My favorite is Tom and Jerry, which essentially started the genre. Very close behind was Itchy & Scratchy. CΦИP Et SEPOHЖ was also excellent, although only one episode is known to have made it through the Iron Curtain.
It’s Got Me Again, a one-shot Merrie Melody from 1932, was nominated for the Best Cartoon Oscar that year. It’s got fantastic music (including the jazzy title tune), unusually creative mice, and a kitteh who is not at all cutesy or cuddly, but a real terror.
Tom and Jerry because I grew up watching them.
Itchy and Scratchy are the clear winners. Observe the art and beauty demonstrated in Roger Meyers’ full length musical spectacular Scratchtasia.
What about Krazy Kat and Ignatz?
Itchy and Scratchy, despite having their own SNES game (which was meh, TBH), are not full fledged characters in the same right as T&J. That goes doubly for Worker and Parasite.
And I don’t know who the others are. Well, I know Sylvester and Speedy, but that’s not really a standard duo in the same sense at Sylvester and Tweety.
Tom and Jerry, Fred Quimby era, and the rest nowhere.
I abhor Tom & Jerry and always have.
Pixie and Dixie
I voted for Itchy & Scratchy, but I’m wondering if Ren & Stimpy should be in your poll since Ren is on of those rat dogs?
Which one’s the mouse?
The poll is also missing Claude the Cat, with his tormentors Hubie and Bertie the mice, from Looney Tunes. That would be my first choice, easily.
Itchy.
Itchy’s a jerk.
There’s the comic strip “Krazy Kat”, which was a thing of wonder, and then there were the cartoons loosely based on the strip. Not so wondrous.
Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinx ("I hate those meeces to pieces!).
There was also Kit and Kaboodle in the old National Lampoon, which covered the same ground as Itchy and Scratchy but ten years sooner (and with more violence). It’s undetermined if it was the inspiration for I&S – Groening hasn’t mentioned it, but he was probably exposed to it.
Overall, though, cat vs. mouse cartoons are all pretty dire.
Well, I voted for Sylvester and Speedy Gonzales, but really, I just meant to vote for Sylvester.
Sure, Tweety was a bird, but Sylvester and Tweety blow every cat and mouse team out of the water and halfway round the world.
I think Sylvester must’ve been the most versatile of the Warner Brothers Cartoon Characters.
Besides Tweety, he was teamed with Porky, Speedy, Foghorn Leghorn, his son Sylvester Jr., Rocky and Muggsy, and probably some others I’ve neglected to mention.
Not to mention his Oscar winning performance in “Birds Anonymous”.
Yes, Tom and Jerry won more Oscars, but that was all a fix, I swear.
One better than average one: Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. You might call it a Batman knockoff, but I doubt Bob Kane minded – he created it. Wins the contest on theme song alone.