Switchin' Kitten
Switchin' Kitten is a Tom and Jerry animated short film, released on September 7, 1961.[1] It was the first cartoon in the series to be directed by Gene Deitch and produced by William L. Snyder in Czechoslovakia, after William Hanna and Joseph Barbera departed from MGM. It is also the first Tom and Jerry cartoon in the 1960s and the first of the Western cartoons that is made in Eastern Europe, as well as in an Eastern Bloc (Second World) country.
| Switchin' Kitten | |
|---|---|
 The title card of Switchin' Kitten | |
| Directed by | Gene Deitch Animation direction: Václav Bedřich (uncredited) |
| Produced by | William L. Snyder |
| Story by | Gene Deitch Eli Bauer |
| Starring | Allen Swift (uncredited) |
| Music by | Václav Lídl (inspired by Scott Bradley and uncredited) |
| Animation by | Uncredited animation: Jindra Barta Antonín Bures Mirek Kacena Milan Klikar Vera Kudrnová Vera Maresová Olga Sisková Zdenka Skrípková Zdenek Smetana Checking: Ludmila Kopecná (uncredited) |
| Layouts by | Animation layout: Gary Mooney Lu Guarnier |
| Backgrounds by | Background paint: Bohumil Siska with assistance from: Miluse Hluchanicová (both uncredited) |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
|
Running time | 8:51 |
| Country | United States Czechoslovakia |
| Language | English |
Plot
During a storm, Tom is trying to find a place to stay after being kicked out of a horse-drawn carriage. Meanwhile, Jerry is assisting a mad scientist in a stereotypical old castle. In their experiment, they switch the brains of an orange cat and blue-gray dog. The scientist gives the cat-with-a-dog-brain to Jerry as a companion. While they are sleeping, Tom approaches the castle, capturing Jerry. The cat growls and takes Jerry back, threatening Tom. Tom tries to convince the cat that he is a cat, but fails.
Tom's continuous efforts to catch Jerry are thwarted by the cat, like getting crushed by a hammer with his head and feet sticking out, getting turned into a flower, getting thrown out of the window and getting hit by a small axe. After going through a series of beaker tubes, Tom tries to escape from the castle in fright. Along the way, he comes into contact with other animals that the scientist has experimented on, including a bird-voiced elephant, a chicken that bleats like a sheep or a lamb, the blue dog whose brain was switched with the cat and a cuckoo clock's mooing bird. He then encounters Jerry, and begs and pleads for him to squeak, but the mouse roars like Leo the Lion and even has a gold-ribboned mouse hole (with the phrase of Ars Gratia Artis as part on the MGM logo). Terrified, he blasts off like a rocket out of the castle and runs off, never to be seen again. The clouds separate revealing Jerry breaking the fourth wall by winking at the camera as the cartoon closes with the same opening template, with the only difference being that Tom's face is depressed and Jerry's face is proud, and the template reads: "The End. An MGM Cartoon."
References
- Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 150–151. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7.