Salt Water Tabby

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = Salt Water Tabby
series = Tom and Jerry


caption =
director = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
animator = Ed Barge Michael Lah Kenneth Muse
musician = Scott Bradley
producer = Fred Quimby
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
release_date = flagicon|US July 12, 1947
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 7' 16"
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0039796
preceded_by = "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse"
followed_by = "A Mouse in the House"

"Salt Water Tabby" is a 1947 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 31st "Tom and Jerry" short. It was produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on July 12, 1947 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. The cartoon was animated by Ed Barge, Michael Lah (who later went on to direct Droopy cartoons), and Kenneth Muse. "Salt Water Tabby" was scored by Scott Bradley, produced by Fred Quimby, and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

Plot

The cartoon opens with Tom emerging from a beach house with a long bathing suit and sandals. He gets his suit caught and is just about to dive into the ocean, but he snaps back and through the house door. Tom then runs back out toward the ocean, but dives in just as the water recedes and lands amid a bunch of garbage. Tom paddles through the "water", thinking he is swimming, and then walks across the beach and knocking out cans from his suit. He stares at a a female cat reading a book and wearing sunglasses, but is looking the wrong direction to avoid running into a trash can. Tom is deposited out of the can directly into the girl's lap, and eats her hot dog and drinks her soda. Tom reclines in her lap, pleased with his efforts (though she isn't), and a tomato and a banana peel land on him. Tom looks in the picnic basket and sees Jerry eating salami from some sandwiches, and then picking up an egg. Tom threatens to slap the mouse with a flyswatter, but Jerry throws two eggs and two olives into Tom's eyes. Tom picks up Jerry on a piece of celery, and the mouse takes bites out of the celery and continues through the cat's hand. Tom yelps in pain, and Jerry runs away only to run into a crab near some rocks. The crab chases the mouse away, and then Tom chases after Jerry but traps himself in a beach umbrella. Then Jerry encounters the crab again, and leads it on a chase that ends when it gets caught in Tom’s bathing suit and pinches Tom again.

Jerry then grabs a bottle of soda out of the basket, and bumps himself on Tom's shin. Tom opens the bottle and slams the bottlecap on Jerry's head. The blind mouse gropes around and finds the crab, and uses its claw to free himself. The crab then attempts to catch Jerry in its claw, but the mouse escapes. Tom and the female are sharing sandwiches, but Jerry sneaks a shell into the sandwich, causing Tom to shatter his teeth when he bites into it. Jerry then takes a bucket of sand and replaces the bowl of sugar Tom is using for a cup of coffee. Tom gets a mouthful of sand and gags and spits everywhere. Jerry then fills the bucket with ocean water and "gratefully" gives it to the cat. The raging cat snatches the bucket and drinks it, but since it's ocean water, Tom spits it out into the cat's face, causing the female to get fed up with him.

In revenge, Tom catches Jerry in a bucket of sand, then cuts down the figure made in the sand with a small shovel. Seeing nothing, Tom digs into the sand and is buried by Jerry. The mouse pads down the sand and draws back the shovel, hitting Tom in the face with it when the cat emerges. Tom peels a banana, but Jerry has a piece of the banana on top of his head and tosses it into Tom's mouth. Tom wonders what happened to the rest of the banana and then sees the trickery. Jerry holds up a hand and then closes the beach umbrella. The mouse pops out of the umbrella and, unfortunately, gets stuck in the soda bottle seen earlier. Tom grabs the bottle, victorious, and shakes it, shooting the mouse into the ocean. Jerry pulls off a clam shell, then grabs seaweed and draws a face on a piece of wood. He makes screams, pretending that it’s a drowning victim. Tom to the rescue! But the cat crashes into the piece of wood, leaving Tom with a large bump on his head.

The cat sees Jerry and chases the mouse, and Jerry responds by releasing the air out of an inflatable beach horse. As it hurtles towards the cat, Tom opens his mouth in fright and thus swallows it, sending Tom on a wild ride and out of his bathing suit. Tom flies everywhere on the beach and then busts a hole in the sand. The water promptly fills up the hole, and Tom emerges riding the horse only to find that Jerry is sailing away with the picnic basket, using Tom’s bathing suit as a sail, accompanied by the tune of Aloha Oe.

Notes

*Excerpts of this cartoon appear as a flashback in 1952's "Smitten Kitten", notably the selection of scenes where Tom meets the female cat and where Tom catapults Jerry into the sea via a Coca-Cola bottle.
*At one point, when Jerry is running with a sand bucket, his swimsuit has mysteriously vanished.
*The white female cat is known to most people as Toodles, the name being similar to Toots, Tom's original love interest, featured in "Puss N' Toots", "The Zoot Cat" and "The Mouse Comes to Dinner", and seen briefly in "The Bodyguard".
*The scene where the beach crab finally gets its comeuppance by Jerry is omitted from most versions of the short.