''Switchin' Kitten'' is a ''

Tom and Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series c ...

'' animated short film, released on September 7, 1961. It was the first cartoon in the series to be directed by

Gene Deitch Eugene Merril Deitch (August 8, 1924 – April 16, 2020) was an American illustrator, animator, comics artist, and film director who was based in Prague from the 1960s until his death in 2020. Deitch was known for creating animated cartoons ...

and produced by William L. Snyder in

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, after

William Hanna William Denby Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001) was an American animator and cartoonist who was the creator of ''Tom and Jerry'' as well as the voice actor for the two title characters. Alongside Joseph Barbera, he also founded the ani ...

and

Joseph Barbera Joseph Roland Barbera ( ; ; March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist who co-founded the animation studio and production company Hanna-Barbera. Born to Italian im ...

departed from

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

. It is also the first ''Tom and Jerry'' cartoon in the 1960s and the first of the Western cartoons that is made in Eastern Europe, as well as in an

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

(Second World) country.

Plot

During a storm, Tom is trying to find a place to stay after being kicked out of a horse-drawn carriage. Meanwhile, Jerry is assisting a

mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly amb ...

in a stereotypical old castle. In their experiment, they switch the brains of an orange cat and blue-gray dog. The scientist gives the cat-with-a-dog-brain to Jerry as a companion. While they are sleeping, Tom approaches the castle, capturing Jerry. The cat growls and takes Jerry back, threatening Tom. Tom tries to convince the cat that he is a cat, but fails. Tom's continuous efforts to catch Jerry are thwarted by the cat, like getting crushed by a hammer with his head and feet sticking out, getting turned into a flower, getting thrown out of the window and getting hit by a small axe. After going through a series of beaker tubes, Tom tries to escape from the castle in fright. Along the way, he comes into contact with other animals that the scientist has experimented on, including a bird-voiced elephant, a chicken that bleats like a sheep or a lamb, the blue dog whose brain was switched with the cat and a cuckoo clock's mooing bird. He then encounters Jerry, and begs and pleads for him to squeak, but the mouse roars like Leo the Lion and even has a gold-ribboned mouse hole (with the phrase of Ars Gratia Artis as part on the MGM logo). Terrified, he blasts off like a rocket out of the castle and runs off, never to be seen again. The clouds separate revealing Jerry breaking the

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...

by winking at the camera as the cartoon closes with the same opening template, with the only difference being that Tom's face is depressed and Jerry's face is proud.

Cast

Allen Swift Ira Stadlen (January 16, 1924 – April 18, 2010), known professionally as Allen Swift, was an American voice actor, best known for voicing cartoon characters Simon Bar Sinister and Riff-Raff on the ''Underdog'' cartoon show. He took his pr ...

Tom Cat Thomas Jasper "Tom" Cat Sr. is a fictional character and one of the two titular main protagonists (the other being Jerry Mouse) in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's series of ''Tom and Jerry'' theatrical animated short films. Created by William Hanna and J ...

Jerry Mouse Gerald Jinx "Jerry" Mouse is a fictional character and one of the two titular characters in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's series of ''Tom and Jerry'' theatrical animated short films and other animated media, usually acting as the protagonist opposite his ...

, and Mad Scientist (uncredited)

References

External links

* * {{The Gene Deitch Tom and Jerry shorts 1960 animated films Films directed by Gene Deitch Mad scientist films Tom and Jerry short films 1960s American animated films 1960 comedy films Body swapping in films Animated films without speech 1960 films 1960 short films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer short films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated short films Rembrandt Films short films 1960s English-language films