Blue Cat Blues

Blue Cat Blues
File:.png Theatrical poster.
Production company	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributor	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	November 16, 1956
Producer(s)	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Music composed by	Scott Bradley
Screenplay by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Director(s)	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Series navigation
← Previous	Next →
Title card

Blue Cat Blues is the hundredth and third animated theatrical short of the Tom and Jerry series. It was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on November 16, 1956. It was produced, written and directed by series creators, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

In this unusually dark cartoon, Jerry reminisces on Tom's desperate love life and the events leading up to his downward spiral into depression.

Detailed summary

The short opens with a depressed Tom sits on the railroad tracks, heavily depressed and apparently bent on suicide as he waits for a train to run over him. Jerry, who is watching Tom from above, believes "for the first time since he met her, he will be happy", so "it's better this way". Jerry then recalls the events leading up to Tom's depression.

Jerry recounts that both he and Tom were best friends, but that soon changed one day when Tom fell in love with a beautiful white female cat who, at first, seems to reciprocate Tom's feelings for her. She then winds up leaving Tom for her next-door neighbor, an obscenely rich tomcat named Butch, ultimately revealing herself as a gold digger and confirming Jerry's earlier suspicions.

Despite Jerry's vain protests, Tom becomes determined to push himself on the limit his own finances and beyond, all in the futile attempt at winning back the white cat's affections. However, because of his vast wealth, Butch's gifts to the white cat were much larger and more extravagant versions of the things that Tom got for her.

Tom's first attempt at giving her a gift was to present her with a flower, but he finds that she had already received a beautiful horseshoe garland of roses from Butch. The second was to present her with a small bottle of perfume, but then Butch arrives with a large tanker truck full of perfume. After squandering his own savings, Tom buys a diamond ring. But because Tom's diamond was so small that the white cat needed a magnifying glass to look at it, Butch gifts her a ring with a large diamond so shiny that she and Tom need welding helmets just to see it. For his fourth and final gift, Tom takes out a predatory 26-year, 112% APR loan from a used car lot to buy her an old, rickety automobile, only for Butch to arrive in his long and fancy convertible, crushing Tom and his car.

Ultimately, the white cat chose Butch over Tom, once again proving herself to be nothing more than an opportunistic gold digger. Tom—now desperate, broke, and severely heartbroken—starts drinking milk uncontrollably to drown his sorrows. He continues to ignore Jerry's pleas, and eventually nearly goes down the literal gutter, but is saved just in time by Jerry. The mouse managed to resuscitate his old friend, but then the duo saw Butch and the white cat driving by, but now Butch's car was laden with luggage with a "Just Married" sign hanging off the back of it.

As the flashback ends and Jerry looks down at his friend with sorrow, he expresses happiness about how his own girlfriend, Toots (who looks like the mouse version of the white cat), has remained faithful to him, "with every bit of her true blue, ever-lovin' heart." However, Jerry's idyllic worldview was struck when he sees that she is driving past him, having married to a rich mouse not too similar to Butch, and proving herself as a gold digger as well. Heartbroken, Jerry meets Tom and joins him on the tracks. The duo waits for the oncoming train, which draws nearer and nearer. The train's whistle sounds louder as the cartoon fades out, leaving their fates uncertain.

Characters

Legend
Character debut	Speaking debut	Ep. debut	No lines	Mentioned

In order of appearance:

Character	Actor

Locations

• Earth
  • United States

Music

The music was composed by Scott Bradley.

Release

Dates are in order of release:

• United States: November 16, 1956

Behind the scenes

• The short is often cited by many as the darkest Tom and Jerry cartoon due to its subject matter and unusually dark ending.
• It is also erroneously believed to be the final short of the series due to the implied deaths of Tom and Jerry in the end.

Home availability

• In the United States:
  • October 19, 2004: Warner Home Video releases Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection on DVD.