Hic-cup Pup

Hic-cup Pup is the 82nd one reel animated Tom and Jerry short, created in 1952, directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby with music by Scott Bradley. The cartoon was animated by Ed Barge, Kenneth Muse, Ray Patterson and Irven Spence with backgrounds by Robert Gentle. It was released in theaters on April 17, 1954 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,

Plot
Spike is putting his son, Tyke, to bed. When a chirping canary flies by, Spike calmly tells the canary to be quiet. However, Tom and Jerry's usual antics wake Tyke up, and Spike asks Tom, "Hey! What's the idea of waking up my boy?!" But the puppy gets the hiccups. Spike is understandably disappointed in both the noise and the hiccups and explains that every time Tyke wakes up disturbed from his nap, he gets the hiccups. Spike issues Tom an ultimatum: "If you wake my boy again, there's gonna be trouble!" Jerry immediately bites Tom's tail, and the cat screams startledly in pain, waking up Tyke a second time. With all the blame on him, the cat is forced to flee. Each successive hiccup from Tyke pushes him another couple inches into the air before Spike pats him on the back.

Tom peeks around the corner and Jerry pops his head out of a flower pot. Tom chases after Jerry with a shovel, but Spike quickly hears Tom and Jerry again and plugs Tyke's ears, but Jerry climbs onto the top of Spike's head, prompting Tom to accidentally whack Spike on the head with the shovel when Jerry runs away. Spike screams in pain, unwittingly disturbing his son again (Spike's scream is compared with the same scream from 1948's The Truce Hurts), and immediately grabs Tom by the upper-arms to keep the cat from running away. Meanwhile, this causes Tyke to resume hiccupping again, eventually literally bunny-hopping across the ground. Spike tries to stop his son by holding him, with each subsequent hiccup literally carrying Spike with him.

Next, Tom is again chasing Jerry, and eventually spots Jerry diving underneath Tyke's cradle. Tom slides his hand underneath the cradle to catch Jerry, but instead falls victim to Jerry's mousetrap. Tom gets ready to scream in pain, but manages to hold his breath until he puts a pair of earmuffs on both of the dogs, such that the dogs don't hear the cat screaming. Out for revenge, Tom pursues Jerry, who crawls into a hosepipe; Tom blows into the hosepipe and Jerry is sent out of the other end. Knowing the cat will continue blowing mindlessly until he catches the mouse, Jerry, thinking it is a funny joke, removes the dogs' earmuffs and inserts a trumpet on the other side of the hose, waking up Spike and Tyke (mysteriously, Tyke doesn't get hiccups this time). At once, the dog angrily marches up to Tom, pulls the trumpet off the hose and shoves it onto his head, causing Tom's head to pop out of the mouthpiece, yet smaller.

Once the cat has disappeared, Jerry looks outside of his mousehole to see if the coast is clear and happily walks outside, only to run back inside when Tom once again spots him and lies in wait for the mouse to emerge. The crafty mouse emerges behind the cat, places some bicycle horns on Tom's feet, and then walks up to Tom's face and kisses him. An angry Tom chases after Jerry, but the bicycle horns squeak every time his feet touch the ground. Tom solves this by tiptoeing on his hands until Jerry trips him up. Soon Tom falls down behind Spike, landing on his feet again.

It is only Spike who wakes up, but the bulldog does not see Tom behind him. He turns around, but Tom turns around with him, still remaining out of Spike's eyesight, if not ears. Spike looks between his legs, at which point Tom climbs Spike's back so he can't be seen. Unfortunately, Tom's tail drops down into the dog's view, and Spike catches on. He chases after Tom, and the bicycle horns start squeaking again. Spike pauses the chase, instructing the cat to remove the horns from his feet at once. When the chase resumes, Tom successfully hides in a corner as Spike rushes off in the other direction, having failed to realize that Tom got away again.

Jerry then turns the same corner as Tom, then retreats to Tyke's cradle, but when Tom throws out everything in the cradle, including Tyke, to search for the mouse, Tyke wakes up first. Spike returns and Tom, after unsuccessfully trying to stifle Tyke's hiccups (as each hiccup from Tyke literally passes from Tom's hand to his own mouth), runs away in fear. Spike tends to the hiccuping pup by giving him water, scaring him and popping a paper bag loudly, but nothing seems to solve the problem. Eventually Spike ends up getting the hiccups too, threatening to have Tom destroyed for the cause of it.

Next, Tom's final attempt to catch Jerry, who has climbed onto the roof of a house, fails completely to suffice. Tom rests on the guttering, and it immediately falls off the house, sending Tom crashing harmlessly down to the ground, which startles the two dogs. In a cloud of black smoke, Tom, fearing for his life and fearing the worst, digs his own grave. As soon as the dust settles, Spike has barely begun to excavate the cat and to carry out his threat when he suddenly realizes that both bulldogs have been cured of their hiccups thanks to Tom. Spike is overjoyed, congratulates Tom and says that from now on, anything he does is OK with him and Tyke--including chasing Jerry. As soon as Jerry hears this, the mouse goes to his mousehole with his hat and briefcase and puts a sign on his door. Tom runs to the door and reads the sign which clearly reads, "Gone South For Sake Of Health. Jerry." Jerry is seen running across an endless railroad track, which is shown to point to the south direction.

Availability
Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Vol. 3, Disc One