Tom and Jerry are an Academy Award-winning animated cat (Tom) and mouse (Jerry) team who formed the basis of a successful series of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer theatrical short subjects created, written and directed by animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (later of Hanna-Barbera fame). One hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio in Hollywood from 1940 until 1957, when the animation unit was closed down. These shorts are notable for having won seven Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), tying it with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies as the most-awarded theatrical animated series.
The plots of each short usually center on Tom's frustrated attempts to catch Jerry, and the mayhem and destruction that ensues. Since Tom rarely attempts to eat Jerry and because the pair acutally seem to get along in some cartoon shorts (at least in the first minute or so), it is unclear why Tom chases Jerry so much, but some reasons given may include normal feline/mouse enmity, duty according to his owner, revenge, or competition with another cat, among other reasons.
Tom rarely succeeds in catching Jerry, mainly because of Jerry's craftiness and cunning abilities, but sometimes because of Tom's own stupidity. Tom usually beats Jerry when Jerry becomes the instigator or when he crosses some sort of line.
The shorts are famous for some of the most violent gags ever devised in theatrical animation: Jerry slicing Tom in half, shutting his head in a window or a door, Tom using everything from axes, pistols, dynamite, clubs and poison to try to murder Jerry, Jerry stuffing Tom's tail in a waffle iron, kicking him into a refrigerator, plugging his tail into an electric socket, hitting him with a mace and so on. Despite all the violence, there is no blood or gore in any scenes. A recurring gag involves Tom hitting Jerry when he's preoccupied, with Jerry initially oblivious to the pain--and only feeling the effects moments later.
The cartoon is also noteworthy for its reliance on stereotypes, such as the blackening of characters following explosions and the use of heavy and enlarged shadows (e.g., "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse"). Resemblance to everyday objects and occurrences is arguably the main appeal of visual humor in the series. The characters themselves regularly transform into ridiculous but strongly associative shapes, most of the time involuntarily, in masked but gruesome ways.
Music plays a very important part in the shorts, emphasizing the action, filling in for traditional sound effects, and lending emotion to the scenes. Musical director Scott Bradley created complex scores that combined elements of jazz, classical, and pop music; Bradley often reprised contemporary pop songs, as well as songs from MGM films, including The Wizard of Oz and Meet Me In St. Louis.
Before 1953, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced in the standard Academy ratio and format; from 1953 to 1956, some of the output was dually produced in both Academy format and the widescreen CinemaScope process. From 1956 until the close of the MGM animation studio a year later, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced in CinemaScope; some even had their soundtracks recorded in stereo. The 1960s Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones shorts were all produced in Academy format, but with compositions that made them compatible to be matted to Academy widescreen format as well. All of the Hanna and Barbera cartoons were produced in three-strip Technicolor; the 1960s entries were done in Metrocolor. Wikipedia
