- Not to be confused with Springtime For Spike
Springtime for Thomas is an 1946 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 23rd Tom and Jerry short.
Plot[]
On a beautiful spring day, Jerry wants to play with Tom, but Tom is too busy, fixated with a female cat named Toodles sunbathing in the yard outside. Tom stares dreamily at her for hours, until he approaches her and falls head over heels in love with her. As Jerry watches, a small devil (his anti-conscience smaller, green with a barbed tail, small horns, and pointed ears) convinces Jerry to break things up between Tom and his new-found love. Jerry sends a forged letter laced with perfume to Tom's rival, Butch. Butch reads the letter aloud: "Dear Dream Boy, I have always admired your physique. Drop in for tea at three o'clock. Swooningly yours, Toodles" as he prepares by grooming himself and he speeds off to her address. He then enters in 335 Swankview Park to gain Toodles' affections.
Tom kisses Toodles, before noticing a smell as Butch lies on the sun lounger, next to Toodles. Tom is very furious and grabs a croquet mallet and hits Butch on the head with it. Butch does not react to the pain. Instead, he grabs Tom by the tail and throws him into the swimming pool. Tom gets out of the pool as Butch is serenading Toodles with the chorus of the Spanish song "Quiéreme mucho" (written by Gonzalo Roig with lyrics by Agustín Rodríguez) with his guitar. As Butch continues to sing Tom grabs the end of the sun-lounger and wheels it over to the pool, where he tips Butch into the pool. Butch gets out of the pool and hits a croquet ball on Tom. Tom, drinking from a tall glass, gets hit on the back of the head and falls down. Butch hits Tom through a number of croquet rings and he crashes into the central pole. Tom lands onto a barbecue and turns around on a rotisserie.
Butch is now laid down again. Jerry, and his anti-conscience, place a pin onto a spring under the lounger. Butch is expecting Cupid's arrow any minute and he is then caught in the rump by the pin, which sticks out of the lounger, just as Tom walks over. Tom picks it up and Butch assumes that Tom had caught him with the pin. He chases Tom, who hits Butch by turning a statue as Butch is running towards Tom. Butch then chases Tom off a diving board; after landing in the water, Tom quickly drinks all the water, the reason makes Butch crash to the bottom of the pool. Tom then runs to a swing, places a flower pot on it, and hurls the swing at Butch hitting him, but then he throws the swing back, catching Tom on the seat. Tom swings back helplessly, and Butch hits him with his guitar like a baseball bat which sends Tom flying over the fence and out of the garden. Tom frowns and gives up trying. Jerry runs up to Tom, and the two shake hands as they agree that Tom is finished with Toodles. Tom then gives chase to Jerry, with both wearing happy expressions on their faces. However, this chase ends prematurely, because Jerry hypocritically finds a female mouse on the enclosure and starts to fall in love with her. He pushes Tom out of the way as if to say, "Personal space, please." and snuggles up to the new-found girlfriend.
Voice actors[]
- Frank Graham as Jerry's Devil (or anti-conscience) and Butch Cat
- William Hanna as Tom Cat's and Butch Cat's screams
- Sara Berner as Toodles Galore (vocal sounds)
- Raul Martinez as Butch Cat's singing
Characters[]
Trivia[]
- This short marks the first appearances of Toodles Galore and Cherie.
- This is also Toodles' first appearance in the Tom and Jerry series after she previously appeared (alongside Butch) in 1941's The Alley Cat.
- Butch and Toodles appear together again, as in the aforementioned short above.
- This is Butch's second apperance in the series (his first being Baby Puss) and first time depicted as Tom's rival who competes with him.
- This is also the first to feature two male cats fighting over one female cat. In real life, fighting over a person who is a different gender does happen, but it is mostly the females that get into fights instead of the males. The people they fight over are mostly males; it happens when the female has a crush on the male and another woman falls in love with the same male, which will cause the first female to get really angry.
- However many other times in real life males can fight over a female as well even more than females; trying to impress her or seem like the most handsome/tough man, with both men getting angry as well.
- This short is also the first to feature Tom's iconic "AAAAHHHH!" scream. Ironically though, it is Butch in this short who first used the scream; Tom would adopt the scream for the majority of his later appearances, including as archive audio.
- This is the only existing pre-1951 Tom & Jerry cartoon that keeps its original special closing titles intact on the reissue print.
- This short is included as a bonus feature to the movie Tom and Jerry's Giant Adventure on at least Vudu and Prime Video.
- Beginning from this cartoon, Tom's two whiskers are drawn far apart from each other instead of twirled together like a moustache.
- In one scene, Toodles feeds Tom some chocolates from a box, where the latter acts like a dog at the same time. In real life, chocolate is considered toxic to cats.
- Despite Michael Lah being credited on the opening titles, he actually did no animation for this short.
- This cartoon uses the songs Over the Rainbow (from the movie The Wizard of Oz) and Darktown Strutters' Ball as its background melodies.
Goofs[]
- When Butch reads out loud the forged letter, his arm and hands appear to be miscolored grey and white respectively, like Tom's instead of black and grey respectively as for the rest of the cartoon.
- When Tom pushes the chair with Butch on it into the pool, at one point Butch's arms disappear.
- After Butch hits the ground after being hit by statue, when he raises his paws, he appears to have extra two paws.
Gallery[]
