Safety Second

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = Safety Second
series = Tom and Jerry


caption = The title card of "Safety Second"
director = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
story_artist = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
animator = Ray Patterson
Ed Barge
Kenneth Muse
Irven Spence
Al Grandmain
voice_actor =
musician = Scott Bradley
producer = Fred Quimby
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
release_date = July 1, 1950
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 7 min 07 secs
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0042916
preceded_by = Jerry and the Lion
followed_by = Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl

"Safety Second" is a 1950 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 51st "Tom and Jerry" short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby. The working title for this cartoon was "F'r Safety Sake" before Hanna and Barbera finally settled for "Safety Second". The short was animated by Ray Patterson, Ed Barge, Kenneth Muse, Irven Spence and Al Grandmain, scored by Scott Bradley and released on the 1st of July 1950, just in time for the American Independence Day celebrations of that year. The cartoon revolves around Jerry's attempts to keep Nibbles safe when playing with fireworks. However, when Tom appears on the scene, Jerry finds that fireworks are useful after all.

Plot

The cartoon opens with Jerry and Nibbles asleep in their beds. Jerry wakes up and looks at his calendar, and seeing it's the 4th of July, wakes up his companion. He instantly brings out the fireworks, but Jerry stuffs them back into the shed and impresses the daily quotation on his protege: "Make it safe and sane".

Jerry and Nibbles then go outside and enjoy their holiday with noisemakers before Nibbles lights a firework from his diaper. Jerry grabs it away and then fails to throw it before it explodes on him. Jerry then holds out his hand as if to say, "Give me the rest of them." Nibbles hands him another tiny firework from his diaper and smiles before dashing away. Seeing through this, Jerry then picks up Nibbles and turns him upside down, and he finds that Nibbles had a sizable amount of fireworks hidden in his diaper. As punishment, Jerry makes him stand in the corner, but no sooner does Jerry leave than Nibbles repeats his transgression with a firework under the bed, and Jerry is blown up before he can get out of his front door. Nibbles then hides under his sheets.

Jerry then goes outside to relax in a hammock while Tom lights a firework underneath Jerry. The firework explodes and wakes up the mouse, who walks around the tree and runs into Tom, who smashes the mouse with his eyelid and traps him. When Tom lets go, Jerry is kneeling over a clenched fist. The mouse points at it, as if to say, "Do you want to see?", and Tom inspects it, and Jerry responds by using his other fist to punch the cat in the eye.

Jerry jumps into a hole in the ground and Tom uses a pickaxe to try and dig the mouse out. Nibbles, who observes this event, loads a rocket into the drainpipe, which picks up the cat and sends him on a ride across the yard and into the clothesline.

Jerry hides from the raging cat in a barrel and Tom uses a garbage can lid to trap him. Nibbles, again watching from a distance, paints another firework with glue and "graciously" hands it to the cat. Tom lights the firework and tries to throw it into the barrel, but spots the situation before he runs too far away and continues to attempt to throw it, but fails as it is stuck to his hand. Tom now tries to soften the explosion by sitting on the firework, but made a bad choice as to where: under the flowerbox. The explosion propels Tom headfirst into the flowerbox, smashing through it, and pots fall on his head.

Now ready for revenge, Tom chases Nibbles who runs into the back end of a firework. Nibbles lights the firework, empties the gunpowder, and chases the cat. He corners Tom, but after the fuse runs out the ruse is exposed. Nibbles pops out and is caught. However, Nibbles throws a tiny firework at Tom and leaves as Tom takes it, believing it to be harmless, laughs at it, and balances it on his nose. At that point, the tiny firework explodes powerfully in his face.

Tom then loads a bunch of fireworks outside Jerry's front door and lays out the gunpowder, but Jerry breaks the connection to his door and lights the gunpowder. After he is finished laying out the gunpowder, Tom prepares to light it, but Jerry's flame does the work for him. Tom sees a big explosion of the gunpowder can is imminent, but cannot escape it in time. Tom chases both mice, and they use a firework to shoot colorful fireballs at Tom. Tom runs away through a barrel and the basement window and sneaks behind Jerry and Nibbles, who have lit another rocket firework and have loaded it into the barrel where Tom was. Tom grabs the firework from them, but gets launched into the air, resulting in a nice firework display.

Jerry then wipes his hands together and heads over to Nibbles and his noisemakers while Nibbles lights "one" more firework. With nowhere else to hide it, he stashes it in Jerry's noisemaker. Jerry pats Nibbles on the head and goes to blow in his noisemaker. Knowing the consequences, Nibbles tries to stop him from doing so, but Jerry only pats Nibbles on the head again, then blows into it and it explodes, giving him a blackface/sunflower appearance. Jerry looks at Nibbles, annoyed, as Nibbles smiles innocently and plays with his noisemakers.

Censorship

*The scene with Jerry shown as a blackfaced sunflower near the end of the cartoon was cut out when it aired on TNT and in some local station prints. Surprisingly, Cartoon Network's airing of this cartoon didn't edit out the ending.

Trivia

* The scene where Tom falsely believes that a tiny firework if harmless, only for it to explode, is similar to another scene from "Yankee Doodle Mouse".
* Jerry tricks Tom into letting him punching him in the eye with the same trick he used in "Mouse Trouble".

References