Solid Serenade

Solid Serenade is a 1946 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 26th Tom and Jerry short, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on August 31, 1946 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 Ed Barge, Michael Lah, Pete Burness, Ray Patterson and Kenneth Muse.

Plot

Near a house is a doghouse labeled "Killer" with a dog (Spike) in it. Tom pokes his head over the wall and spots a female cat (Toodles Galore) in the window. Tom brings along his double bass, then wakes up Spike and neutralizes him by whacking him in the head with a mallet and tying him up. Tom uses his bass as a pogo stick to hop over to the window, stopping to taunt Spike along the way.

Tom plays "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby"; the sound waves from the instrument shake Jerry's mousehole, bouncing Jerry off the bed, then under the table, and Jerry's head is hit by a vase that falls off the table when the mouse comes out the other side. Having had enough, the mouse gets his revenge by going into the kitchen and hurling a pie with an iron stuffed inside; the cat is angered, but continues with a few more bars. Seconds later, he is hit in the face again--this time with a pie covered in whipped cream (without the iron). Spotting Jerry, chases him through the house.

Both animals dive off an ironing board; with Jerry ahead of Tom, Jerry drains the kitchen sink he landed in, leaving Tom to crash into the crockery. Tom follows Jerry through the open window, but Jerry pulls the window stop out of the window, which falls on Tom's neck leaving him shrieking in pain. Jerry then runs out and unties the bulldog, and the dog lets out a loud bull roar, which starts a new chase. Spike swaps his small teeth for heavy-duty ones, blows off some pent-up steam, and goes after the cat.

Tom ducks as Spike's teeth come at him, which instead get lodged in a tree trunk. Tom then barely avoids getting his tail bitten and hides behind a wall, holding a brick up ready to attack. Spike sees the brick and investigates, but gets knocked out on the head with it. With his ally eliminated, Jerry hides, attempts to revive the dog, and fails until he finds a 2x6 one foot away. He slams Spike with it, who leaps high in the air in pain, and when Tom attempts to chase the mouse, Jerry hands off the board to him, framing the cat.

Knowing he is in trouble (and that Spike hasn't seen the board yet), Tom tricks the dog into believing the board is a bone by playing "fetch". Spike obliges and fetches, then almost licks the 2x6 when he realizes he's a "jackass" and chases Tom back and forth; the lady cat watches the chase, and Tom stops periodically to kiss the cat. Catching on to this habit, Spike substitutes himself on the third pass, and gets wooed in a Charles Boyer voice (originally used in The Zoot Cat). He stops his speech abruptly when he sees the female cat and, realizing his mistake, drops Spike onto the rock landing.

Tom hides from Spike's rampage until Jerry walks around the corner; he chases Jerry to Spike's house, which Jerry immediately hides in. Tom then sneaks into the doghouse with an evil Dracula laugh while closing the door. A second later, the door opens and Spike pokes his head out, helps Jerry out of his house and laughs even more evilly. Spike is then shown viciously fighting Tom, and Tom writes a quick will, then submits. At the end, the female cat watches Spike strum Tom, who has replaced the strings on his bass, while Jerry plays a quick riff on Tom's whiskers.

External links

• Solid Serenade at the Big Cartoon DataBase