High Steaks

High Steaks is a 1961 cartoon directed by Gene Deitch and produced by William L. Snyder, released in early 1962. The cartoon was the fourth of thirteen cartoons made in Czechoslovakia after original creators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had left MGM to work for television. The title is a pun on the phrase "High stakes".

Plot
One summer day, Tom's owner, Clint Clobber is preparing to grill some steaks, and Tom can hardly wait to get some. Jerry also gets hungry for some steaks and runs out of the basement to get to them, but Tom manages to stop him but trapping him with a fork. Tom then flings Jerry back into the basement, which makes him angry, and Jerry brings out his own fork to poke Tom with. The two then engage in a fencing match with their forks; Tom tries to poke Jerry with his fork, until he misses and instead stabs Clint in the butt with it, causing him to scream. This infuriates Clint to its peak that he clasps Tom's head with a meat cage, which disintegrates and flattens it.

Later, Jerry tries to disguise himself under a shuttlecock, but Tom catches him and promptly hits him with a racket, but he goes too far and the shuttlecock bounces against the net and ricochets into Clint's mouth. In retaliation, the furious Clint Clobber grabs the racket and tears it apart over Tom's head. Afterward, Jerry shakes up a bottle of Kooky Kola and prepares to open the carbonated drink. Tom tries every effort to stop Jerry, but he is too late. The drink erupts from the bottle and hits one of Clint's steaks, causing it to go limp and die. This unexpected procedure causes him to get really mad, so he shakes up another soda bottle and force-feeds it to Tom, causing his body to shake and take up the shape of a bottle. Jerry laughs at Tom's predicament, and the cat once again gives chase.

While searching for Jerry, Tom gets enamored with the aroma of the steam and goes to get a fork to take it off the grill. Jerry, who his hiding behind the grill, places Tom's tail into the grill, causing Tom to scream and run around wildly with the grill in tow like a horse carriage. In the process, he runs over the table where Clint is eating a steak, which angers him all and all, and Tom eventually lands in the pool. An angry Clint fishes him out and then brutally beats him up by besieging him with dynamite and nuclear explosives while Jerry hides behind the picnic table and covered his eyes with his hat. Then he finally ties Tom to a lawn chair and burns him at the stake so as to make sure he stays out of trouble; and Jerry then wheels the chair to a stopped car. He attaches it to the car, which then drives away with the chair and, with it, a screaming, unconscious Tom. High Steaks concludes with Clint back to his grilling in peace while Jerry climbs up onto the table to eat a steak.