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Tom Cat

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Tom Cat
Tom and Jerry character
Image
Tom's design in the Hanna-Barbera shorts.
First appearance
Created by
Voiced by
Developed byWilliam Hanna & Joseph Barbera
In-universe information
Full nameThomas Jasper Cat Sr.[1]
SpeciesCat
GenderMale
RelativesGeorge
NationalityAmerican
BreedTuxedo British Cat

Thomas Jasper Cat Sr. is an American cartoon character and one of the two titular main protagonists (the other being Jerry Mouse) in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's series of Tom and Jerry theatrical animated short films. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, he is a grey-blue and white anthropomorphic (but usually silent) domestic short haired tuxedo British cat who first appeared in the 1940 MGM animated short Puss Gets the Boot.[2] The cat was initially known as "Jasper" during his debut in the short,[3] but beginning with The Midnight Snack he was known as "Tom" or "Thomas".

History

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Tom and Jerry cartoons

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"Tom Cat", based on "tomcat", speaks only rarely, though he frequently scream in pain when his plans to catch Jerry Mouse backfire. His trademark scream was provided by creator William Hanna.[4] Hanna's recordings of Tom screaming were later used as a stock sound effect for other MGM cartoon characters such as Tex Avery's Butch Bulldog and multiple one shot characters.[citation needed]

Tom has changed over the years, especially after the first episodes. He first walked on four legs but after the episode Dog Trouble he started walking on two. In 1945 shorts he had twisted whiskers and his appearance kept changing. In the 1940s and early 1950s, he had white fur between his eyes. In newer cartoons, the white fur is gone. As a slapstick cartoon character, Tom has a superhuman level of elasticity.

Tom is usually defeated in the end (or very rarely, killed, like in Mouse Trouble, where he explodes), although there are some stories where he outwits and defeats Jerry. Besides Jerry, he also has trouble with other mouse or cat characters. One of them that appears frequently is Spike Bulldog. Spike regularly appears and usually assists Jerry and beats up Tom (though on some occasions, Tom beats Spike or Spike turns on Jerry, like his debut appearance in Dog Trouble).

Tom has variously been portrayed as a house cat doing his job, and a victim of Jerry's blackmail attempts, sometimes within the same short. He is almost always called by his full name "Thomas" by Mammy Two Shoes.[5]

Anchors Aweigh and Dangerous When Wet

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Tom and Jerry showed up together in the 1945 Technicolor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical Anchors Aweigh where Tom briefly appears as a butler for King Jerry, the latter who has a dance sequence with Gene Kelly, and also in another musical with the same studio Dangerous When Wet (1953), where, in a dream sequence, main character Katie Higgins (Esther Williams) does an underwater ballet with Tom and Jerry, as well as animated depictions of the different people in her life.[citation needed]

Tom & Jerry (2021)

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The 2021 movie was the first time when live-action human actors interact with Tom and Jerry who, along with various other iconic characters of the show and all other animals, are 2D animated cartoons. Both characters are called by their actual first names by the end of the film and their full names are given during the end credits, "Tom" being Thomas D. Cat.[citation needed]

Voice actors

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Here are several of his voiceover actors:

Voiced by in unofficial material:

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Tom's screams have been used as stock sound effects in various media, such as the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, Critters 2 and Critters 3 (used for the Critters when they scream and shriek) and the Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi episode, "Small Stuff" (used for Jang Keng, a black cat). It was also used for the caveman in the 1995 game Prehistorik Man.[citation needed]

Tom and Jerry were planned to make cameo appearances in the deleted scene "Acme's Funeral" from the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.[23]

The Itchy & Scratchy Show from The Simpsons parodies Tom and Jerry, with its cat character Scratchy, unlike Tom, usually being portrayed as a harmless character who is subject to wanton unprovoked graphic violence by the psychopathic Itchy. Xilam's Oggy and the Cockroaches is inspired by Tom and Jerry, with its cat character Oggy being portrayed as the hapless victim of three sadistic cockroaches.[24][25][26][27] Tom and Jerry made a cameo appearance in the 1992 animated TV special The Rosey and Buddy Show.[28]

The supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei likened the rivalry between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran to Tom and Jerry, with the United States in the role of Tom.[29]

Time Magazine noted that late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat admired Tom and Jerry because, in his view, the mouse always outwits the cat—mirroring how Palestinians, seen as the underdog, persist despite adversity.[30][31]

In 2025, Tom, alongside Jerry, was featured as a playable pilot in Bullet Hell game ACECRAFT.[32][33]

