Of Feline Bondage
| Of Feline Bondage | |
|---|---|
| Tom and Jerry series | |
Title card
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| Directed by |
Chuck Jones Maurice Noble |
| Produced by | Chuck Jones |
| Story by | Chuck Jones Don Towsley |
| Voices by |
Mel Blanc June Foray William Hanna (uncredited) |
| Music by | Eugene Poddany |
| Animation by |
Ben Washam Ken Harris Don Towsley Dick Thompson |
| Backgrounds by | Robert Gribbroek |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) |
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| Color process | Metrocolor |
| Running time | 6:46 |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | I'm Just Wild About Jerry |
| Followed by | The Year of the Mouse |
Of Feline Bondage is a Tom and Jerry cartoon released in 1965, directed and produced by Chuck Jones, with animation by Ben Washam, Don Towsley, Ken Harris, Tom Ray and Dick Thompson.
In some ways, the cartoon revisits elements of the 1948 short The Invisible Mouse and the 1950 short Cue Ball Cat, both of which were directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The title of the cartoon alludes to the novel Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham, and the better-known 1964 film of the same name. This is also the only Tom and Jerry cartoon written by Don Towsley.
In the opening, Jerry runs in a pool hall and enters into a can that Tom holds out. Tom starts shaking the can and laughs, then tips poor Jerry out against the wall, turning the mouse into a cube. Jerry turns back to normal quickly and then runs along near one of the tables, inadvertently running up a pool cue placed by Tom, and then onto a cue ball on one of the tables. Tom shoots and breaks the cue ball into the rack, until Jerry gets bopped on the head by the cue ball. Then, the 8 ball lands right next to the mouse, following him around the table and into his hole, where it squishes Jerry flat. Jerry shrugs in misery until his fairy godmother appears before him and heals him of his injury.
Jerry acts out the situation that Tom made with him in front of her; watching that, the godmother gives Jerry a bottle of potion, explaining its effects to him in inaudible whispers. They exchange evil grins, and as Jerry thanks her as she disappears, he then pokes his head out of his hole, where he sees a cheese attached to a fishing rod held by Tom. Jerry drinks the potion, which renders him invisible, before leaving his hole unseen. He slowly unties the knot at the end of the line and takes the cheese into his hole while Tom looks on in wonder, dropping the rod. As the cat lies down with his face near the mouse hole, Jerry grabs the fishing line at the end of the rod and, throwing it as a lasso, hooks Tom's nose and loops the line around his neck, pulling his nose up in a shape somewhat reminiscent of a possum. Tom looks in astonishment before the mouse ties Tom's tail in a knot, flees unseen, and then comes around the corner carrying a pair of scissors. Seeing the blades snipping in his direction, Tom screams, escaping the fishing line and rocketing up to the attic, while the scissors barely cut hairs off of his tail.
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Wikipedia