Hic-cup Pup is the 82nd one reel animated Tom and Jerry short, created in 1952 directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby with music by Scott Bradley. The cartoon was animated by Ed Barge, Kenneth Muse, Ray Patterson and Irven Spence with backgrounds by Robert Gentle. It and was released in theaters on April 17, 1954 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Plot
Spike is putting his son, Tyke, to bed. When a chirping canary flies by, Spike calmly tells the canary to be quiet. However, Tom's usual antics of chasing Jerry wake Tyke up, and the puppy gets the hiccups. Spike is understandably annoyed by both the noise and hiccups and threatens Tom, placing responsibility on Tom to keep quiet. Jerry immediately bites Tom's tail, who screams in pain, waking up Tyke a second time. With all the blame on him, the cat flees; each successive hic-cup from Tyke pushes him another couple inches into the air.
Tom peeks around the corner and Jerry pops his head out of a flower pot. Tom chases after Jerry with a spade, Spike quickly plugs in Tyke's ears to prevent the noise from waking him up and getting the hiccups, but Jerry climbs onto the top of Spike's head, such that Tom accidentally smashes Spike's head. Spike yells in pain and grabs Tom by the upper-arms before the cat can run away; meanwhile, Tyke wakes up and resumes hic-cupping, eventually bunny-hopping across the ground. Spike tries to stop his son by holding him by the neck, but each subsequent hic-cup carries Spike with him.
Next, Tom is again chasing Jerry, and eventually spots Jerry diving underneath Tyke's cradle. Tom slides his hand underneath the cradle to catch Jerry, but instead meets Jerry's mousetrap. Tom gets ready to scream in pain, but manages to hold his breath until he puts a pair of headphones on both dogs, such that the dogs don't hear the cat screaming. Out for revenge, Tom pursues Jerry, who crawls into a hosepipe; Tom blows into the hosepipe and Jerry is sent out of the other end. Knowing the cat will continue mindlessly until he catches the mouse, Jerry removes the dogs' headphones and inserts a trumpet on the other side of the hose, waking up both dogs.(mysteriously, Tyke doesn't get hiccups this time). Spike marches up to Tom and shoves the trumpet onto Tom's head.
Jerry happily walks out of his mousehole, only to run back inside when Tom spots him and lies in wait for the mouse to emerge. The crafty mouse emerges behind the cat, places some bicycle horns on Tom's feet, and then walks up to Tom's face and kisses him. An angry Tom chases after Jerry, but the bicycle horns squeak every time his feet touch the ground. Tom solves this by running on his hands until Jerry trips him up; Tom falls down behind Spike, landing on his feet again.
Only Spike wakes up, but the elder canine does not see Tom behind him. He turns around, but Tom turns around with him, still remaining out of Spike's eyesight, if not ears. Spike looks between his legs, at which point Tom climbs Spike's back so he can't be seen. Unfortunately, Tom's tail drops down into the dog's view, and Spike catches on. He chases after Tom, and the bicycle horns start squeaking again. Spike pauses the chase, instructing the cat to remove the horns from his feet that Jerry placed; when the chase resumes, Tom successfully hides in a corner as Spike rushes off in the other direction.
Jerry then turns the same corner as Tom, then retreats to Tyke's cradle; Tom throws out everything in the cradle, including Tyke, to search for the mouse, but Tyke wakes up first. Spike returns and Tom, after unsuccessfully trying to stifle Tyke's hiccups (as each hiccup from Tyke passes from Tom's hand to his own mouth), runs away in fear. Spike tends to the hic-cupping pup by giving him water, scaring him and popping a paper bag loudly, which all fail to solve the problem; eventually Spike ends up getting the hic-cups saying "Now he's got me doing it.", threatening to throttle Tom for it.
Next, Tom's final attempt to catch Jerry, who has climbed onto the roof of a house, fails. Tom rests on the guttering, which falls off the house, sending Tom crashing down to the ground. In a cloud of dust, Tom, fearing for his life, digs his own grave. As the dust settles, Spike is about to excavate the cat and carry out his threat, but realises that both bulldogs are cured of their hiccups. Spike is overjoyed, thanks Tom and says that from now on, anything he does is OK with him and Tyke - including chasing Jerry. When he hears this, he goes into his hole and comes out with his hat and briefcase and puts a sign on his door. Tom runs to the door and reads the sign which says: "Gone South For Sake of Health. - Jerry".The audience sees Jerry taking a rush hour across a railroad track shown to point south.
Trivia
- This is only the Tom and Jerry cartoon where Jerry failed to frame Tom.
External Links
Hic-cup Pup at SuperCartoons.net
Hic-cup Pup at B99.TV