The Egg and Jerry
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| The Egg and Jerry | |
|---|---|
| File:The Egg and Jerry Title.JPG Title Card | |
| Directed by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Produced by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Animation by | Ed Barge Ray Patterson Irven Spence Kenneth Muse |
| Layouts by | Richard Bickenbach |
| Backgrounds by | Don Driscoll |
| Color process | Technicolor CinemaScope Perspecta |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Running time | 7:50 |
The Egg and Jerry is a 1956 one reel animated short, directed and produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera with music by Scott Bradley. It is a CinemaScope remake of 1949's Hatch Up Your Troubles, and the first of the Cinemascope remakes of a few cartoons. The only aspects of the cartoon that differ from the original are that it is in a Widescreen format, the ink lines around the characters are thicker, and the backgrounds are more stylised. Also, the egg is white instead of pink, and Tom is missing the white fur stripe between his eyes, typical of the time period. The cartoon's title is a play-on-words of the novel and film The Egg and I.
Plot
A mother woodpecker leaves her nest for lunch, but an egg in the nest jumps up and falls to the ground, rolling into Jerry's mousehole. Jerry wakes up to find himself sitting on the egg. An adorable baby woodpecker hatches and instantly takes to Jerry as his mother, but cannot resist pecking Jerry's furniture.
Jerry returns the woodpecker to his nest, but the little bird follows Jerry back to his hole, at which Jerry orders him out. Dejected, the woodpecker wanders around the garden and comes across an unsuspecting Tom, who is sitting in a deckchair, drinking and reading a magazine. The woodpecker carelessly pecks the deckchair's leg, causing an irritated Tom to pour his drink onto the woodpecker. The woodpecker then pecks through the rest of the deckchair leg, causing the deckchair to fold up onto Tom.
Tom chases the bird, but Jerry emerges from his mousehole and intervenes by hitting Tom with a rake. Tom uses the rake to trap Jerry, but the woodpecker pecks the rake, sending Tom hurtling backwards into a mailbox. Tom then hurls the rake at the bird and the mouse, but the bird quickly pecks it down. Tom then chases and swallows the bird, but the bird pecks inside Tom's stomach. Tom drinks a bucket of water, but more pecking causes the water to seep out through his body. Jerry then knocks Tom's tail, allowing the woodpecker to peck out through Tom's teeth.
Jerry flees, but runs straight into an axe and is knocked out cold. Tom attempts to take advantage of the situation, but the woodpecker continually pecks at the cat's head. Tom grabs the woodpecker and corks his beak, rendering its peck useless. Tom then ties the woodpecker to a telegraph pole. However, the woodpecker manages to free himself, and noticing that he has very little time, quickly performs a complex calculation in order to rescue Jerry. He pecks the post just in time and the telegraph pole bounces off Tom's head repeatedly and hammers him into the ground.
Jerry is thankful for the woodpecker's help, but the mother woodpecker then flies into the scene and the baby woodpecker realizes who his mother is after all. The two fly away, much to Jerry's disappointment, but the baby woodpecker flies back to Jerry and kisses him lovingly before flying away again, as Jerry waves him off happily.
Availability
DVD
- Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Vol. 3, Disc Two
- Tom and Jerry Classic Collection Vol. 4, Side 2