Dear Straight Dopefiends,
About Tom and Jerry. Who were they, really? I’ve worked out a possible evolutionary chain, but can’t get to the original pair.
First there was a drink. My mom has a white glass cup with “Tom and Jerry” written on it in Old English script, and I’ve seen other examples at garage sales. I’ve even seen a Trader Vic’s Brand Tom And Jerry Mix, which had no discernable ingredients beyond the hydroglycolized polyunsorbate type and looked uncannily like baby burp.
Then there was the MGM cartoons. Really used to like these, especially when they broke character and talked, or Tom won. Didn’t happen often.
Then Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel banded together and called themselves Tom and Jerry for a while in the '60s.
So these are popular names. But who were the first “Tom and Jerry?”
Tom and Jerry - i.e. Corinthian Tom and Jerry Hawthorn, the two chief
characters in Pierce Egan’s Life in London, illustrated by Cruikshank.
THE DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE BY E. COBHAM BREWER
FROM THE NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION OF 1894 http://www.bibliomania.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/index.html
Didn’t give a date for the book though. Still I think the drink was named after that. Maybe it is some drink they had in the story?
pretty much sure tha cartoon came from the drink. After all" cat is named Tom, natch now what do we name the mouse?"
Actually, the MGM cat and mouse were not even the first cartoon pair by that name. There was an earlier animated series about two humans named Tom and Jarry.
Tom And Jerry
Batter
1 egg seperated
Powdered sugar
baking soda
1/4 oz. rum
beat yolk and white seperated then add them together. Add enough
powdered
sugar to make a stiff batter. Add a pinch of baking soda.
Add 1/4 oz. rum, to preserve the batter.
Hot Milk
1 1/2 oz. rum
1/2 oz. brandy
In a mug add 1 Tbs. of batter. Dissolve the batter in 1 Tbs of hot milk.
Add 1 1/2 oz. rum. Fill mug with hot milk to within 1/2" of top and
stir.
Float 1/2 oz. brandy on top and sprinkle with Nutmeg. http://umdsun1.umd.umich.edu/~mwitt/
doesn’t that sound yummy? Baby burp indeed.It sounds like one of those drinks from way back when. Maybe it predates the book.
could the yolk be tom and the white jerry? or the rum and brandy? let’s not think about the baking soda. Still haven’t found an etymology on Tom and Jerry and how all of them interconnect.
Weren’t British soldiers commonly called “Tommies” during WWI and WWII? And since, at least in WWII (possibly WWI as well), German soldiers were colloquially called “Jerries,” could that be where “Tom & Jerry” comes from?
‘Tommy’ for a soldier is older than that Kipling wrote a poem, forget the title and words except for " So it’s Tommy this and Tommy that…" a lament about how the Tommy was a low class human , supposed to be kept away from decent society, under paid,under fed on spoiled bully beef. unless there was trouble then he was supposed to hop to it.
And I found a publication date for the book . 1821.
Interesting theory though, it would bolster the idea of two ‘combatants’ I figure the term was well enough known that the names were natural. Maybe in the book, Tom and Jerry wee always goin at it too? I’ve got a query out to some barkeep friends.so just hold what you got, I’ll get back to you.(Was that a groan I heard?)
From http://www.hotwired.com/cocktail/98/50/index3a.html
“…It goes all the way
back to the racy, written account of two rowdy Regency rogues in Pierce
Egan’s Life in London, which Egan called also ‘The Day and Night Scenes
of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom,
accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees
through the Metropolis.’”
Life in London came out in 1821.
As to the origin of the drink:
“from The Savoy Cocktail Book of 1933: ‘The Tom and Jerry was invented by Professor Jerry Thomas - rise please - over 70 years ago, in the days when New York was the scene of the soundest drinking on earth.’” The name of the drink appears to have come from “Tom-and-Jerrying” as slang for “slang for loutish, though endearing, behavior.”; so it was appropriate for a drink that would encourange more of the same.
So let me see if I got this straight.Tom and Jerry were rowdy characters in a book. Rowdy behaviour becme known as 'Tom and Jerrying".that gave it’s name to drink that encouraged such behaviour.Then there was the well known cartoon cat and mouse who first appeared in 1931,before ww2 ,leaving out Kippling and Hitler. The cat and mouse “Tom and Jerryed” ,so , possibly influenced by familiarity with the drink’s name,leading to their names.
Mike king, do you have anymore info on the older cartoon? I am not familiar with it, my guess is they ‘Tom and Jerried’ too.
No it don’t, Gally, ol’ pal,you jess HIC h h h HIC had too miny uh them Tom ‘n’ Jerries and it’s YOU that is reeling all around.
The first Tom and Jerry cartoon series was created by the Van Beuren Studio by John Foster, George Stallings, and George Rufle. Tom and Jerry were two humans; Tom was tall and dark haired, Jerry was short and light haired (this description of their personalities says a lot about why the series was not a major success). Their first cartoon was Wot a Nite in 1931. There were twenty six Tom and Jerry cartoons produced in the 1930’s.
The better known Tom and Jerry (the cat and mouse) series was produced by MGM. The first cartoon with this pair was Puss Gets the Boot in 1940, which was done by Rudolf Ising, William Hanna, and Joe Barbera. In this first cartoon, the cat is named Jasper and the mouse is unnamed but the pair are clearly the characters that quickly became Tom and Jerry. This series was much better than the original T&J. Puss Gets the Boot received an Oscar nomination and the series went on to win seven Oscars.
Thanx mike. Sounds like that T&J was a rip off of Mutt and Jeff. And it seems you probably already know about this place
( lessee if i can do this) http://toontracker.com/