Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale
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Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale is a 2007 holiday themed animated direct-to-video film starring the Academy Award-winning cat and mouse pair, Tom & Jerry. It uses a good deal of Tchaikovsky's famous ballet The Nutcracker as background music.
The film would be the last animated project for Tom and Jerry co-creator, Joe Barbera, who would die on December 18, 2006. Barbera was the last surviving member of the duo, Hanna-Barbera, and had outlived colleague, William Hanna by well over five years.
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[edit] Plot
The cartoon features all of the exaggerated violence usualy found in Tom and Jerry. The film begins with Jerry and Tuffy watching the Nutcracker Ballet. Later, Jerry goes to the empty stage floor, where magic begins to happen. Toys come alive including the doll Nellie (who can only talk if someone pulls her string) and Paulie the Christmas Ornament (who was missing a head, due to Jerry kicking it earlier on). The magic then makes a Music Box Ballerina come to life, and Jerry dances with her.
The stage is transformed into a wintry wonderland, where the toys are enjoying a dinner. Tom hears this, and, with the other cats, raid the feast, trapping the toys. Jerry, Paulie, and Nellie try to stop this, but are shot out of a cannon. Tuffy escapes, but the Ballerina is captured by Tom. Later on, Tom is called to gather men and stop Jerry. Tuffy gives the Ballerina string, on the end of which is keys. He then goes to stop Tom. Meanwhile, Jerry, Paulie, and Nellie decide to follow the star to a man called the Toy Maker. They stop in front of a frozen river. All make it safely, except Jerry who falls in, and becomes tangled in weed. He is freed, and is pulled up by Nellie and Paulie. This makes Paulie unravel. Tuffy gets to Tom, and dresses up as an angel and a devil. He is found out, and ends up sticking a trident in Tom's eye. He continues on to Jerry, warning him of the cats. Tom and his friends, disguised as Christmas Trees, surround Jerry, but Tom gets attacked by squirrels, and shredded in a tree shredder. The cats attack, but the heroes escape, inside a tree. The cats beat up Tom by mistake. They launch a cannon, which blasts Jerry and his friends into a house with clocks. Tom gives chase, but is pecked on by wooden birds. The heroes then come to a hill, in which Paulie loses his head. They go into the hole, only to find a fiery world with lava pits and dragons. A flame fairy gives Paulie his head back. A dragon wakes up, but is hypnotized by Jerry into lifting them out of the pit. They are chased by the cats again, and run into a fairground. Tom is virtually destroyed here, being crushed again and again - of course, this being a cartoon, he always revives. They make it to a ridge, and Jerry blows up balloons with which they make it off safely. Tom though, is blasted by cannons. One cat shoots an arrow, bursting Nellie's balloon. Tuffy grabs on to her, and unravels more of Paulie. Nellie is let down, and chased by the cats. Jerry saves her, but she lets go of him. The cats pull her string, and she tells them where the others are headed. The remaining three make it to the Toy Maker, who fixes Paulie, and gives them toy soldiers. The toy army, lead by Jerry, charge, and quickly stop the cats. Tom vacuums up many of the soldiers, but they are blown onto the cats. Jerry and Tuffy are eaten by Tom, but Nellie returns, and throws a hammer, smashing Tom's teeth. Jerry then pushes a toy train and all the cats ride on it until it hits a wall and the wreckage goes into a box, with all the cats inside. But, a wall falls down on Nellie, who has saved Jerry and the Ballerina. However, the magic revives her, and she begins to talk on her own, without a string having to be pulled. Jerry and the Ballerina dance, and the curtain is let down, ending the show.
[edit] Voice Cast
- Tara Strong as Le Petite Ballerina
- Chantal Strand as Tuffy
- Ian James Corlett as Paulie
- Kathleen Barr as Nellie
- Gary Chalk as King of the Cats
- Trevor Devall as Lackey
- Richard Newman as The Toymaker
- Mark Oliver as Mr. Malevolent
[edit] Production notes
- This was the third Tom and Jerry film to be filmed in widescreen (the first two being Tom and Jerry: The Movie, due to its theatrical release back in 1993, and Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry, due to its limited theatrical release back in 2006) and the second one to be filmed in the high-definition format (the first being Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry), although the Region 1 DVD was in full screen (cropping the left and right of the image), though not pan and scan as the camera stays directly in the center of the image. Like other television shows filmed in high-definition (such as American Idol, Father of the Pride, Curious George, and Out of Jimmy's Head) and other films filmed in high-definition (such as The Proud Family Movie, Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry, Scooby-Doo! in Where's My Mummy?, High School Musical, and The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers), the monitor the animation team would have worked from would have 16:9 and 4:3 safe areas so that the full screen version would not crop off too much of any important visual elements (such as characters). However, the film is broadcast in widescreen on Cartoon Network HD.
- At the start of the film, a title card saying "A WARNER BROS. ANIMATION CARTOON" is used with a sketch of the WB shield. The style is in the style of the MGM Cartoons logo used in the old Tom & Jerry cartoons. There is also a re-creation of the Tom and Jerry title card and a "The End" card from some of those cartoons.[citation needed]
[edit] Trivia
- This is the first Tom and Jerry movie where the duo do not become friends, team up with each other, help an orphan girl or talk like they did in their first movie.
[edit] External links
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