Tom and Jerry's First Cartoon Debut 1940

# February 19, 1940: Tom and Jerry Make Their Debut! 🐱🐭

On February 19, 1940, one of the most iconic rivalries in animation history burst onto movie screens when **"Puss Gets the Boot"** premiered in theaters. This was the very first Tom and Jerry cartoon, though interestingly, the characters weren't even called Tom and Jerry yet – the cat was named "Jasper" and the mouse was called "Jinx"!

Created by the legendary animation duo **William Hanna and Joseph Barbera** at MGM's cartoon studio, this seven-minute short introduced audiences to what would become a timeless formula: a house cat's endless, futile attempts to catch a clever mouse, resulting in spectacular slapstick chaos.

The plot was delightfully simple: Jasper the cat tries to catch Jinx the mouse, but their chase causes so much destruction that the housemaid, Mammy Two Shoes (shown only from the waist down), warns Jasper that if he breaks one more thing, he's out! Naturally, the cunning mouse exploits this situation mercilessly, threatening to break items unless the cat complies with his demands. The power dynamic reversal was comedy gold.

What made this cartoon revolutionary was its **minimal dialogue** – the story was told almost entirely through action, music, and the characters' expressions. This would become the duo's signature style throughout their 164 theatrical shorts. The animation was remarkably fluid for its time, with beautifully timed gags and expressive character movements that made audiences genuinely invested in this absurd cat-and-mouse game.

The short was nominated for an **Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons** in 1941 (losing to another MGM cartoon, "The Milky Way"). This recognition convinced MGM producer Fred Quimby to greenlight a series. When they developed the next cartoon, the characters were renamed Tom and Jerry – reputedly after a suggestion from animator John Carr, who may have been inspired by the 19th-century British slang "Tom and Jerry" meaning rowdy young men, or possibly the classic Christmas drink of the same name.

Tom and Jerry would go on to become MGM's most successful theatrical animation series, winning **seven Academy Awards** – more Oscars than any other character-based theatrical animated series. The cat and mouse transcended language barriers, becoming beloved worldwide precisely because their stories needed no translation.

The Hanna-Barbera Tom and Jerry cartoons (1940-1958) are still considered the golden age of the series, showcasing impeccable comic timing, gorgeous backgrounds, and Scott Bradley's incredible musical scores that perfectly punctuated every gag. The violence was cartoonishly extreme yet somehow innocent – nobody ever truly got hurt, and both characters would be back to normal in the next scene.

What's remarkable is that this first cartoon established nearly everything that would define the series: the domestic setting, the slapstick violence, the minimal dialogue, the cat's determination, and the mouse's cleverness. While future installments would refine the formula and expand the scenarios, the DNA of Tom and Jerry was fully present from day one.

So next time you see Tom getting flattened by an iron or Jerry outsmarting his feline nemesis once again, remember that it all started on this day in 1940, when two not-yet-famous characters named Jasper and Jinx taught audiences that you don't need words to tell a hilariously entertaining story – just one very persistent cat and one very clever mouse!

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This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI