Tom and Jerry: The Movie

Not to be confused with Tom and Jerry (2020 film).

Tom and Jerry: The Movie
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Phil Roman
Screenplay by	Dennis Marks
Produced by	Phil Roman
Starring	Richard Kind Dana Hill Anndi McAfee Sydney Lassick Henry Gibson Rip Taylor Tony Jay Ed Gilbert David L. Lander Tino Insana Charlotte Rae
Music by	Henry Mancini
Production companies	Turner Pictures Film Roman LIVE Entertainment WMG Film GmbH Telefilm Essen GmbH
Distributed by	Miramax Films (1992-1999) Warner Bros. Pictures (1999-present)
Release dates	October 1, 1992 (1992-10-01) (Germany) July 30, 1993 (1993-07-30) (United States)
Running time	84 minutes
Country	United States Germany
Language	English
Budget	$3.5 million
Box office	$3.6 million

Tom and Jerry: The Movie is a 1992 American/German animated musical buddy comedy-drama film starring the seven-time Academy Award-winning cat-and-mouse duo Tom and Jerry. Produced and directed by Phil Roman, the film stars the voices of Richard Kind, Dana Hill (in her final film role), Anndi McAfee, Tony Jay, Rip Taylor, Henry Gibson, Michael Bell, Ed Gilbert, David L. Lander, Howard Morris and Charlotte Rae. Produced by Turner Pictures and Roman's Film Roman, it is the first theatrical feature-length animated film featuring the cat-and-mouse pair as well as their return to the big screen after 25 years. Although largely mute in the original cartoons, the duo talked extensively in this film. Joseph Barbera, co-founder of Hanna-Barbera and co-creator of Tom and Jerry, served as creative consultant for the film. The film tells the story about Tom and Jerry, who become homeless after their home was wrecked, they meet and help a little girl escape from her child-hating and abusive aunt in order to find her lost and presumed dead father.

After having its world premiere in Germany on October 1, 1992, Tom and Jerry: The Movie was released theatrically by Miramax Films, a subsidiary of Disney, and LIVE Entertainment on July 30, 1993 in the United States. The film was a box office bomb, earning only $3.6 million worldwide against a budget of $3.5 million, and received predominantly negative reviews from fans and film critics for the film's use of dialogue for the characters, musical numbers, sub-par voice acting, dark content, lack of focus on the title characters and slapstick and similarities to two Disney villains from The Little Mermaid (1989), and The Rescuers (1977), although the animation was praised.

Plot

While moving to a new house with their owners, Tom and Jerry get into a chase as usual, resulting in Tom nailing Jerry inside his mouse hole with floorboards. Unfortunately, he misses the moving van and is forced to stay in the house after angering a nearby bulldog. The house is then demolished the next morning with Tom going back inside to rescue Jerry, leaving them both homeless.

Wandering through the city for shelter, the duo meet a dog named Puggsy and his flea friend named Frankie, and upon introducing themselves, speak normally for the first time. After a brief argument, Puggsy and Frankie persuade the duo to be friends. While finding food from some nearby bins for a feast, Puggsy and Frankie are captured by two dogcatchers while Tom ends up in a tussle with some mean singing alley cats, until Jerry saves Tom by opening a sewer pipe and tricking the alley cats into it. Later, the duo cross paths with an 8-year-old girl named Robyn Starling, who has run away from home since her mother died when she was still a baby and her father was killed in a recent avalanche while on a mountain-climbing expedition; she has been living with her evil guardian "Aunt" Pristine Figg, (who has proceeded to steal the family fortune), her sleazy and scheming lawyer and boyfriend Lickboot and her overweight pet dog Ferdinand, the latter requiring a skateboard to move around. Despite Robyn's misgivings, Tom and Jerry persuade her to return home. After Tom and Jerry end up in a massive food fight with Ferdinand and stumble across a telegram confirming that Robyn's father is still alive which Figg hides from Robyn, Figg sends them to an animal shelter run by Dr. Applecheek, who turns out to be a cruel animal kidnapper and the true employer of the two dogcatchers who caught Puggsy and Frankie.

Reuniting with Puggsy and Frankie in the cells, Tom and Jerry plan an escape, free all of Applecheek's captured animals (among them Droopy) and rush to tell Robyn the news. Elated, Robyn becomes determined to find her father in Tibet and they escape the city on a raft in the river but the raft is suddenly struck by a ship and they end up separated. Figg places a $1 million bounty on Robyn (which she has no intent on paying), while Robyn's father meanwhile is alerted of his daughter's situation and flies back to America to find her.

Robyn is then found by Captain Kiddie, the owner of a failing amusement park to which he houses her until seeing an advertisement for the reward on a milk cardboard with the help of his parrot puppet Squawk, whereupon he traps Robyn on a ferris wheel and contacts Figg. Tom and Jerry then find Robyn and they flee in a paddle steamer as Figg, Lickboot, Applecheek and the dogcatchers arrive, resulting in a long chase that ends with the dogcatchers ending up trapped in the ferris wheel and Kiddie and Applecheek being left stranded in the river.

Tom, Jerry and Robyn arrive at Robyn's summer cabin built by her father, but Figg, Lickboot and Ferdinand have arrived there first. In the ensuing scuffle, a lantern is accidentally knocked over, starting a fire that engulfs the whole cabin. Figg, Lickboot and Ferdinand flee the burning cabin with Figg knocking the door down, but Lickboot stumbles on Ferdinand's skateboard, causing them to fall onto Kiddie's paddle steamer that goes out of control after Ferdinand inadvertently moves the ship's rudder, sailing the trio away. Tom and Jerry manage to get Robyn to the roof just as her father arrives in his helicopter. Robyn is rescued, but her father is unable to reach Tom and Jerry in time before the cabin collapses. Fortunately, the duo barely survive.

