Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse is a 1947 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 30th Tom and Jerry Short. The cartoon was released on 14 June 1947, and was directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, produced by Fred Quimby and animated by Ed Barge, Michael Lah, Kenneth Muse and Al Grandmain. The episode is a parody of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons in 1947, but lost to Warner Bros. Tweetie Pie, ending their streak of 4 consecutive wins (only to gain another 3 non-consecutive Oscars in the future).

Plot
Near a basement window are two milk bottles. Through the basement window, Tom reaches for one of the bottles and then snatches it, rushing into the living room to pour it in his bowl and drink it but Jerry also wants Tom's milk. Tom makes various attempts to catch Jerry but when they all fail, the cat dreams up a murderous plot to rid himself of his annoyance.

The next scene shows Tom mixing chemicals such as moth balls, acid, and poison into his milk. When Tom stirs the deadly elixir with a spoon, the chemicals cause the spoon to dissolve. After seeing a fly taking a little sip from the bowl before crying in pain and then dropping dead, Tom becomes amazed about the effect, then carefully carries the bowl and places it outside Jerry's hole, but doing so, the milk erupted highly a bit more, but Tom doesn't worry about it. Confident that his potion would work against Jerry, he gleefully waits for Jerry to fall for his new trick.

Seeing the bowl of milk once again, the mouse takes a couple licks, causing him to yell in pain and collapse "dead". Just before Tom can celebrate over the "dead" mouse, the full effects of the potion take place. Jerry stiffens angularly, and then rattles and pops around. When the effects stop, he has become incredibly muscular, and starts advancing on a nervous Tom. Tom tries to smash the mouse with a phone book but fails to even faze him, Jerry easily tears the book apart, and hitting him with the poker only leaves several mouse-shaped dents in it due to his muscles. Tom panics, shuts the door to the living room and tries to hold it shut, but Jerry knocks it down, right off its hinges (leaving a cutout shaped like Tom in it) and continues advancing. Now really scared, Tom seals himself inside a safe but Jerry's fist easily drills through the door and pulls him out. Jerry's seemingly infinite strength allows him to smack Tom against the safe, but the potion's effects wear off and Jerry returns to his normal size.

After realizing he can no longer pull the cat around, he dives away from the cat and into the milk bowl where he takes a huge gulp. Tom grabs the mouse out of the bowl as he screams, Jerry becomes muscular again. He now grabs Tom and hurls him by his whiskers before the potion very quickly wears off. As Jerry realizes that attacking Tom brings Jerry back to normal size, he simply ties Tom's whiskers and tries to drink more potion. The feline upends the bowl with his foot before the mouse can drink enough, and the chase continues across the kitchen. As Tom looks for the mouse, Jerry puts his tail on a waffle iron and shuts it. Tom screams in pain and glares at his waffle-shaped tail as Jerry runs for the fridge. When Tom looks inside, Jerry (hiding in the door) boots him in and seals the door.

With Tom temporarily detained inside the kitchen fridge, Jerry hurriedly attempts to make lots and lots more of the concoction himself to make him even huger, albeit with an inaccurate formula. But before Jerry has a chance to drink it, Tom escapes from the fridge and steals the milk from Jerry. The mouse tries to run away, but Tom stomps on his tail and forces his enemy to watch as he drinks the entire concoction. The cat grins evilly at Jerry. Tom begins to grow bigger and bigger. At first, it appears Jerry's done for, but an explosion erupts from Tom then shrinks him to a smaller size than Jerry.

Jerry snatches his tail from Tom's heels, grabs Tom's tail and punches Tom in the face. This triggers the cat to shrink further, then Jerry snaps Tom's tail. Tom this time shrinks down to size of a fly, and so Jerry starts to chase Mini-Tom with a flyswatter.

Production

 * Directed by: William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
 * Animation: Ed Barge, Michael Lah, Kenneth Muse, Al Grandmain, Ray Patterson, Pete Burness, Irven Spence, Graham Place, Nick Tafuri, Lou Zukor
 * Story by: I. Klein, Jack Ward
 * Backgrounds: Robert Little
 * Sequence Director: Seymour Kneitel
 * Music: Scott Bradley
 * Produced by: Fred Quimby

Errors

 * Before Tom smashes Jerry with the phone book, it turns green.
 * After Jerry is dead, when Tom celebrates him dead, he moves like a remote control toy.

Availability
DVD
 * Tom and Jerry's Greatest Chases, Vol. 1
 * Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Vol. 2, Disc One
 * Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume One, Disc Two