Tot Watchers is a 1958 Tom and Jerry cartoon produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
Plot[]
Jeannie is instructed to look after the Baby while his mother goes out. However, Jeannie pays more attention to talking on the telephone apathetically than her actual babysitting. In the midst of Tom and Jerry's usual fighting, they see Baby crawling out of his pram. Any attempt to return the Baby to where he came from simply results in him escaping from the pram again. During one escape, Baby crawls into Spike's dog house. Tom accidentally grabs Spike instead of the baby, and is promptly attacked, scratched, and bit. This time, Tom angrily brings the Baby back to Jeannie herself, who hits Tom over the head with a broom four times, thinking that Tom has taken Baby away from her.
Realising that Baby is no longer worth the trouble, Tom does nothing the next time that he crawls from his pram. However, he and Jerry are forced to react after Baby crawls down to the street and into a construction site. Baby crawls from one steel beam to another while the cat and mouse look on. Jerry manages to catch up, and saves Baby from crawling off a wooden plank by grabbing his diaper. The diaper comes loose, and as Baby falls, he is then caught by Tom. Tom attempts to put the diaper back on, but in the impending confusion, ends up putting the diaper on himself while Baby crawls off, nonchalantly.
Tom and Jerry catch up with Baby, only to lose him again, and fearing that he has crawled into a cement mixer, the cat and mouse dive straight in, only to find that Baby never did enter the mixer but instead playing with a hammer. Baby then playfully bonks Tom on the head.
Later on, Jeannie is crying, telling a police officer that while she was babysitting, she took her eye off Baby for "one teensy minute", and when she turned her back on Baby to answer the phone (stretching the truth as she actually called on it), Baby was gone. Tired, Tom and Jerry arrive with Baby. Jeannie grabs Baby while the two try to escape, but fail as the police officer arrests them both, assuming that they were the "baby nappers". In the police car, the police officer scoffs at Tom and Jerry's explanation, until Baby (presumably neglected by Jeannie again) crawls past the police car and away into the distance, much to the three's shock.
Availability[]
- Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection: Volume 2 - (original CinemaScope format, remastered; Warner Bros.)
- Tom and Jerry: Pint-Sized Pals - (CinemaScope pan and scan format as shown on television; Warner Bros.)
Notes[]
- This is the last Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoon produced or directed by both Hanna and Barbera, and the last cartoon short of the series until Gene Deitch's Switchin' Kitten in 1961. Barbera would return to direct one final Tom and Jerry theatrical short, The Karate Guard, in 2005.
- This was the last Tom and Jerry cartoon to be produced before the MGM cartoon studio shut down.
- This is the first Tom and Jerry cartoon to give story credit, here to Homer Brightman.
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