Irv Spence's Cartoon Diary: November 23, 1944

Thanksgiving Day, 1944, was also the release date of the Academy Award winning "Mouse Trouble." This one pretty much has it all.











There's violence in literature...

... an off-screen pummeling, a mallet whacking, broken teeth ...

...injury to the eye ...

... a gunshot wound that, oddly for a cartoon, hasn't healed by the next scene...

...forcing Tom to wear a ridiculous toupee throughout the rest of the picture (except for one brief moment.)

There's also an ill-fated romance ...

... a magic trick gone horribly wrong...

... and a huge stockpile of explosives, resulting in complete destruction and, finally, death.

What more could you ask of seven minutes of film?

Irv Spence's Cartoon Diary: October 28, 1944

"Puttin' On the Dog" released on this day.

Irv Spence's Cartoon Diary: September 14, 1944

Some background on the invasion of Peleliu (Palau) here. There's a first person account here.

Irv Spence's Cartoon Diary: May 6, 1944

On this day The Million Dollar Cat  was released.

Irv Spence's Cartoon Diary: February 26, 1944

On this day "The Zoot Cat" was released.

Irv Spence's Cartoon Diary: February 25, 1944

This drawing most likely refers to animation mistakes in The Million Dollar Cat, chronologically the next Tom and Jerry cartoon released after "Zoot Cat" and the one where a telegram is the major plot device.

"The Million Dollar Cat" had a release date of May 6th. I don't know how far along in the production process the film was on February 25 but to warrant the expletive-laden bawling out delivered above I'd guess that the mistakes were discovered after it came back from camera. I didn't spot any scene where the telegram should have appeared but didn't, so this mistake was probably fixed.

Spence had top billing in the animation credits which would mean that he was responsible for the most footage in the film. The missing gravy complaint suggests that the scenes at the end of the cartoon in the Park Ave. apartment are his.

There isn't any actual gravy anywhere in the cartoon. In this scene, Jerry reappears after having thrown himself out the window and eats Tom's breakfast.




He finishes by mopping up the plate with a slice of toast. Maybe what is meant by "gravy left off" is that there should be some runny egg yolk on the plate for Jerry to wipe up. If this is the gravy mistake, it obviously wasn't considered worth fixing.