That's My Mommy
| That's My Mommy | |
|---|---|
| Tom and Jerry series | |
 | |
| Directed by |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Produced by |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Story by |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Voices by | Red Coffee |
| Music by | Scott Bradley |
| Animation by |
Kenneth Muse Ed Barge Irven Spence Lewis Marshall |
| Layouts by | Richard Bickenbach |
| Backgrounds by | Robert Gentle |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) |
|
| Color process |
Technicolor CinemaScope |
| Running time | 6:04 |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Pecos Pest |
| Followed by | The Flying Sorceress |
That's My Mommy is a 1955 one reel animated Tom and Jerry short directed and produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera with music by Scott Bradley.
That's My Mommy was the first Tom and Jerry cartoon in which the production was undertaken by Hanna and Barbera due to Fred Quimby's retirement. That's My Mommy was produced in CinemaScope, a form of Widescreen, and released to theatres on November 19, 1955 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. The cartoon was animated by Kenneth Muse, Ed Barge, Irven Spence and Lewis Marshall, with backgrounds by Robert Gentle and layouts by Richard Bickenbach.
Plot
In a barn, a mother duck is sleeping in a nest of eggs. Suddenly, A stray egg rolls from the nest and starts to hatch. The duckling blindly walks around to find its mother's nest and slips under a sleeping Tom outside the barn, thinking that is his mother. Tom wakes up, feeling disturbed, and he accidentally sits on the egg, causing Quacker to hatch from it. The naive newborn duckling immediately assumes that Tom is his mother and hugs him.
While the little duckling compliments his "mommy", Tom gets two sticks and some firewood and lights a fire, then ties Quacker to another stick, intending to spit-roast him. Jerry walks in and is horrified by the sight. When Tom isn't looking, Jerry rescues Quacker and substitutes Tom's own tail on the spit. Not realising the switch, Tom adds salt and pepper to his tail, and he finally jumps and yowls in pain when it catches fire. Jerry runs to the side of the barn and unties Quacker from the stick. But the duckling thinks Jerry is a kidnapper and runs and shouts for his mommy. While Tom is putting out the fire on his tail, Quacker runs to him and hugs his face asking for his help, to which Tom responds by raising and lowering his eyebrows as if to agree.
In the kitchen, Quacker is watching Tom prepare some pastry. He thinks that Tom is making him a bed as he shapes the pastry into a pillow and blanket and places them and Quacker into a tray, which he then places into an oven, or as Quacker says, his "new bedroom". Quacker then says goodnight as Tom closes the oven door, but Jerry comes to the rescue again and smacks Tom's head with a broomstick before knocking him unconscious with the oven door. Jerry grabs the "bed" with Quacker in it and makes a run for his mousehole, but the duckling once again thinks he is being kidnapped and runs back to Tom, reviving him with a jug of water. The now conscious Tom angrily grabs Quacker, but Quacker kisses him and says he is a "nice mommy".
Tom's next recipe is a "Stuffed Roast Duckling". He has made a giant bowl of pudding and Quacker is unsure if he has to eat all of it. Tom shakes his head yes, and proceeds to shovel spoonfuls of the pudding into the duckling's mouth. Eventually, Quacker becomes largely obese and states that he is "stuffed". Tom then places Quacker onto a tray full of potatoes and carrots and, after putting small broccoli pieces onto his feet, puts him into the oven and locks the oven door. Once again, Jerry comes to the rescue and uses a can opener to cut a part of the door open. Quacker promptly starts throwing carrots and potatoes at the little mouse, and when Jerry pulls him out of the oven, he hits him over the head with a leftover carrot demanding to be left alone.
Jerry carries the angry duckling into his mousehole and, after throwing the carrot away, he shows him a picture book. On the left page is a mother duck and a Quacker doppelganger. On the right page is a grey kitten and a doppelganger of Tom. The confused duckling looks at both pages, but Quacker hugs the right page, thinking that the cat picture is a doppelganger of his "mommy". A fed up Jerry walks over and points to the duck picture as if to say "This is your mother, stupid!". Quacker angrily refuses to believe him, saying "That's not my mommy!" and slams the book shut onto Jerry before running away. Jerry walks out of the book completely flattened and frowns in disbelief.
Quacker runs back into the house past Tom, and when Tom notices Jerry chasing after him, he grabs a jar and puts it onto the ground, causing Jerry to run right into it. He then seals the jar shut, then places the jar into another bigger jar, then that jar into another bigger jar and so on. When he gets to the biggest jar, he ties it shut with string and then throws it down a well to make an escape attempt for Jerry seemingly impossible.
Still determined to eat Quacker, Tom's next recipe is "Stewed Duck". Tom is shown stirring something in a pot of boiling water, and Quacker once again thinks that he is cooking dinner again for him. Quacker then helps him sit down and grabs the spoon off him. At first, Tom is angered by this, but then his anger turns to confusion when the duckling states that he will cook it himself and that his "mommy" needs a rest. Quacker reads part of the recipe shown, which says "PLACE YOUNG DUCK IN POT OF BOILING WATER...". Briefly fascinated, Quacker asks where they can get a young duck, but then he shrieks at the two words and remembers the book that Jerry showed him earlier. Quacker finally realizes the hard truth: he is the "young duck" and Tom wants to eat him. Deeply saddened (but still not realizing Tom isn't his mother), Quacker prepares to jump into the pot to cook himself in an act of attempted suicide because that's what his "mommy" wants. A concerned Tom then approaches the pot as Quacker says good-bye and that he still loves his "momma".
Just as the duckling jumps in, Tom has a change of heart and saves Quacker by grabbing him mid-air, crying out "NO!". Tom then hugs Quacker and realises that he would have missed him more than having a delicious duck dinner and cries a literal river of tears as Quacker embraces his "mommy". Back at the well, Jerry has somehow managed to escape from the jars and runs back to the house, where he notices the cookbook, the pot of boiling water, and no sign of Tom or Quacker. He begins to fear the worst, but then he hears quacking from outside and runs to the window to look. He is stunned to see that Tom is playfully leading Quacker across the nearby duck pond, having adopted the duckling as his own child. As the episode ends, the pleased duckling exclaims to Jerry: "That's my mommy!".
Availability
DVD
- Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Vol. 3, Disc Two
External links
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