Tom and Jerry

Looking back at some of Jones' shorts, there were at least a couple more times Jerry lost, amusingly both of which were when Tom was the instigator. They both end in very similar circumstances, in one Jerry rescues Tom who kisses him affectionately, and likes what he tastes and begins chase. In another he gives Jerry as a gift to a female cat, who takes pity on it and thrashes Tom whenever he tries to go after him, until she too kisses Jerry and gains a taste for him.

Similarly a few of Tom's winning bouts in the Hanna Barbara shorts were actually when he started it (eg. The Bodyguard or Southbound Ducking) so it sorta went both ways with the two getting away with being dicks at times. Along with the instances in both eras that both of them lost, there are a deceptively large amount of times Jerry wasn't the victor.

I think the Gene Deitch ones were the only point Jerry always won regardless of the situation, no exceptions, and even then I've not seen them in a while to be sure (who has?).

edited 9th Dec '12 2:22:30 AM by Psi001

There also was another Jones short where Jerry lost. In that one, Jerry got sick of the chases and challenged Tom to a gentleman's duel. But every time they tried a different way of dueling, they backfired on them, but since Jerry was smaller, the same results hurt him a lot more (for instance, when their guns recoiled exaggeratedly, it only made Tom stumble back, but smashed Jerry against a tree).

At the end, they went back to the chases. Jerry tried the duel challenge again by slapping Tom with a glove, but Tom went "screw that noise", grabbed the glove and began pummeling Jerry with it.

Tom on average won 10% of the time in the original Hanna Barbara shorts, around 20% if you count the times Jerry won but called a truce with Tom or Thrown a Bone. Jones' shorts roughly kept up the same pattern.

For all of his Butt-Monkey roles, there were also instances where Tom was actually completely in control the entire short, The Little School Mouse and Timid Tabby for example, where he suffers zero slapstick abuse.

Jerry was on the victorious side much more often than Tom, but the series still gave Tom enough leaway that you knew Jerry didn't always get a free pass. He had it a lot better than standard Golden Age antagonists anyway.

If anything it was the earlier 40s shorts when they were starting to evolve away from the Disney-esque style that Tom's treatment was crueler, since they formed a lot more of his Designated Villain roles or had Jerry get away with Disproportionate Retribution a lot more often. Allegedly, Hanna Barbara actually got letters from fans becoming disturbed by the amount of abuse Tom took each short so took more measures to make things more karmic in the 50s, along with letting Tom having more happy endings.

edited 9th Dec '12 8:41:24 AM by Psi001

Tom has officially only won a clear victory seven times - at least, as far as Wikipedia was keeping track. A lot of the "Jerry loses" ones were along the lines of "Tom doesn't exactly win, but Jerry definitely doesn't win either," and a few of them just ended with the chase continuing. There are quite a few "team up" endings too.

My favorite ending is the one for "Springtime for Thomas" (or more like my favorite premise, I guess) - mostly 'cause it sets up Tom and Jerry as a pair of pretty strange Vitriolic Best Buds.

edited 9th Dec '12 4:38:39 PM by KnownUnknown

There's actually 13 confirmed 'Tom gets the last laugh on Jerry' shorts (somewhat fittingly) according to TV Tropes. The ones I know thus far are:

• The Million Dollar Cat
• The Bodyguard
• Jerry's Diary
• Hiccup Pup
• Little School Mouse
• Southbound Duckling
• Mouse For Sale
• Timid Tabby
• The Vanishing Duck
• Year Of The Mouse
• Duel Personality
• Love Me Love My Mouse

Some of the 'defeats' are admitedly petty, but they definitely end with Tom better off than Jerry.

Even if Tom's wins were sparse, I at least appreciated they tried their best to avoid making Jerry too infallible and still something of an underdog, compared to Looney Tunes where the "winner hero vs loser villain" dynamic pretty much took over.

edited 9th Dec '12 5:25:30 PM by Psi001

The Vanishing Duck's ending is awesome.

There are a couple others where he wins too: "Mouse For Sale" is one.

edited 9th Dec '12 5:19:26 PM by KnownUnknown

As was That's My Mommy's. Little Quacker worked well with the two, largely because he could make both seem sympathetic. Jerry came off as much more altrustic and long suffering due to putting up with the guy, while a lot of his shorts ended with Tom getting a Bone Thrown.

Oops forgot that one.

A large amount of them seem to be in the mid-late 50s, which further suggests the idea Hanna Barbara were trying to tone down Tom's abuse at that point.

edited 9th Dec '12 5:23:15 PM by Psi001

Which ones were the team-up ones?

So far the episodes I know of that ended happily on a truce were:

• The Night Before Christmas
• Old Rocking Chair Tom
• The Cat And The Mermouse
• Triplet Trouble
• Just Ducky
• Life With Tom (sorta, Tom grins and bears it after Jerry gives him a ton of money).
• Puppy Tale
• Happy Go Ducky
• Of Feline Bondage
• Snowbody Loves Me (semi remake of The Night Before Christmas).

edited 11th Dec '12 9:55:00 AM by Psi001

The Chuck Jones short Snowbody Loves Me gave both of them a happy ending as well.

