Push-Button Kitty

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = Push-Button Kitty
series = Tom and Jerry
director = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
producer = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera


caption = The title card of "Push-Button Kitty"
animator = Irven Spence
Ed Barge
Kenneth Muse
voice_actor = Lillian Randolph (as Mammy Two Shoes, uncredited)
musician = Scott Bradley
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
release_date = September 6, 1952
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 6 minutes 33 seconds
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0045059
preceded_by = Fit to Be Tied
followed_by = Cruise Cat

"Push-Button Kitty" is a 1952 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 70th "Tom and Jerry" short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby.

Plot

The cartoon opens with Mammy Two Shoes sweeping the floor and Tom relaxing near Jerry's mouse hole. Tom raises his feet to let Mammy sweep under him. She says "Sorry to disturb you, Mister Thomas. Thank you so much." Jerry then comes out of his mouse hole. "Don't look now, Tom, but a mouse just went by." Jerry walks back into his mouse hole with a piece of cheese. Tom looks at Jerry and returns to his nap. "That's right. Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think." Then the doorbell rings. Mammy, who has eagerly been expecting the mailman, goes to answer the door, and the mailman delivers a package. Mammy has apparently been expecting this particular package, as she opens it to reveal: Mechano "- The Cat of Tomorrow. No feeding, no fussing, and no fur. Clean, efficient, dependable." Mammy calls Tom over to show him Mechano. She says, "Thomas, meet Mechano. Mr. Mechano, here, is taking your job as mousecatcher"." This causes both Tom and Jerry to laugh out loud. To silence the cat, Mammy then turns on Mechano with the remote control, and it immediately goes after Jerry. Mechano hits Jerry with a hammer and slingshots him through the window and out of the house.

Mammy then laughs and says, "Is it okay if I laugh now, Thomas?" Meanwhile, the sad and depressed cat packs up and leaves the house. "That's how it is Tom, progress. The machine age and stuff like that. But don't worry, maybe you can find an old fashioned house, that needs an old fashioned cat." Mammy prides the "new-fangled" piece of machinery on its job and says its only job is to keep that mouse out of the house. Mechano's antenna perks up, and Mammy laughs with delight.

Meanwhile, Jerry tries to get back into his hole in defiance. Jerry tries to sneak in through the mail slot with a letter for cover, and Mechano promptly starts up. Jerry outruns him all the way to his hole, but Mechano hits him with a tennis racquet just in time. The machine hits Jerry again to bounce him into the air, and then lobs him out through the window.

Jerry tries to sneak in through a garden hose, but Mechano chops the hose with an ax just in front of the mouse. Knowing what has happened, Jerry tries to inconspicuously slip backwards through the hose and is cut off in that direction as well. Mechano continues to chop at the hose as Jerry turns around again, and Jerry is only left with a small section of hose such that he looks like a worm. The mouse tries to squiggle out the door, and only does so in time to avoid getting chopped in half.

Jerry tries to slingshot himself from the front yard into his mousehole, but Mechano catches him with a baseball glove. The mechno-cat then loads Jerry into a cannon and uses the mouse's tail as a fuse. The mouse is shot smoking out of the window.

Jerry, still smoking on the bottom, sends out a bunch of wind-up mice to start trouble. Mechano, predictably, goes crazy and starts to attack the mice and the house. The machine chops up the piano with an axe, breaks the china with his cannon, saws a table with a buzzsaw, and launches dynamite into a mousehole. Mammy hears all of this, sees Mechano chopping into the floor after one of the mice, and yells at Mechano to stop. However, the computer will only respond to the controller, and nothing happens. Mammy runs around, screaming for Tom's help.

Tom pops through the window and surveys the carnage. Mammy runs away from the assault as Mechano tries to break through wardrobes and doors to chase the "mice" and ends up breaking himself to pieces. Mechano's main controller, however, accidentally gets swallowed by Tom. Mammy rushes out to greet Tom and she is grateful to have an old fashioned cat back in the house. "Thomas, am I glad to see you! Boy, they can have their new-fangled Mechanos! All I want is a plain, old fashioned cat." But Jerry gets the last say when he turns Mechano's remote control on, causing Tom to transform into Mechano! Mammy says "Thomas! Don't do that!" And unfortunately, one of the wind-up mice wanders around Tom, forcing him to chase it. Mammy screams "Thomas! Stop!" as Tom mechanically chases the mouse around the house, renewing the destruction.

Trivia

*This is the last "Tom and Jerry" cartoon to feature Mammy Two Shoes, the African-American housemaid/homeowner. The character was later replaced by a white, yuppie-style couple in the mid-to-late 1950s cartoons, which was deemed a less offensive stereotype. Mammy Two Shoes would later return in Tom and Jerry Tales as a white woman named "Mrs. Two Shoes."
*In a Tom and Jerry Tales entitled "Tin Cat of Tomorrow", Tom was also replaced with a robot cat named Mechanico.