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ "MultiVersus Roster". MultiVersus.com. Archived from the original on July 30, 2022. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  2. ↑ "Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Tom and Jerry". toonopedia.com. Archived from the original on November 28, 2023. Retrieved February 15, 2020.
  3. ↑ Mark Christopher Carnes (2002), American national biography, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-522202-9
  4. 1 2 3 "'Tom and Jerry' - The man behind Tom's screams". Geeks. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
  5. ↑ Sampson, Henry T. (June 25, 1998). That's Enough, Folks: Black Images in Animated Cartoons, 1900–1960. Scarecrow Pressure. pp. 57, 61, 67. ISBN 9780810832503. Archived from the original on April 21, 2023. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Scott, Keith (October 3, 2022). Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2. BearManor Media.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Alexander, Vincent (February 10, 2026). "16 Times Tom And Jerry Actually Spoke". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved February 10, 2026.
  8. ↑ ""Tom and Jerry in "The Zoot Cat" (1944)"". Cartoon Research. Archived from the original on December 17, 2019. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
  9. ↑ ""Tom and Jerry in "Solid Serenade" (1946)"". Cartoon Research. Archived from the original on September 29, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  10. 1 2 ""Tom & Jerry – The Gene Deitch Collection"". Cartoon Research. Archived from the original on May 5, 2020. Retrieved May 2, 2020.
  11. ↑ Florea, Gwen; Phinney, Glenda (October 20, 2000). Barbie Talks!: An Expose of the First Talking Barbie Doll. Florea-Phinney. p. 58. ISBN 059513341X. Retrieved March 2, 2025.
  12. ↑ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Vintage 1965 Talking Pull String Tom and Jerry Hand Puppet by Mattel". February 16, 2016. Retrieved February 2, 2021 – via YouTube.
  13. ↑ "Tom and Jerry in Fists of Furry". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
  14. ↑ VIS Entertainment (2002). Tom and Jerry in War of the Whiskers instruction manual. NewKidCo.
  15. ↑ "Skull Island Productions on Twitter: "Yes. I even had a special metal bucket that I would yell into for the records. Years earlier, at a gallery event I saw Bill Hanna do the Tom yell, live. He was about 80 years old at the time and you could still tell it was Tom."". Retrieved December 16, 2023 – via Twitter.
  16. ↑ "Rich Danhakl on Tom and Jerry Sound Design". Twitter. Archived from the original on October 7, 2025. Retrieved January 10, 2026. Rich Danhakl: The director and producers [Darrell Van Citters and Ashley Postelwaite] wanted The Tom and Jerry Show's sound design to be as close to the original shorts as possible. It was a challenge because a lot of those classic Turner sounds were recorded in the 1940s-1950s and just don't sound all that great when played out of modern speakers/devices. I recreated a lot of them at my studio to sound as close to the originals as I could get them. A lot of the screams are actually me (my neighbors loved me for that).
  17. ↑ "Erick Bolivar TV & Film Singing Demo". YouTube. August 2, 2021. Retrieved April 10, 2025.
  18. ↑ "The Tom and Jerry Show - Season 5: "Tom Quixote"". Internet Archive. June 20, 2022. Retrieved April 10, 2025.
  19. ↑ "Kaiji Von Tang on Twitter: "Got permission to tell this funny story. I did the scratch track for this movie as Tom. Thought it was one and done. Come to find out, they put me in Additional Voices cause a lot of our track made it in! That's me you're hearing falling off buildings and tearing up hotel rooms."". Archived from the original on March 31, 2021. Retrieved April 6, 2021 – via Twitter.
  20. ↑ "don't you know baby". Archived from the original on December 11, 2021. Retrieved November 18, 2021 – via YouTube.
  21. ↑ "Andrew Dickman on Twitter: "That and the inhale HWAUUGGH!!!"". Archived from the original on May 15, 2021. Retrieved April 10, 2025 – via Twitter.
  22. ↑ "Voice of Tom in Mad". Behind The Voice Actors. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  23. ↑ Davis, Lauren (May 12, 2014). "See The Toons Who Would Have Appeared in Roger Rabbit's Deleted Funeral". io9. Archived from the original on July 7, 2019. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
  24. ↑ "Remembering Oggy and the Cockroaches". Indian Express. May 7, 2016. ISSN 2195-1349. Archived from the original on August 10, 2022. Retrieved September 15, 2024.
  25. ↑ "oggy-et-les-cafards-le-tom-et-jerry-francais-fete-ses-20-ans" (in French). October 2018. ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved September 15, 2024.
  26. ↑ "Oggy et les Cafards : Retour sur une incroyable réussite à la française | CNC". CNC (in French). October 2018. ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
  27. ↑ "« Oggy et les cafards », le « Tom et Jerry » français, fête ses 20 ans". Les Echos (in French). October 2018. ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
  28. ↑ Bollettieri, Spencer (November 25, 2024). "15 Bizarre Celebrity Cartoons You've Never Heard Of". CBR. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
  29. ↑ Bezhan, Frud. "U.S. Plays Cat, and Iran the Mouse in 'Tom and Jerry' Comparison". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
  30. ↑ Beyer, Lisa (November 22, 2004). "The Eternal Agitator". Time.
  31. ↑ "Arafat loved watching 'Tom and Jerry'". Emirates 247. Gaza. November 21, 2011. Retrieved August 18, 2025.
  32. ↑ Acecraft - Official Tom and Jerry Crossover Gameplay Trailer - IGN. August 28, 2025. Retrieved February 5, 2026 – via www.ign.com.
  33. ↑ Comments, Gavin Sheehan | (September 1, 2025). "Tom & Jerry Have Been Added As Characters To Acecraft: Sky Hero". bleedingcool.com. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
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