The Mouse Comes to Dinner

The Mouse Comes to Dinner is a 1945 American one-reel animated cartoon, the 18th Tom and Jerry short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby.

Plot
Mammy Two Shoes is preparing for a fancy dinner. Jerry appears from under the table and climbs on the tablecloth, observing the room as she sets out plates. When Mammy leaves the room, Tom appears from underneath a houseplant and rushes to the phone; but first, though, he has to keep Jerry away from the cracker spread. Tom knocks Jerry out with a spoon, then returns to the phone and calls Toots, his fluffy beige love interest, to invite her to dinner.

At dinner Jerry performs menial duties for the cats, such as carrying food and blowing on Tom's soup to cool it. Annoyed at being Tom's servant, Jerry drinks some soup, steps on Tom's spoon and spits the soup in his face. Tom puts the spoon (and Jerry as well) over a candle's flame, causing Jerry to jump off the spoon and land on some butter (which melts).

Toots offers Tom bread, between which Jerry sandwiches Tom's tail. Charming his girlfriend, Tom pours ketchup on his tail sandwich and bites into it. Trying to stay cool for his date despite his discomfort, he does not see Jerry repeat the trick; when he looks at his tail he sees cream, a slice of pineapple and a maraschino cherry, and bites into it.

Jerry is captured and made into a champagne-cork opener. After Tom opens the bottle he throws Jerry into a glass of water, pours two glasses of champagne and downs his drink. He tries to hug and kiss his sweetheart, but she resists his advances and hits him with a mallet (otherwise labeled "wolf pacifier"). When Jerry laughs, Tom opens a cigar with Jerry's mouth and strikes a match on him. For this, Tom gets a pie in the face. When he throws a pie in return, he hits Toots when Jerry ducks. She throws three pies at her erstwhile boyfriend, but Tom ducks; when Jerry pokes him with a fork, he stands up in time for pie number four. Jerry runs along the table, into (and out of) Tom's open mouth. Thinking he has Jerry at last, Tom bites his own tongue. Jerry hits the tray with a spoon (causing Tom's head to vibrate like a cymbal) before running away.

Jerry then hides in a roast turkey; as Tom sticks knives into it, he escapes and mimics yowls of pain. Tom hears the cries after puncturing the bird, spots Jerry and pokes him with a knife. To protect himself, Jerry grabs Tom's tail and bites it. Tom jumps in pain, stopping and turning in midair when he sees that Jerry planted another knife just below him.

Tom chases Jerry across the table, but Jerry stops and stabs him with a broken wine bottle. The cat runs behind a punch bowl and finds two dinner rolls thrown into his face, which he eats. Since Tom wants more, Jerry hides a salt shaker in a third roll and throws it into Tom's mouth. Jerry then hides in a candelabra and uses a candle to light Tom's tail. Oblivious, Tom lights a cigarette from his tail; and starts to smoke when he realizes his tail is caught on fire and he screams in pain, he rushes off to sit on what he thinks is an ice bucket but it is Jerry who has replaced with an oil lamp. He sees Toots shaking her head and smells burning; when he asks her, "Hey, what's cooking?" she replies, "You are, stupid!" Tom thinks she is kidding until the heat makes him jump through the ceiling, crash onto the table and break a plank from it, wrecking the table in the process. The plank becomes an incline to the punchbowl as Tom falls on it. Tom's bow tie gets tangled with his burnt tail. Jerry writes S.S. Drip on one side of his back; he gives Toots a bottle of champagne, and she smashes it onto the cat. Toots waves a napkin at Tom with Jerry making high-pitched whistling continuously as Tom slides into the punchbowl and sinks into it like a wreck.

Production

 * Directed by: William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
 * Animation: Irven Spence, Kenneth Muse, Pete Burness, Ray Patterson, James Tyer, Ben Solomon
 * Story by: Jack Ward, Irving Dressler
 * Sequence Director: I. Sparber
 * Music: Scott Bradley
 * Produced by: Fred Quimby

Voices

 * Lillian Randolph as Mammy Two Shoes (original) (uncredited)
 * Thea Vidale as Mammy Two shoes (redubbed) (uncredited)
 * Sara Berner as Toots (uncredited)
 * William Hanna as Tom (uncredited)

Censorship and other appearances
The entire beginning where Mammy Two Shoes sets the table while Jerry spies on her as an Indian is cut, making the cartoon start when Tom pops out of the potted plant. The clip of Tom's tail being set on fire was also seen in the 1982 film, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The girl cat from this short later resurfaced as a recurring character in The Tom and Jerry Show.

Availability

 * Tom and Jerry's Greatest Chases, Vol. 4
 * Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Vol. 2, Disc One
 * Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume One, Disc One