness (unc.)
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s) March 15, 1947
Color process Technicolor
Running time 7 min 50 secs.
Preceded by Cat Fishin'
Followed by The Cat Concerto
IMDb profile

Part Time Pal is a 1947 animated cartoon short, starring Tom and Jerry. It was animated in 1946 by Michael Lah, Kenneth Muse and Ed Barge, produced in Technicolor by Fred Quimby, directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, and then released to theaters on March 15, 1947 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. Pete Burness animated about 50% of the animation in this cartoon, and yet he is uncredited.

[edit] Plot

Tom is being scolded by Mammy Two Shoes in the kitchen at the beginning of the cartoon. "And this, Mister Thomas, is your last and final chance! Either you keep dat mouse out of this ice box, or you goes out! Understand? Remember, you is on guard!" Tom, armed with a broom, marches around the kitchen angrily and alert. However, Jerry opens up a grille on the floor, exposing a hole, and directs Tom into it. Tom gives chase, but he trips over a collection of empty milk bottles that Jerry had moments before rolling into his path. Speeding out of control, Tom falls into a barrel of cider in the basement, and he drinks the cider.

Tom emerges from the cider barrel, inebriated, to become Jerry's Part Time Pal.
Tom emerges from the cider barrel, inebriated, to become Jerry's Part Time Pal.

Completely drunk, he befriends Jerry and makes his way back to the kitchen, drunkenly sharing the food with his new 'friend.' However, when pulling out a tray of food from the fridge, it collapses on him with an almighty crash. Jerry hides the drunken Tom, covering his mouth so that his hiccups are not heard. Mammy returns downstairs to discover the kitchen in a shambles---"Well, slap my face if this ain't a mess!"---and badmouths the cat who she believes has gone AWOL. As Mammy leaves the room, Tom emerges from his hiding place, but he trips up over some of the spilled food and crashes into the refrigerator where he is squirted with some water, sobering him up again. Jerry, wielding a breast of chicken, approaches Tom, unaware that he is now sober, and very angry. Tom chases after Jerry towards the bathroom, but slips on a bath mat and crashes into a wall. A bottle of bay rum (a kind of lotion, not for drink) falls from the bathroom shelf and into Tom's mouth, And Tom is drunk again! Tom takes Jerry into the dining room for dinner and rings the bell, expecting service for them both. But Mammy is upstairs, fast asleep, and doesn't hear. The drunken cat grows impatient, and despite Jerry's objections, goes upstairs to get her. He takes a pitcher of water, and after saying, "one for the money, (hic), two for the show, (hic), three to make ready, (hic), and four...to go!", douses her with it! The housemaid screams, hurls some furniture off-camera and then chases after Tom with a broom, jumping down the stairs and wrecking the house in the process. Jerry watches as Mammy preceeds to chase Tom out into the night, swinging the broom at him, only to miss with every one of his drunken hiccups lifting him up.

[edit] Censorship

  • Mammy's line about the mess is re-dubbed as "Well, I'll be darned. This is such a mess!!" on Turner prints.
  • Tom's drunken line "One for the money, two for the show, three to make ready, and four to go!" has been muted out in Cartoon Network and Boomerang version.

[edit] Trivia

The plot of the episode is remarkably similar to the central plot of Bertolt Brecht's stage play, Mr Puntila and his Man Matti, in which the title character Puntila is a happy, generous man while drunk and a miserly grouch while sober, with his man Matti following him and trying to account ofr the aftereffects of his various escapades.