Too much of everything

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

As this short opens Jerry is tied up with a ribbon; we quickly learn why when Tom presents him to a lady cat.... she is unimpressed though and rejects his advances. Tom then hears a radio advert for Zoot suits and decides to make his own. The lady cat clearly thinks it is pretty sharp as this time he gets invited in. Tom starts dancing with her but Jerry is determined to spoil it for him; he throws a banana skin and Tom goes flying lands on the piano. This doesn't spoil his date though; he just recovers and starts playing it. Jerry continues his efforts though and eventually Tom loses his cool and ultimately his suit.This is a rather unusual Tom and Jerry short as the two usually silent characters talk and to be honest the voices didn't really fit the characters for me even though the somewhat dated jive talk was pretty funny. As always there is a fair amount of violence; some of it inventive some of it just cruel. While this isn't one of my favourite Tom and Jerry shorts it is still well worth watching; mostly for the jive talk; particularly the lady cat's rejection speech delivered to Tom at the start.

This was one of my favorites as a kid, liked it even more after I started listening to my dad's records in high school, and have come to appreciate it ever since.Along with 'Little Red Hot Riding Hood' this is the coolest cartoon ever produced. Especially because it deals with an American subculture as opposed to 'popular culture'. For example Warner Bros often caricatured Bing Crosby or Sinatra whereas (at MGM) Louis Jordan would later be used a few years later in 'Solid Serenade'.While most perceive jazz as their grandparents 'music', this was when your grandparents were young and jazz was associated with sex, reefer smoking, and degenerates. At the extreme Hitler was rounding up young Aryans, some meeting the same fate as the other 'undesireables' for listening to jazz.While I won't get into specifics, it is vital to realize when this 'short' was released (Feb. 1944), that in June of '43 Los Angeles passed a resolution criminalizing the wearing (and 'wearer')of zoot suits in public. And the man who made the look popular Cab Calloway was banned from the airwaves (12/41) for improvising the national anthem.While I think PC is out of control and an oxymoron (I am Japanese and liked Hashimotos and Fuji from Super Dave Osborne) it is one thing to be complacent and another to be promote racism.So while some will defend other studios racist cartoons as 'the times' there are discernible differences between say 'Uncle Tom's Cabana' and 'All that and Rabbit Stew'. A better description would be the 'places', Warner Bros' theaters were located in the south and the Midwest in a segregated country, the latter would only reinforce long held 'truths'. Although these were intended for adults, cartoons are kid friendly.However to judge history with modern 'values' is unfair and has to be put into context, makes this cartoon quite remarkable.I urge everyone to read about what Elanore Roosevelt correctly termed race riots but what is known as the 'Zoot Suit Riots'

Tom the cat tries to impress a girl cat by giving her Jerry the mouse and singing her a song. But she rebukes him for being to square. So he makes a makeshift home-made zoot suit and continues to woo her. This is one of the few shorts where Tom and to a little extent Jerry both talk. Whereas most Tom and Jerry cartoons are timeless, this one is dated and not as funny as normally. One of my less favorite shorts, it's still watchable though. This cartoon can be found on disc one of the Spotlight collection DVD of "Tom & Jerry" My Grade: C DVD Extras: Commentary by historian Jerry Beck where he talks about the animator, voice actress and the songs amongst other things.

Tom uses material from hammock to made his zoot suit. He tries to be the hippest cat around with the suit, and try to attract a certain feline. Jerry the mouse always get in Tom's way of romancing a female. The Zoot Cat is one of the funniest in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.