Thomas “Tom” Jasper Cat, commonly referred to as Tom Cat, or more simply referred to as Tom, and originally known as Jasper, is one of the two anti-heroic protagonists in Tom and Jerry, alongside Jerry Mouse, created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Despite being referred as an anti-heroic, Tom is more often placed in the role of the antagonist, with Jerry often being the protagonist just as much.

Tom is a bluish-grey and white anthropomorphic domestic short haired tuxedo British cat who first appeared in the 1940 MGM animated short Puss Gets the Boot. The cat was known as Jasper during his debut in the short; however, beginning with his next appearance in The Midnight Snack he was known as Tom or Thomas.

Tom and Jerry cartoons

His name, “Tom Cat”, is based on “tomcat”, a word which refers to male cats. He is usually mute and rarely heard speaking with the exception of a few cartoons (such as 1943’s The Lonesome Mouse, 1944’s The Zoot Cat, 1947’s Part Time Pal, 1953’s Puppy Tale and 1992’s Tom and Jerry: The Movie). His only notable vocal sounds outside of this are his various screams whenever he is subjected to panic or, more frequently, pain. He is continuously after Jerry Mouse, for whom he sets traps, many of which backfire and cause damage to him rather than Jerry. His trademark scream was provided by creator William Hanna. Hanna’s recordings of Tom screaming were later used as a stock sound effect for other MGM cartoon characters, including a majority of Tex Avery’s shorts.

Tom is usually defeated in the end (or very rarely, killed, like in Mouse Trouble, where he explodes), although there are some stories where he outwits and defeats Jerry. Besides Jerry, he also has trouble with other mouse or cat characters. One of them that appears frequently is Spike Bulldog. Spike regularly appears and usually assists Jerry and beats up Tom. Though in some occasions Tom beats him or he turns on Jerry (like his debut appearance in Dog Trouble). Usually when Tom is chasing Jerry after a bit Jerry turns the tables on Tom and beats him or uses an outside character such as Spike to beat Tom.

Tom has variously been portrayed as a house cat doing his job, and a victim of Jerry’s blackmail attempts, sometimes within the same short. He is almost always called by his full name “Thomas” by Mammy Two Shoes. In 1961 short Switchin’ Kitten Tom has a membership card as belong to the “International Brotherhood of Cats”.

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    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

      All the other white people were gone from work after 5 or so tonight and the rest of us got to finally have a nice talk about geopolitics. It was actually a pretty neat talk, phillipino dude pushing 50 who was imprisoned under Duterte and would be dead if he didn’t have a friend who was a military officer, 23 year old Japanese woman who knows Japanese real good but is a bit iffy on other stuff and ended the chat with ‘the communists were right all along and we gotta get off this sinking ship as a country’ (referring to Japan’s association with the military). For both countries we got into them being American FOBs and local shields who they’ll toss under the bus at the very first sign of trouble. I was surprised to even hear my phillipino homie ease up on China considering what America’s been up to, concessions with China are way safer than staying the current course. Im a mid 30 year old white Canadian but have done quite a bit of homework regarding the middle east in general and certainly Iran over the last 20 years or so cause I started giving a shit about politics because of the war on terror and dammit I read the news mega and therefore am super informed. It was a GOOD TALK. The general conclusion was Death to America and socialist nations have been and are the best at bringing that about. No one wants to live in fear of these creeps anymore.

      Also while talking about ww2 and making pizzas my Japanese co-worker popped the pizza she was working on into the oven before the other 2 on the same chit were close to ready cause she was going on auro pilot while we were talking. What makes this hilarious is that it was a Hawaiian pizza