Touché, Pussy Cat! is a 1954 animated short film (6 1/2 minutes) directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
It is a Tom and Jerry short. Jerry is a "Mouseketeer". He receives the young son of his friend François Mouse (the little kid gray mouse referred to in other Tom and Jerry shorts as "Nibbles" or "Tuffy"), along with a letter from François asking Jerry to train Nibbles as a Mouseketeer. Nibbles proves a pretty poor student, slashing up Jerry's house and nearly getting the two of them killed by Tom, who is a rival Royal Guardsman. But later, when Tom ambushes Jerry in the street, Nibbles saves the day.
A quasi-prequel to "The Two Mouseketeers", another Tom and Jerry cartoon with Jerry and Nibbles as Mousketeers and Tom as their rival.
Tropes:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Nibbles' rapier can easily lop off the tip of Tom's tail.
- Alcohol Hic: Happens to Nibbles after he whacks open a wine cask to stop Tom, and is then carried down the alley in a flood of wine.
- Bilingual Bonus: All of Nibbles' lines are in French.
- Bloodless Carnage: A hallmark of Tom and Jerry short, and an extreme example in this one, where there's no blood after Tom is chopped in half by an axe or getting his tail tip sliced off.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: Tom's tunic flips up like a rolled-up window shade to reveal he wears frilly purple underwear.
- Comedic Spanking: Ends with Jerry giving Nibbles a spanking after Nibbles stabs him in the butt again.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Tom is sliced neatly in half lengthwise after Jerry tips over an axe.
- Mustache Vandalism: Nibbles using an artist brush to paint a caricature of Tom on a wall. When Nibbles realizes that Tom is glaring at him, Nibbles paints spectacles and a mustache on Tom's face.
- Puddle-Covering Chivalry: Jerry falls face-first into a puddle. When a lady mouse shows up, Nibbles flips Jerry's cape over his head. The lady mouse then avoids the puddle by walking over the cape and over Jerry.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Jerry and Nibbles meet two different lady mice with the long eyelashes that are cartoon code for "female".
- Title Drop: Nibbles says "Touché, pussy cat!" to Tom a couple of times, like when he lops off the tip of Tom's tail.
