Tom & Jerry Kids

Tom & Jerry Kids was one of the countless TV revivals of the classic Tom and Jerry shorts.

Airing from 1990 to 1994 on Fox Kids, this newly produced 65-Episode Cartoon, with Three Shorts to each episode, was much closer to the tried and true formula of the famous cat and mouse duo than, say, The Tom and Jerry Show, though the slapstick was still toned down compared to the original shorts. There were also shorts starring classic Tom and Jerry co-stars Spike and Tyke, and Tex Avery's Droopy character (along with his son Dripple), the latter of which spun off into its own series, Droopy, Master Detective.

Additionally, different original characters were brought into the show, such as Slowpoke Antonio and Bernie the Swallow, and even receiving their own separate segments.

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Tom & Jerry Kids contains examples of:

• 555: "The Vermin" has Jerry order a guitar off of TV, giving the number 555-555-5555. Interestingly, when Jerry dials, his finger pushes all around the number pad.
• The Ace: Droopy is portrayed as absurdly good at pretty much everything, from skiing to weightlifting.
• A Day in the Limelight: As the show progressed, much of the secondary cast of characters began starring in their own independent shorts starting in the second season:
  • The Urfo (not the same character who appears in the first season) co-stars "The Little Thinker" with a little boy named Buzz.
  • Wild Mouse (now redesigned) gets "Wild Mouse II" and "Hunter Pierre". His appearances with Tom also count, as Jerry is absent in most of these shorts.
  • Slowpoke Antonio has "Just Rambling Along" and "Rootin' Tootin' Slowpoke".
  • Swampy Fox (in his only appearance on the show) and The Gator Brothers (from "Wild Mouse II") are the stars of "Cajun Gumbo".
  • Bernie the Swallow, and by extension Kyle and Clyde, stars in "Swallow The Swallow" and "Grab That Bird".
  • Kyle The Cat also has the short "Pound Hound" in season three.
  • The Mouse Scouts (without Jerry) are the central focus of "Roughing It", the final segment of the third season.
  • Blast-Off Buzzard and Crazy Legs Snake from CB Bears, now able to speak, are the highlights of "Destructive Construction" and "Abusement Park".
  • Calaboose Cal had "The Mouth Is Quicker Than The Eye" and "Termite Terminator" both from the fourth season, with the latter being the last short that stars a character other than Tom & Jerry, Droopy & Dripple or Spike & Tyke in the lead role.
• Advertised Extra: Boomer Beaver from the segment of the same name is seen with the other characters in the show's opening from the second season onwards, despite only being present in said segment.
  • The Mouse Scouts also feature prominently in the new opening, despite "Roughing It" being their only appearance outside of Season 1.
  • Spike and Tyke in a lesser extent, despite receiving top billing in the show's theme song they didn't earn even half the amount of shorts centered on Tom & Jerry or Droopy & Dripple.
• Animated Actors: McWolf frequently breaks the fourth wall and talks about his bit in shorts as an actor would talk about a film role, including having to wear a fat-suit to play his gangster persona, The Chubby Man.
• Animation Bump: The episodes animated by Fil-Cartoons compared to the ones by Wang.
  • The animation in general compared to the previous Tom and Jerry Incarnations and other Hanna-Barbera cartoons. This is because the show was co-produced by Turner Entertainment who owned the rights to the T&J franchise at the time.
• Artistic License – Marine Biology: In "Double 'O' Droopy". Although it is true that oysters do produce pearls when irritated, they only do so when a foreign substance enters the shell, not when someone tries to annoy them. In other words, they only make pearls when they are irritated physically, not emotionally.
• Asian Store-Owner: The Indian man running the 7 Million Convenience Store in "Galaxy Droopy".
• The Bad Guy Wins: The Witch from "Tom's Terror" not only suffers no consequences and doesn't get defeated, but she actually succeeds in making Tom and Jerry fall down by destroying their broom with their magic. She gleefully flies away clearly believing Tom and Jerry are dead. The ONLY thing that prevents the episode from being a complete Downer Ending, is that Tom and Jerry survive and are quite well actually, and run for their lives presumably back to their home. Still, the Witch isn't aware that they survived and that doesn't really affect her anyway, so it could be seen she won as far as she is concerned.
• Bears Are Bad News: The force that foils McWolf's plans in "Droopo: First Bloodhound".
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: More literal example would be, The Witch in Kindly Old Lady's clothing but very much an example. The Witch in "Tom's Terror", pretends to be a kindly old lady who seeks a traveling companion. As soon as Tom accepts an invitation and comes to her house, she is soon revealed to be a Wicked Witch.
• Big Eater: Pillicos P. Snorthog from "Droopy Man". In fact, his main plan is to steal all the food from Gossip City and eat them all for himself.
• Bound and Gagged: Dripple is on trial in "Droopy Law" with Miss Vavoom as his public defender and McWolf as the injured party. Vavoom has a tape proving that Dripple is innocent. However, before she can play it, McWolf grabs her, runs out of the courtroom (with fighting noises being heard afterwards), and comes back without her, coming up with an excuse for her absence before playing his tape. Soon after, Vavoom returns in the courtroom, tied up, gagged, and blindfolded, hopping until she arrives next to Dripple, who unties her before she plays her tape.
