Texas Tom

Texas Tom is a 1950 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 49th Tom and Jerry short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby. It was animated by Kenneth Muse, Ray Patterson, Irven Spence and Ed Barge and released to theatres on March 11, 1950. Excerpts of this cartoon are seen in two other Tom & Jerry shorts, Smitten Kitten and Cruise Cat.

Plot

Tom and Jerry are engaged in some Western-flavored cat-and-mouse games (props such as lassoes, spurs, prickly pear cactus, and revolver pistols are involved) when Tom spots a pretty cowgirl cat. Overcome with lust, Tom dresses up in his best cowboy duds and tries to impress the cowgirl, but Jerry sabotages his efforts. Tom chases after Jerry for humiliating him and tries to lasso the mouse. Jerry manages to evade capture, and throws the lasso around the left horn of a nearby bull. When Tom is confronted by the angry bull, he tries to flee, but when he finds himself cornered, he resigns himself to his fate. With Tom out of commission, Jerry, now wearing his own cowboy duds, kisses the cowgirl, and rides off into the sunset on Tom's back.

The scene with the record player is a reference to Harpo Marx using a record player to convince a passport inspector that he was Maurice Chevalier in the Marx Brothers film Monkey Business.

Censorship

• Because of the United Kingdom's ban on TV show characters smoking, Tom smoking a cigarette is omitted from Boomerang in the UK.^[1]

References