Tom and Jerry

Tom and Jerry (トムとジェリー) is an American animated franchise built on the comic chase between Tom, a house cat, and Jerry, a mouse, created by the animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1940.¹ Now owned by Warner Bros., the property has grown from more than 160 theatrical shorts into a worldwide brand of television series, direct-to-video and theatrical films, and localized productions.^{2 • 3}

Origins and creation

The characters first appeared, unnamed, in the 1940 MGM theatrical short Puss Gets the Boot, in which Tom the cat was called Jasper and Jerry the mouse was called Jinx.^{1 • 6} The short was a hit with audiences, and Hanna and Barbera went on to direct the series for MGM until 1958.^{1 • 5}

Production was expensive for its genre. Each short took weeks to make and cost up to $50,000, so only a handful could be made each year; Barbera estimated a typical budget of $50,000 and about six weeks of work per cartoon, with no script written in advance.^{7 • 4} The investment showed in the result: rich hand-drawn animation and detailed backdrops, qualities for which the Hanna-Barbera shorts are widely praised.⁷

Production eras

Hanna-Barbera at MGM, 1940–1958. In the classic era Tom was initially a plump blue-gray cat, sometimes quadrupedal, becoming more bipedal and stylized over time, while Jerry remained a small brown mouse; the polished graphics and high-quality animation were typical of MGM productions.² MGM closed its animation department after 18 years and 114 shorts; the Norwegian encyclopedia dates the end of Hanna and Barbera's direction to 1958.^{2 • 5}

Gene Deitch, 1961–62. The 13 shorts produced in Czechoslovakia under Gene Deitch adopted a very different style, marked by a reduced budget and a more rudimentary, almost experimental animation.²

Chuck Jones, 1963–67. Chuck Jones, the animator behind the Grinch, imposed his own graphic style, giving Tom thick eyebrows, uniformly gray fur, pointed ears, and a longer tail, and making his face more twisted.^{2 • 7} His Sib Tower 12/MGM Animation Visual Arts, founded with Les Goldman after Jones was fired from Warner Bros. Cartoons, produced 34 shorts from 1963, and Jones revived the series in the mid-1960s with softened violence.^{4 • 1} Theatrical production ended in 1967.⁵

Characters, format, and music

The series is driven entirely by action and visual humor; the characters almost never speak.¹ Hanna himself voiced Tom's trademark scream, and Scott Bradley composed the music.⁷

The near-wordless chase formula is the franchise's structural signature, running on action rather than talk.¹

By the numbers

Counted by production period, the theatrical output runs 114 Hanna-Barbera shorts (1940–1958), 13 Deitch shorts (1961–62), and 34 Jones shorts (1963–67), for more than 160 in total.² Of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, thirteen were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject and seven won; the honored titles include Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943), The Cat Concerto (1946), and Johann Mouse (1952).^{4 • 1 • 8} A single classic-era short cost up to $50,000 and roughly six weeks of work.^{7 • 4} Eight decades later a hybrid film earned more than $100 million worldwide, and a mobile game in China has more than 100 million users.^{1 • 7}

Television, film, and streaming adaptations

Television brought the first change of character: from 1965 production turned toward TV and broadcast regulation tightened, and the 1975 Hanna-Barbera series The Tom and Jerry Show adopted the premise that the two do not fight, portraying them as friends to satisfy fresh children's-TV violence guidelines.^{8 • 7} That series consisted of 48 seven-minute cartoons paired with Grape Ape and Mumbly segments on ABC Saturday mornings between September 6, 1975 and September 3, 1977.⁴ Filmation's The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show debuted in 1980 on CBS and restored the chase formula, and Hanna-Barbera's Tom & Jerry Kids (1990) recast the duo as children with a lighter tone.^{4 • 2} Warner Bros. later launched Tom and Jerry Tales (2006), The Tom and Jerry Show (2014), and Tom and Jerry in New York (2021); Tom and Jerry Time began in 2025.^{5 • 2 • 4}

The animated feature Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992), directed by Phil Roman, premiered in Europe in 1992 and reached American screens the following year.^{5 • 1} A direct-to-video series followed, beginning with Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring, which differing sources place in 2001 or 2002.⁴ Warner Bros. Animation produced two shorts exclusively for HBO Max in 2021, the same year the live-action/animation hybrid Tom and Jerry became a surprise box-office hit, grossing more than $100 million worldwide.^{4 • 1}

Ownership consolidated with Time Warner's purchase of Turner Entertainment in 1996, which gave Warner Bros. full control of the franchise; the company now markets Tom and Jerry as one of its owned brands, with releases available on disc and digital.^{4 • 3}

How it compares and why it traveled

A Japanese observer quoted by ORICON News drew the sharpest contrast: Disney, he said, had a "model student" character, while Tom and Jerry ran in the opposite direction, full of nonsense, violence, and black humor, and that difference helped the series succeed globally.⁸ The awards record is the measurable side of the same story: the Hanna-Barbera shorts won seven Academy Awards.⁴

International reception, censorship, and legacy

In Japan, where the franchise is known as トムとジェリー, Warner Bros. Discovery presents it on Cartoon Network as the most famous Hanna-Barbera work, including Academy Award-winning episodes, and Warner Bros. Japan runs an original short-animation series, とむとじぇりーごっこ (Tom and Jerry Gokko), with Japan-original character designs featuring Tom (とむ), Jerry (じぇりー), and Tuffy (たふぃー).^{9 • 10} In China, a Tom and Jerry mobile phone game has more than 100 million users.⁷

The early shorts also carry a censoring history. From the Hanna-Barbera era into part of the Chuck Jones era, the shorts contained discriminatory depictions, violent action, and black humor; in later versions the characters' behavior became far less violent and potentially racist or otherwise offensive elements were moderated.^{8 • 5} The housemaid character Mammy Two Shoes, a Black character with an exaggerated southern accent usually seen from the waist down, has been labeled an offensive racial caricature, and in 2014 Amazon Prime Instant Video added a "racial prejudice" warning to the series; the worst-offending episodes are usually cut from re-release collections and streaming platforms.⁷ Broadcast television has long edited racist or other offensive elements from the early shorts.¹ In print, a Tom and Jerry comic strip ran from 1942 to 1974, drawn by, among others, Harvey Eisenberg.⁵

References

1. Tom and Jerry, Britannica Kids (Scholars)
2. Série de Cartoons - Tom & Jerry, Ciné Animation
3. Tom and Jerry, WarnerBros.com Brands
4. Tom and Jerry, Tom and Jerry Wiki (Fandom)
5. Tom og Jerry, Store norske leksikon
6. GCD Feature: Tom and Jerry, Grand Comics Database
7. Tom and Jerry: 80 years of cat v mouse, BBC News
8. 『トムとジェリー』愛されて80年..., ORICON NEWS
9. トムとジェリー, ワーナーブラザース・ディスカバリー・ジャパン
10. ショートアニメーションシリーズ『とむとじぇりーごっこ』公式サイト, Warner Bros. Japan

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026

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