Rock 'n' Rodent
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| Rock 'n' Rodent | |
|---|---|
| File:Rock'n'Rodenttitle.jpg Title card of Rock 'n' Rodent | |
| Directed by | Abe Levitow |
| Produced by | Chuck Jones Les Goldman |
| Animation by | Ben Washam Ken Harris Don Towsley Dick Thompson Tom Ray Additional animation: Phil DeGuard (uncredited) Don Morgan (uncredited) Phil Roman (uncredited) |
| Color process | Metrocolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Running time | 6:32 |
Rock 'n' Rodent is a 1967 cartoon film directed by Abe Levitow and produced by Chuck Jones, and featured music by Carl Brandt, with additional music by David Benoit. The title is a pun on "rock and roll".
Plot
In Tom and Jerry's penthouse apartment room around 11:00 PM, Tom finishes reading a book and prepares to sleep, setting his alarm clock to ring in the morning. Unfortunately for Tom, this is also time for Jerry to get up. The mouse's alarm-watch rings and Jerry showers (using a wrench on a pipe) and grooms himself before setting out for a tiny elevator in the wall. He hears Tom snoring and stops briefly before he enters the elevator and descends to a nightclub with a sign that says "Le Cellar Smoqué" ("The Smoky Cellar" in French) displayed at its entrance.
Jerry arrives at the bar and has a martini (of which he only eats the cheese on the toothpick, leaving the bartender to drink the rest of the martini). Then, Jerry begins playing the drums with a band, which puts the club into full swing.
Shortly afterward, being woken up by the noise, Tom opens the elevator, only to get blasted by the music. He tries to block the elevator doors with a pillow, but it's not enough to stop the noise. He lowers a hose into the elevator shaft in hopes of drowning out the noise. His smug laughter is interrupted by Spike, who drags Tom downstairs and throws him into his flooded apartment room.
Dripping wet, Tom goes back to his own apartment room and decides to stop the noise at its source by grabbing some tools and heading down to the basement through the air vents. Hearing the music through the floor, Tom saws a hole in the floor and uses the plunger, but the music is coming from a radio, and to make matters worse, Spike (whom the radio belonged to) pulls Tom up through the floor and punches him back up to his apartment room through the floors and his bed.
Now, completely bruised and sleep deprived, Tom cries over this and puts the corks in his ears, wraps up his head with bandages and tries to settle down to sleep. Thankfully when the music stops, causing Tom to wake up with a start, lose the bandages and pop the corks. A tired Jerry is seen leaving the elevator toward his hole.
Tom gleefully goes back to sleep, only to be awoken seconds later by his alarm clock, however, having been woken up by the noise, Jerry turns on the light in his Mouse hole, peeks out, and signals to Tom to turn off the alarm clock by shushing him, but this action from Jerry immediately causes Tom to scream with "HELP" (since Jerry to kept him up all the night) and runs straight out through the wall, leaving a Tom's-shaped hole and falls down. Jerry's shrugs off, thinking that Tom's gone bonkers and imitates a Charlie Chaplin's silent walk before going back to sleep.
Production
- Animation: Ben Washam, Dick Thompson, Tom Ray, Don Towsley, Ken Harris, Philip DeGuard, Don Morgan, Philip Roman
- Layout: Don Morgan
- Backgrounds: Philip DeGuard
- Design Consultant: Maurice Noble
- Production Manager: Earl Jonas
- Story: Bob Ogle
- Music: Carl Brandt — David Benoit
- Production Supervised by: Les Goldman
- Produced by: Chuck Jones
- Directed by: Abe Levitow