The Lonesome Mouse is a 1943 Tom and Jerry cartoon directed by Hanna-Barbera.
One day Jerry succeeds in getting Tom kicked out of the house, and while he is initially overjoyed to have the house all to himself, he eventually realizes he's lonely without Tom's antics, and so he teams up with him to devise a plan where Tom will stage capturing and killing Jerry to get back in the owner's good graces.
Tropes:
- A Bloody Mess: In one instance of the duo ducking out of view, Tom douses Jerry in a bottle of ketchup for effect before running back into view. To stage the killing blow, Jerry climbs under a rug and switches places with a tomato.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: As the first instance of dialog from either of the title characters, it handles the matter differently than most later shorts. In general the characters only speak if it's to emphasize a joke, and even then it's usually Tom who speaks. Here the dialogue is mostly superfluous, especially since the premise is already set up with a narrator voice over, and it's Jerry who does most of the talking.
- Engineered Heroics: Jerry's plan to get Tom back in the house is to stage a scene in which Tom can appear to kill Jerry to save the owner.
- Enemy Mine: Tom and Jerry team up to stage some Engineered Heroics.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished / Ungrateful Bastard : For all of Jerry's efforts, the plan goes off without a hitch and Tom is welcomed back into the house, but Tom isn't even a little grateful, refusing to share his reward with him.
- Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon: Most of the duo's antics are fairly staged, but Jerry starts to get a bit concerned when Tom starts coming at him fairly aggressively with what is clearly a very real meat cleaver.Jerry: Hey! We're still kidding, ain't we?
Tom: Sure.
Jerry: Okay then! - Simpleton Voice: Tom speaks with one of these, which is further complimented by his lines being very short compared to Jerry's.
- Suddenly Voiced: Notable for being the first short in which the title duo both speak.
- Victory Is Boring: Jerry is finally rid of Tom, only to realize it's rather lonesome and boring not having him around.