In the aftermath, Robyn is finally reunited with her father and takes Tom and Jerry in as her pets. Just when it appears that they have found friendship however, Tom and Jerry resume their antics once Robyn and her father are out of sight, to which the film ends as the duo chase each other once again.

Voice cast

• Richard Kind as Tom
• Dana Hill as Jerry
• Anndi McAfee as Robyn Starling
• Charlotte Rae as Aunt Pristine Figg
• Tony Jay as Lickboot
• Michael Bell as Ferdinand, Straycatcher #1
• Henry Gibson as Dr. J. Sweetface Applecheek
• Ed Gilbert as Puggsy, Robyn's Father
• David Lander as Frankie Da Flea
• Rip Taylor as Captain Kiddie
• Howard Morris as Squawk
• Sydney Lassick as Straycatcher #2
• Don Messick as Droopy
• Tino Insana as The Patrolman
• B. J. Ward as Tom's Owner
• Greg Burson as Moving Man
• Raymond McLeod as Bulldog, Alleycat #1
• Mitchell D. Moore as Alleycat #2
• Scott Wojahn as Alleycat #3

Music

Musical numbers

1. "Friends to the End" – Pugsy, Frankie, Tom, Jerry
2. "What Do We Care? (The Alley Cats' Song)" – The Alley Cats
3. "Money Is Such a Beautiful Word" – Aunt Figg, Lickboot
4. "God's Little Creatures" – Dr. Applecheek
5. "I Miss You (Robyn's Song)" – Robyn
6. "I've Done It All" – Captain Kiddie, Squawk
7. "Finale (Friends to the End)"
8. "I Miss You" (End Title) – Stephanie Mills
9. "All in How Much We Give" – Stephanie Mills

Soundtrack

Tom and Jerry: The Movie – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by Various Artists
Released	July 20, 1993 December 11, 2005 (reissued)
Recorded	1991
Genre	Film soundtrack
Label	MCA Records (1993) Geffen Records (2005)
Producer	Henry Mancini Leslie Bricusse

A soundtrack album was released by MCA Records in 1993 (re-released by Geffen Records in 2005) and included both the songs (music written by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) and score from the film, composed by Henry Mancini. The end credits pop song All in How Much We Give was written by Jody Davidson.

All tracks are written by Henry Mancini

No.	Title	Length
1.	"All in How Much We Give" (Stephanie Mills)
2.	"Friends to the End" (Ed Gilbert, David Lander, Richard Kind, Dana Hill)
3.	"What Do We Care? (The Alley Cats' song)" (Raymond McLeod, Michael D. Moore, Scott Wojahn)
4.	"God's Little Creatures" (Henry Gibson)
5.	"(Money is Such) A Beautiful Word" (Charlotte Rae, Tony Jay)
6.	"I Miss You (Robyn's Song)" (Anndi McAfee)
7.	"I've Done It All" (Rip Taylor, Howard Morris)
8.	"Theme from Tom and Jerry (Main title)"
9.	"Homeless"
10.	"We Meet Robyn"
11.	"Food Fight Polka"
12.	"Meet Dr. Applecheek"
13.	"Chase"
14.	"Escape from the Fire"
15.	"Finale (Friends to the End)"
16.	"Tom and Jerry Theme (Pop Version)"

Reception

Critical response

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 14% approval rating based on 14 reviews.

Joseph McBride of Variety gave the film a negative review, saying that "Tom and Jerry Talk won't go down in film history as a slogan to rival Garbo Talks." Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times panned the film's songs and Phil Roman's direction. Hal Hinson of The Washington Post criticized the dialogue between the cat and mouse and said that the voices "don't fit the characters". Hinson also complained that the musical numbers are "as forgettable as they are intolerably bouncy and upbeat".

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert awarded the film "Two Thumbs Down" on their show Siskel & Ebert. Although they praised the animation, look and the truthful art design of the animated shorts, they neither thought that it was a good idea to give dialogue to the two characters, giving lack of more slapstick action from past cartoons and that the story was silly, even considering that the character of Robyn Starling takes most of the attention than the cat and mouse themselves. Conversely, Vincent Canby of The New York Times was more positive in his review, praising Mancini's score and the musical numbers to which he later went on to say that "[the characters of] Tom and Jerry have charm."

Box office

Tom and Jerry: The Movie opened theatrically on July 30, 1993 in the United States and Canada alongside Rising Sun, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and So I Married an Axe Murderer. Ranking number fourteen at the North American box office, the film grossed $3,560,469 worldwide, making it financially unsuccessful.

Video games

• A video game based on the film was released for the Sega Master System on October 1, 1992 and Sega Game Gear in July 1993, followed by a handheld game by Tiger Electronics released the same year.
• A video game based on the film of same name titled Tom and Jerry: Frantic Antics was released for Game Boy on October 2, 1993 and Sega Genesis in December 1993 by Hi-Tech Expressions and Altron.

Home media

The film was released on VHS and Laserdisc on October 26, 1993 by Family Home Entertainment. The VHS release of the film was reissued on March 2, 1999 and was released on DVD on March 26, 2002 in United States and on September 26, 2008 in Germany by Warner Home Video although despite receiving a UK VHS release from First Independent Films, no Region 2 DVD release is as of yet currently available.

References

Sources

• Beck, Jerry (2005). The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN 1-55652-591-5. pp. 284–285.

External links

• Official website
• Tom and Jerry: The Movie at IMDb
• Tom and Jerry: The Movie at Rotten Tomatoes