The Zoot Cat (1944)

Wonderful character development!

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

"The Zoot Cat" is another American Tom and Jerry cartoon and this one here is from 1944, later years of WWII, so it will have its 75th anniversary soon. These 7 minutes are probably neither among the most known these these two have to offer nor among the least known, somewhere in-between. It is perhaps their most fashion focused work as the title already gives away and it is not just Tom who is in a zoot here, but Jerry too as we find out at the very end. This ending was certainly among the better moments (next to the burning-paw scene) of an otherwise really forgettable cartoon that suffered from an unlikable female cat taking away too much screen time from Jerry especially. It was not bad or anything, but not very funny either. Plus I don't like these a lot where Tom is talking and he is talking a lot here. Overall, I give this one a thumbs-down and it's really only worth seeing for T&J completionists. Everybody else can skip it.

This was one of my favorites as a kid, liked it even more after I started listening to my dad's records in high school, and have come to appreciate it ever since.Along with 'Little Red Hot Riding Hood' this is the coolest cartoon ever produced. Especially because it deals with an American subculture as opposed to 'popular culture'. For example Warner Bros often caricatured Bing Crosby or Sinatra whereas (at MGM) Louis Jordan would later be used a few years later in 'Solid Serenade'.While most perceive jazz as their grandparents 'music', this was when your grandparents were young and jazz was associated with sex, reefer smoking, and degenerates. At the extreme Hitler was rounding up young Aryans, some meeting the same fate as the other 'undesireables' for listening to jazz.While I won't get into specifics, it is vital to realize when this 'short' was released (Feb. 1944), that in June of '43 Los Angeles passed a resolution criminalizing the wearing (and 'wearer')of zoot suits in public. And the man who made the look popular Cab Calloway was banned from the airwaves (12/41) for improvising the national anthem.While I think PC is out of control and an oxymoron (I am Japanese and liked Hashimotos and Fuji from Super Dave Osborne) it is one thing to be complacent and another to be promote racism.So while some will defend other studios racist cartoons as 'the times' there are discernible differences between say 'Uncle Tom's Cabana' and 'All that and Rabbit Stew'. A better description would be the 'places', Warner Bros' theaters were located in the south and the Midwest in a segregated country, the latter would only reinforce long held 'truths'. Although these were intended for adults, cartoons are kid friendly.However to judge history with modern 'values' is unfair and has to be put into context, makes this cartoon quite remarkable.I urge everyone to read about what Elanore Roosevelt correctly termed race riots but what is known as the 'Zoot Suit Riots'

Here's one fact that I had forgotten. The much lauded "talking" between Tom and Jerry in the feature film a few years back WAS NOT THE FIRST TIME THEY TALKED! They didn't say more than a couple of lines, but, BOTH Tom and Jerry spoke actual words in this cartoon! So much for Hollywood "Myths". I guess the screenwriters overlooked this episode.It's a fun outing, like most of Tom and Jerry's adventures. Tom's trying to be hep to impress a local female cat, and Jerry's only making things harder on Tom than normal. Good fun, and wild to hear them speak.

Tom uses material from hammock to made his zoot suit. He tries to be the hippest cat around with the suit, and try to attract a certain feline. Jerry the mouse always get in Tom's way of romancing a female. The Zoot Cat is one of the funniest in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.