Tom And Jerry: The Night Before Christmas

"Tom and Jerry: the Night Before Christmas" is one of my favourite Tom and Jerry episodes of all time. It is, of course, set on Christmas Eve (duh) and it starts with a choir singing snippets of various Christmas carols over the opening titles.

The action starts with Jerry, appearing from his hole in the skirting board, skirting round a mouse trap and running up to the Christmas tree to play with all the presents. This he does, finding interesting Christmas decorations which show him reflected, like funhouse mirrors, candycanes, dolls and a toy lion. This is all well and good, until he accidentally jumps on Tom's stomach, mistaking him for a cuddly toy.

As is to be expected, chaos ensues. Tom, highly annoyed at being woken form dreams of Sugar Plum mice (or whatever it is Christmassy cats dream about), begins to chase Jerry around a (wonderfully decorated) Christmas tree. This is perhaps one of the more elaborate T&J sets, involving jack in the boxes, boxing gloves, a string of Christmas lights, toy soldiers and a remote control train track...

After a final peace offering involving mistletoe, Jerry is forced to escape into the cruel, dark, snowy (why does it always snow at Christmas on TV?) night. Tom, of course, is very happy with this arrangement. He blocks the door (and the letterbox) with an umbrella stand, a piano stool and (just in case) a walking stick, settles himself by the fire and tries to sleep.

Unfortunately, his peace is disturbed by the howling wind and a sense of guilt for what he did to Jerry, which overpowers him. He removes the barricade from the door and props the letterbox open with the walking stick, hoping Jerry will make his own way back inside and all will be forgiven. Sadly this is not the case. As the viewer, we have also been seeing clips of Jerry, slowly freezing to a mousicle outside in the snow, so we know he can't possibly come back in, even if he wanted to.

Realising there's a problem, Tom rushes outside to try and find Jerry who, but his time, is only a tiny bump in the otherwise perfect snow drift which has (miraculously) formed int he last thirty seconds. Tom picks out Jerry but the tail, roughly shakes off the worst of the snow (which had formed around him in a perfect cube) and carries the solid, stiff Jerry inside. There, Tom thaws Jerry out by the fire, casuing him to stop resembling a frozen snack and start resembling a mouse, lays him on his pillow and helps revive him.

Awaking from this sleep, Jerry is terrified and shocked to find Tom standing over him and begins to run away, but Tom stops him and presents him with a candy cane. As this peace offering is accepted, Tom turns away to drink from his saucer of milk when Jerry, suddenly stops him.Jerry then dips the end of his candy cane into the milk, splashing an outraged Tom, and brings out a mousetrap. Tom is both relieved and a little annoyed, but glad Jerry stopped him.

Suddenly, Jerry has a brainwave. He rescues his candy cane from the mousetrap he'd left in Tom's bowl and runs back to the mousetrap left outside his door. He uses the hook on the end of the candy cane to snag the bow on the cheesy bait, rescuing the cheese for himself without gettign caught in the trap. However, as the snap is sprung, it closes very slowly, playing "Jingle Bells" as it does so, which then leads into the choir singing again and the end credits.

This is, as I have said, one of my favourite Tom and Jerry episodes and it is part of Christmas tradition in my house to watch it before bed every Christmas Eve. It's so sweet and whenever I see it, I'm always reminded of my childhood and of the great Christmases we always had.