Cue Ball Cat is a 1950 Tom and Jerry cartoon directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
Plot[]
Tom plays pool in a deserted pool hall, pocketing two balls by lowdown means and then wakes Jerry up by shooting the 10-ball into the pocket where he is sleeping. Jerry awakes just in time to avoid the 10-ball and is carried out to the ball return, where the 10 and the 13 smash the mouse between each other. Jerry is mad and walks up through the pocket, first sees nothing, but after a few steps back to the pocket, he spots Tom perched behind it. Jerry tries to jump into another corner pocket, but Tom aims a cue ball with so much force that it rolls into the pocket, spins back out of it and rolls Jerry backwards to Tom, who has made a ramp with his cue stick for the mouse to slide up. Jerry stops at the top of the stick and is then blown down by Tom, who then shoots a stream of balls to flatten the mouse.
The whole train rebounds back towards the cat and the balls stack up at Tom's end of the table. Tom shoots all the balls in succession with his cue, and then tries to shoot Jerry, but the mouse hangs onto the cue tip. The cat chalks Jerry up and shoots the 8-ball using the mouse. The mouse drops off the cue tip and then is upended by the 8-ball rolling in circles, and Tom forces Jerry to jump through the ball rack as if he were a circus performer. Tom then sets it on fire to add an additional level of torment, and when Jerry accomplishes this with poise, Tom discards the flaming rack and shoots the 8-ball across the table and back. Jerry is whacked in the rear, with the mouse finding out the "8" imprint remains behind. An incensed Jerry draws back Tom's cue stick and hits his opponent with it.
Tom throws the 8-ball at Jerry, but the mouse ducks and the 8 bounces off the rails back into Tom's face. Tom tries again with an 8 and 6, but Jerry bats them back into Tom's eyes. The 10-ball is returned at such speed it burns a hole through Tom's glove. Tom makes one last attempt with the 1-ball, and Jerry bats it so hard that he breaks the cue and Tom retreats through the pool hall to catch it. Tom stretches backwards and catches the 1-ball, and because of its weight and the cat's unbalanced posture, Tom is pulled into a drink machine and spat out as a drink bottle. Jerry dives into a corner pocket as Tom returns in anger. Tom gropes through the pocket to find Jerry, but instead grabs his own tail, pulling himself through the pocket tunnels and back out. When he sees he's holding his own tail, Tom escapes the tunnels and sticks a fire hose down them, sweeping Jerry up. He takes swings at the stream with a mechanical bridge to hit Jerry, but only catches Jerry on the end of it. The mouse steals the bridge and uses it as a balancing stick on a high wire.
Tom throws two cues at the mouse; the first shreds exactly in half when it hits the wire dead center, but the second scrapes Jerry's rear to a deep, alarming red, and he shoots the mechanical bridge into Tom's mouth as a sign of revenge. Tom gets up with the mechanical bridge in his mouth and lazily says "Duh!" Back on the table, the mouse runs away as Tom shoots a stream of balls towards him, which chase him into and out of the various pockets on the table. Eventually, the balls chase Jerry of their own accord, but he is in their path - just then, Jerry opens his mouth and that causes Tom to swallow all the seven balls. Jerry flees into the corner pocket, and Tom sticks a cue into the pocket, looking to poke Jerry. The mouse, just as before, tricks the cat by attaching a hatpin to the tip end of the cue, and then yanks the cue briefly. Feeling this, the cat strikes and stabs himself in the rear end, and is sent screaming manically into the air and crashing down into the corner pocket. At this point, Jerry breaks a rack of balls and all 16 of them fall into pockets, except for the 1-ball; the mouse whacks Tom cat on the head such that with his mouth open he groans in pain that the 1 falls into Tom's mouth.
Availability[]
- (1983) VHS, CED - Tom & Jerry Cartoon Festival: Volume 3
- (1993) LaserDisc - The Art of Tom & Jerry: Volume I
- (2004) DVD - Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Volume 1
Notes[]
- This is the fifth and final Tom and Jerry cartoon in the Hanna-Barbera era to involve a sport.
- The ending gag where Jerry whacks a buried Tom in the head to make him swallow the 1-ball is recycled from Tee for Two.
- This cartoon was reissued in 1956.
- A clip of this cartoon is shown in the horror film Night of the Lepus, where it is playing at a drive-in theater.
- In Boomerang Latin America, for unknown reasons, it does not show the MGM Cartoons intro. Instead, the cartoon starts when the Tom and Jerry logo appears.
- Clips from this cartoon were used in a French Pepsi commercial promoting Pepsi Cool on February 6, 1999.
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