Johann Mouse is an animated short film from 1952, directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, starring Tom and Jerry.
This one is a little bit different, setting Tom and Jerry's antics in 19th century Vienna, specifically in the home of Johann Strauss. Jerry is Johann Mouse, who lives in the Strauss home. Jerry has a compulsion which causes him to come out of his mouse hole and dance whenever the master of the house plays a waltz on the piano. This always draws the attention of Tom the house cat, who chases after Jerry.
Eventually Strauss goes on a trip. This is disconcerting to Tom, because without the waltz music, Jerry won't be coming out of his hole and Tom won't be able to catch him. Tom decides to learn to play the piano himself in order to lure Jerry out. This has unintended consequences.
Tropes:
- Gone Horribly Right: For a measure of the "horribly" part. Tom's practice playing the piano to catch Jerry leads to him being summoned for a command performance by the Austrian emperor!
- Failure Montage: A succession of shots of Tom crashing headfirst into the wall as he fails to catch Jerry.
- Historical Domain Character: Johann Strauss, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria.
- Impact Silhouette: Tom attacks Jerry with a poker. Three whacks of the poker don't stop Jerry but do leave three Jerry-shaped kinks in the poker.
- Impractical Musical Instrument Skills: At one point Tom is playing the piano with his feet while trying to grab Jerry.
- Instant Expert: Tom learns how to play the first nine notes of The Blue Danube Waltz from a guidebook and becomes a master pianist immediately after.
- Involuntary Dance: Jerry simply can't resist dancing to Strauss's music, which naturally gets exploited by Tom. Near the middle of the short, Tom goes from chasing Jerry back to playing the piano, and Jerry immediately stops fleeing and dances back in the direction he came from... right towards the waiting Tom.
- Narrator: An unusual use of a narrator in the Tom and Jerry series, to set the scene and then to explain what happens after the servants see Tom at the piano. The narrator in question is portrayed by noted character actor Hans Conried (best known today as the voice of Snidley Whiplash and Captain Hook).
- Oddball in the Series: There's the historical Vienna setting, there's Tom and Jerry winding up working together if not actually being friends, and there's a voice credit (for the narrator), the only one ever in a Hanna-Barbera Tom & Jerry short.
- Scooby Stack: Johann Strauss's servants do this when they see a cat playing the piano.
