Texas Tom

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = Texas Tom
series = Tom and Jerry


caption =
director = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
story_artist = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
animator = Kenneth Muse
Ray Patterson
Irven Spence
Ed Barge
musician = Scott Bradley
producer = Fred Quimby
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
release_date = flagicon|US March 11 1950
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 6' 34"
preceded_by = "Saturday Evening Puss"
followed_by = "Jerry and the Lion"
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0043037

"Texas Tom" is a 1950 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 49th "Tom and Jerry" short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby. It was animated by Kenneth Muse, Ray Patterson, Irven Spence and Ed Barge and released to theatres on March 11, 1950.

Plot

Tom has caught Jerry and toys with him. He lets the mouse out from under a flowerpot and lazily lassoes the mouse back in from 150 feet away. Jerry is pulled into a spur, up a ramp and onto a cactus paddle. Jerry hangs on to it and Tom pulls Jerry in after a struggle. Jerry then slaps Tom with the paddle. As Jerry runs off, Tom grabs the rope, but is dragged along into a pillar. Tom pulls Jerry back to him and pulls a gun, but Jerry blows into the barrel and shunts the gun into the back of Tom's head, activating the bullets. Tom grabs Jerry and just before he can throttle the mouse, he spots an attractive cowgirl cat. This makes Tom's eyes bulge out with lust. He grabs Jerry and dresses himself in cowboy gear and does his best to woo her. He rolls up a cigarette by using Jerry and a gun, then smokes it to puff out the word HOWDY. Tom then mouths along with a recording of "If You're Ever Down In Texas, Look Me Up," and plays a guitar at the same time, making the cowgirl think the singing voice is his own, until Jerry alters the speed on the record player. After singing rapidly and then extremely slowly, Tom hits Jerry on the head with the guitar. Jerry grabs a poker and shoots it into Tom's rear end as the song ends. Tom once again lassos Jerry. Jerry manages to free himself from the lasso and throws the lasso over a bull's horn. Tom tugs at the lasso, dragging the bull into a large bundle of hay. As Tom brings the hay towards him, he tugs at the bull and breaks off its right horn. Tom tries to replace it in good faith, but the bull roars at Tom and chases after him. Tom eventually finds himself cornered, gives up, puts on a blindfold and has one last cigarette before being rammed by the bull, catapulted onto a nearby roof and squashed through a drainpipe. Jerry, now also wearing a cowboy outfit, kisses the cowgirl and jumps on Tom, giddies him up and rides Tom into the sunset.

Notes

*An excerpt from this cartoon was later used in "Smitten Kitten" and "Cruise Cat".
*The 2000 film "Supernova" also featured an excerpt from "Texas Tom" during the scene where Robert Forster's character did an essay on 20th century cartoon violence.
*The "" stunt involving Johnny Knoxville being gored by a yak is said to be inspired by the goring of Tom in this episode, right down to the blindfold and cigarette.
*The bull makes another appeareance in 1954's Posse Cat.

Censorship

*On Boomerang in the UK, Tom smoking a cigarette is omitted. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5271470.stm]