Forgot that one. Added.

That's My Mommy is a hard to specify one. Tom ends happily in the short, Jerry doesn't lose, but is left kinda dumbfounded.

Nit Witty Kitty also leaves Tom happily driving Jerry crazy, albeit via a case of amnesia.

edited 9th Dec '12 8:13:17 PM by Psi001

^^^^ Any episode where they shake hands. The ones I remember most strongly are both (or was it all three) of the "runaway baby" cartoons. There's also the one with the orphaned puppies, which ends with Jerry saving Tom's life (I think that's the one "Puppy Tale" that Psi listed).

"Life With Tom" ends with them as friends - kinda. Getting paid lots of money tends to make one forget how much they hate someone.

Do we have a Meaningful Handshake trope - we really should.

edited 10th Dec '12 4:43:08 PM by KnownUnknown

The babysitter ones were Downer Endings for them both however. In the first the incompetent babysitter took credit for everything, while in the latter (that was Hanna Barbara's final short) they were both arrested for kidnapping (though the police seem to get the jist of what's been going on for the final gag).

A couple had them shake hands then just decide to continue their feud anyway (eg. "Tom-ic Energy", "Royal Cat Nap"). In others such as "The Lonesome Mouse" and "Dog Trouble" they team up but bad blood comes in between them.

Oh and of course there's "Heavenly Puss", after a very harrowing nightmare, Tom wakes up and joyously hugs and kisses a very confused Jerry.

The three tragically drowned kittens are revived in another example "Triplet Trouble" albeit as far less Woobie-ish hellions that the two get revenge on.

"Matinee Mouse" is an odd Recontruction, Tom and Jerry decide to call truce and go watch their own shorts in the theatres. Tired of each other laughing at the others' misfortune in each of the clips, they call it off and start fighting, to which their versions in the movies stop and watch amused.

Not seen much of Tom And Jerry Tales, but I'm pretty sure it happened a couple odd times, along with at least one episode where Tom won.

edited 10th Dec '12 5:55:26 PM by Psi001

How about the one where Tom and Jerry committed suicide? Yikes...

Looking back, there's a rather excessive number of shorts Jerry didn't beat Tom (almost 1 in 3 times). While his Karma Houdinis were a bit of a Wall Banger, it's kind of hard to be that infuriated by him, since very few protagonists got that much fallibility despite having a similar overzeal as he did. As said, since both characters got unfair losses at times, it almost leaned more as a "life isn't always fair" message than the odds always being skewed to work according to one of them.

If anything I think the series did a good job presenting the grey morality of both sides while maintaining a fair amount of karma, especially during the last half of HB's run, something that was sadly lost in a lot of imitators and revivals.

edited 2nd Jan '13 6:53:33 PM by Psi001

Wait... that's the ending to The Vanishing Duck?

Which one is it where Tom corners them on the beach and does his Evil Laugh?

edited 2nd Jan '13 10:44:55 AM by KnownUnknown

I think that one had a plot dealing with the duckling wanting to fly South for winter, but I'm not sure since it's been ages since I last watched it.

The short in question is Southbound Duckling.

What would we count the Jones episode where Tom chased Jerry through a toy store and it ended with Jerry saving Tom from the Running Gag where Tom got hit by a subway train as?

Probably just a Throw the Dog a Bone instance. Jerry won but Tom got some form of happy ending.

As said, despite his Butt-Monkey role, there were a palpable amount of shorts that didn't end in complete misery for Tom.

edited 2nd Jan '13 7:36:06 PM by Psi001

That one reminded me of a Jones Road Runner short where, after making the Coyote fall into a particularly complex and painful trap, Road Runner had the chance to make him fall again, but just showed a 'I don't have the heart for it' sign and speeded away.

Mid-to-late 50's Tom was soooo adorable.

That said, I kinda like the Deitch shorts, but I hate the three that had Tom with a jerkass owner who routinely cleaned his clock, the worst being "High Steaks" (It looks even worse in this day in age).

With that said, my favorite shorts are "Mouse Trouble" and "That's My Mommy".

I actually liked Tom's earliest more genuinely cat-like design during the early 40s myself.

For some reason though, I thought Mammy Two Shoe's 'abuse' to him in the early shorts was a tad more unsettling than the slapstick she and even the Clint Clobber-alike in the Deitch stuff enflicted onto him. The offscreen commotion with Tom hissing in pain like a realistic cat as Mammy's walloped him stupid leaned a bit too much into real life animal abuse.

Man this show was one of my favorites about a dozen years ago Though I realize that each episode was so short, you can fit it into Youtube's original time limit of 10:59.

Anyway, it was fun counting those times when Tom won or something unusual happened, unlike the Roadrunner, which curbstomped the Coyote 99.9% of the time.