Part Time Pal is a 1947 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 28th Tom and Jerry short. Pete Burness, from the animation team for this entry, animated around 50% of the cartoon, but received no credit due to the fact that he left the studio shortly after it was made.
Characters[]
Plot[]
Tom is being scolded by Mammy Two Shoes in the kitchen at the beginning of the cartoon: "And this, Mister Thomas, is your last and final chance! Either you keep that mouse out of this icebox, or you goes out! Understand?!" She hands him her broom. "Remember: you is on guard!"
As she leaves, Tom salutes and marches around the kitchen with determination and alert for Jerry. However, Jerry opens up a grille on the floor, exposing a hole, and directs Tom into it. Jerry immediately heads for the fridge, about to eat some corn, Tom swipes it off him starting a chase. Jerry rapidly knocks every empty glass milk bottle to the ground rolling into Tom's path leading him to trip over the collection of empty milk bottles. Speeding out of control, Tom ends up being sent to the basement, falling into a barrel of cider marked "X X X", and drinking it.
A drunken Tom emerges from the cider barrel, inebriated, to become Jerry's Part Time Pal.
Jerry hears Tom gargling thinking that he's drowning in the cider. Tom emerges from the cider barrel, completely drunk, and befriends Jerry. Taking him by the arm, he makes his way back to the kitchen, drunkenly sharing the food with his new "friend". Tom offers him some jelly but Jerry declines the offer so it gets tossed away. Next, Tom grabs two beer bottles and shakes them, leading the corks and beer to fire in his face, with the outcome of him looking like Santa Claus. Tom sees a bottle of cream and grabs it from the fridge only to find that a roast chicken is stuck to his arm. Refusing to let go of the cream, Tom pulls it to his feet. He gives Jerry the bottle of cream and tells him "I'll be right back.", He immediately heads for the top shelf and eats some cherries from a bowl. However, when bending over he accidentally pulls out a tray of food from the refrigerator and he and it fall with an almighty crash. This wakes up Mammy, who comes downstairs to investigate what is going on.
Jerry dives into a pie with Tom being next to jump, as Jerry licks the leftovers on his face, Tom prepares to dive, he hits to the ground with the entire pie all over in his face. Jerry hears Mammy coming, firmly believes that Mammy will absolutely skin Tom alive if he's messed about in the fridge and hides the drunken Tom, covering his mouth so that his hiccups are not heard. Mammy enters to discover the kitchen in a shambles— "Well, slap my face if this ain't a mess!" —and badmouths the cat who she believes has gone AWOL. Tom drunkenly attempts to boot her in the posterior and give her a hotfoot, but Jerry thwarts each attempt before he can harm her. As Mammy leaves the room, remarking "In the morning, I'll mop dis floor with his ornery hide!", Tom emerges from his hiding place, but he trips up over some of the spilled food and crashes into the refrigerator where he is squirted with some water, sobering him up again.
Jerry, wielding a breast of chicken, approaches Tom, unaware that he is now sober, and gets very angry. Tom then chases after Jerry towards the bathroom, but slips on a bath mat and crashes into a wall. A bottle of bay rum (a kind of aftershave, not alcohol) falls from the bathroom shelf and into Tom's mouth, causing our feline to become blitzed again.
Tom takes Jerry into the dining room for dinner and rings the bell, expecting service for them both. But Mammy is upstairs, fast asleep, and doesn't hear. The drunken cat grows impatient and, despite Jerry's objections, goes upstairs to get her. He takes a jug of water and, after reciting, "1 for the money (hic), 2 for the show (hic), 3 to make ready (hic), and 4 to go!", with Jerry eavesdropping on him, and douses Mammy with it.
Mammy screams angrily when she gets doused, hurls some furniture off-screen at the cat and then chases after Tom downstairs with a broom, wrecking the house in the process and jumping down the stairs. Jerry watches the fiasco as Mammy proceeds to chase Tom out into the night, swiping the broom at him, only to miss due to every one of his drunken hiccups lifting him up.
Censorship[]
Two edits have been done when this cartoon was shown on Cartoon Network and its sister channel Boomerang:
- Not only is Mammy Two Shoes' voice redubbed, but her line, "Well, slap my face, if this ain't a mess!" was changed to "Well, I'll be darned, this is such a mess."
- Tom's drunken speech when he prepares to splash Mammy with water was muted.
Availability[]
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Trivia[]
- An excerpt from this cartoon was used in 1967s Shutter Bugged Cat.
- This is the first of the four shorts where Mammy Two Shoes' head is shown. The others are A Mouse in the House, Mouse Cleaning, and Saturday Evening Puss.
- This was the first cartoon that aired since the start of the Cold War.
- This is one of the five cartoons (the others are The Lonesome Mouse, A Mouse in the House, Fraidy Cat, and Nit-Witty Kitty) in which Tom attacks Mammy Two Shoes.
- This is one of the eight cartoons in which Mammy Two Shoes attacks Tom. The others are The Midnight Snack, Fraidy Cat, A Mouse in the House, Mouse Cleaning, Saturday Evening Puss, Nit-Witty Kitty, and Sleepy-Time Tom.
- The plot of the episode is remarkably similar to the central plot of Bertolt Brecht's stage play, Mr. Puntila and his Man Matti, in which the title character Puntila is a happy, generous man while drunk and a miserly grouch while sober, with his man Matti following him and trying to account for the aftereffects of his various escapades. Charlie Chaplin's 1931 film City Lights also utilizes this plot.
- Towards the end, as Mammy hits Tom with a broom, breaking the pitcher on his head, she lowers her head, showing her mouth and lips.
- Tom's line "1 for the money (hic), 2 for the show (hic), 3 to make ready (hic), and 4 to go!" was also heard in Most Wanted Cat.
Gallery[]
