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The Yankee Doodle Mouse is a 1943 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 11th Tom and Jerry short produced by Fred Quimby and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with musical supervision by Scott Bradley and animation by Irven Spence, Pete Burness, Kenneth Muse and George Gordon. Jack Zander was credited on the original print, but his credit was omitted in the 1951 reissue. It was produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on June 26, 1943 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer.

The short features Tom and Jerry chasing each other in a pseudo-warfare style, making numerous references to World War II technology such as jeeps and dive bombers. The Yankee Doodle Mouse won the 1943 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, making it the first of seven Tom and Jerry cartoons to receive this distinction. Along with that, it is also the only Tom and Jerry short to be partially lost.

Plot

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Tom pursues Jerry through a cellar, but the mouse successfully dives into his mousehole (labeled "Cat Raid Shelter"). Tom peers into the hole, and Jerry launches a tomato from a mousetrap, which splatters Tom's face. Jerry climbs up the wall and grabs a handful of eggs. As Tom wipes the tomato off his face, he is promptly covered in egg, one of them hitting him in the eye such that he seems to be wearing a monocle. Jerry shoots off the corks from a champagne case, knocking the cat into a tub of water with only a pot to keep him afloat. The mouse promptly launches a brick from a spatula, which crashes into the pot, sinking the cat. A war communique reads "Sighted cat - sank same. Signed, Lt. Jerry Mouse."

Jerry observes Tom through a makeshift plumbing pipe acting as a periscope. Tom approaches Jerry's mousehole, mallet in hand. With his periscope, Jerry avoids this trap and instead opens the ironing board cupboard, sending the board smashing onto Tom's pate. The mouse charges down the board on a jeep made from a cheese grate attached to a roller-skate, tearing Tom's fur as he speeds past. Jerry's jeep crashes into a wall, sending a sack of flour tumbling down. Adapting quickly to the situation, Jerry grabs the sack and sends flour throughout the room as a smokescreen. Jerry, who can see as the "smokescreen" begins just above his head, repeatedly smacks the nearly blind Tom in the rear with a board. Eventually Tom lands facing the mouse, who is surprised but slaps Tom a fourth time before the cat can do anything. Tom, wearing a bowl for a helmet, throws a stick of dynamite towards Jerry, who immediately throws it back to Tom. The lit firecracker exchanges hands repeatedly until Jerry takes it from Tom, tricking the cat into trying to hold onto it instead of keeping it away. They snatch it away from each other until Tom steals it one last time with a firm stare, and triumphantly holds it in his hand until it explodes.

Jerry jumps into a kettle to escape the cat's wrath; Tom approaches and throws another firecracker inside. Jerry panics, but no explosion occurs, and the mouse escapes through the spout. The puzzled cat opens the kettle lid and sticks his entire head in; the firecracker is then able to go off, leaving Tom's face in a sunflower shape - including a blackface gag.

Tom launches a paper airplane with a firecracker hidden on top, but Jerry blows it back. It lands beneath Tom, who barely spots the firecracker before he is black in the face again.

Jerry plants an enormous stick of dynamite behind Tom; when the cat sees it, he screams in terror. However, the firecracker splits into half to reveal a smaller one, which peels away, and pops open harmlessly to reveal successively smaller sticks of dynamite, leaving behind a minuscule replica of the original firecracker. Tom picks it up, believing it to be harmless, but the dynamite explodes powerfully.

Jerry jumps into his plane fashioned from a box of eggs and drops a succession of light bulbs onto an unsuspecting Tom. These explode on the cat's head, and his face is then hit by a banana acting as a torpedo. Tom grabs a firecracker launcher and skillfully shoots down Jerry's "plane", which has no more weapons. Jerry parachutes (using a brassiere) out of the plane, but is shot down by Tom. Jerry races into his hole, and Tom pushes the cannon into the same hole and fires off seven shots.

The mortars chase after Jerry through the cellar and eventually into a hose, which the mouse turns back on Tom, shooting them machine gun into Tom's barrel. The barrel explodes, leaving Tom riding the remaining parts of the exploded barrel as a bicycle and then crashing into the wall. Tom then fires a dart gun at Jerry, catching him by the tail as he attempts to dive into his mousehole.

Tom grabs the mouse and ties him to a rocket, then lights it; unwittingly, Jerry "helps" himself be tied up when he is actually strapping the cat to the rocket. Jerry emerges from the ropes, and the puzzled Tom doesn't get the situation until Jerry waves at him. The rocket shoots into the sky and explodes in the air, with the explosion forming the Stars and Stripes. Jerry proudly salutes the flag, and we see a final communique: "SEND MORE CATS! Signed, Lt. Jerry Mouse."

Censorship

Originally on Cartoon Network showings, the segment where the tea kettle explodes with Tom's face in it was shortened to remove the part where Tom appears in blackface. As of recent airings, this part has been reinstated.

Lost scene

When The Yankee Doodle Mouse was re-issued in 1951, the title card was also re-issued to show an Oscar, and there had been a sequence leading into what was the second war communique. The original title card and this scene are both currently "lost". This lost scene takes place after Jerry hits Tom repeatedly with a board while the flour-filled air obscures Tom's vision, and before we see Tom wearing a pot on his head as a helmet. In the original, when Jerry runs off, Tom follows and jams his head into Jerry's mouse hole. However, Jerry uses a wrench to pin him inside, then proceeds to wet stamps on Tom's tongue and paste them into a book. The scene then dissolves into a second war communique, which reads: "Enemy gets in a few good licks! Signed, Lt. Jerry Mouse."

The original plot synopsis has been tracked down and can be seen here in its entirety, showing that there is indeed a lost scene. The page showcasing this scene can be seen here.

See also

• List of World War II short films

References

1. http://www.thadkomorowski.com/mgm-cartoon-filmography-by-production-number/
2. Gifford, Denis (2001-03-24). "William Hanna: Master animator whose cartoon creations included Tom and Jerry and the Flintstones". The Guardian (London).

External links

• Template:Bcdb title

• Misplaced Pages articles needing copy edit from December 2010
• 1943 films
• Tom and Jerry cartoons
• Best Animated Short Academy Award winners