• Bubble Boy: To prevent himself from dying and going to hell, Tom blows up an inflatable bubble and seals himself inside. It keeps him in tact well enough until Jerry bursts it with a pin.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Tom quite frequently receives more of a beating than any other characters in any given cartoon, and usually with less justification.
  • McWolf in "Scrapheap Symphony". He's not doing anything villainous, being just the orchestra conductor. Still the cast ends up ignoring, mocking or hurting him anyway.
• Butt Sticker: Frequently:
  • "Two Stepping Tom" when the elephant singer is hanging on a beam he falls on Tom.
  • "Circus Antics" after Tundo the elephant introduces his family to Jerry, he asks where Tom is. And it is revealed that he's stuck to his butt.
  • "Swallow the Swallow" after Bernie the Swallow tossed Clyde off of his birdhouse, Clyde falls and lands on Kyle.
• Chaste Toons:
  • Confusingly averted; Droopy now has a son, Dripple, yet still goes after attractive ladies.
  • McWolf can also be considered this by the fourth season, as he too has a son, Stinky Jr.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Played straight many times in the Droopy and Dripple shorts, but there are a few exceptions:
  • Double subverted in "High Speed Hounds", in which McWolf actually gets first place, but still pays for it.
  • Subverted in "Fallen Archers". Despite McWolf and his son using cheating methods to try to win, no one actually wins at the end; Dripple and Stinky Jr. just go fishing while Droopy and McWolf watch them and laugh.
• Chick Magnet: Droopy is considered irresistible by every woman and is constantly flirted and kissed by the beautiful Miss Vavoom. Even Dripple describes him as a "Babe Magnet".
• Covers Always Lie: Starting from season 3, the title cards are barely relevant to the actual segments they feature in, with some rare exceptions such as "Mess Hall Mouser" and the minor character segments. This can lead a viewer to think McWolf would be present in "Big Top Droopy" and "Droopnet" because he was featured in their title cards, even though that's not the case.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Happens several times in the Droopy and Dripple shorts.
  • In "Return of the Chubby Man" Droopy is so distracted by Miss Vavoom's legs he fails to see the jade poodle even when she swings it right in front of his eyes.
  • In "Order in the Volleyball Court", Droopy had to drag Dripple away when he was all but hypnotised by some volleyball cheerleaders.
• Don't Try This at Home: Spoken several times, usually by a human character, just before Tom was about to do something dangerous. One of them involved him splitting in two, and going around a tree from both sides.
• Episode Title Card: Each short has their own title card, usually featuring the characters that star in the short, with the title card design differing by season:
  • The season 1 title cards feature unique illustrations of each character set against either a red, blue, or green background. It is also the only season where each title card's opening tune also varies across three different tunes that are itself variations of the Title Theme Tune.
  • The season 2 title cards are more colorful and creative while retaining the unique character illustrations. From this season onwards, a Recurring Riff plays in the background for all shorts.
  • Season 3 onwards have stock title cards that are used for every main character, which usually do not represent what the short is about. Tom and Jerry Kids and Droopy and Dripple segments rotate across five different title cards each, while Spike and Tyke segments rotate across three different title cards and the other main characters only get one type of title card (with the exception of Slowpoke Antonio, who gets two).
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Happens in a lot of Droopy and Dripple shorts.
• Evolving Credits: The first and second seasons had the show's logo appear thematically over a city and shows clips of Tom, Jerry and their co-stars doing about their lives, ending with the same logo. The Season 3 and 4 opening changes this radically to have Tom chase Jerry around a construction site, passing their co-stars as the show's logo is being built, and it ends with the full cast rising on a girder and the same logo being displayed over the city.
• Exit, Pursued by a Bear: The last we see of McWolf in "Yo Ho Ho... Bub" is being chased by a hungry shark.
• Face Your Fears: The entire segment "Fear of Flying" has McWolf trying to get over his fear of flying to go on a trip to Hawaii with Miss Vavoom after failing sixteen times before.
• Family-Friendly Firearms: Lampshaded in "Dakota Droopy and the Lost Dutch Boy Mine" where McWolf throws bullets at Droopy and Dripple.

  McWolf: I know it's stupid, but they wouldn't give me a gun for this cartoon.

  • Ironically there were guns in some of the cartoons but they all fall under this trope.
• Felony Misdemeanor: In "Deep Sleep Droopy", taking candy from a baby is the most horrendous crime.

  "THAT'S DISGUSTING!!"

• Finger Gun: McWolf has to use one in "El Smoocho" since they "can't have guns in this cartoon".
• Firehouse Dalmatian: The segment "Firehouse Mouse" takes place at a fire station and features a Dalmatian named Smokey who finds himself having to deal with Tom and Jerry when they take their usual chases to the firehouse. However, he eventually drops his animosity towards the cat and mouse when they accidentally trap themselves in a fire in the second floor, putting on his hat and extinguishing the flames, and at the end of the segment, he even flashes them a thumbs-up as he clings onto the fire engine as it drives away.
• Force Feeding: Jerry's grandmother is the spoiling kind of grandmother who will insist on feeding you as much as possible even when your too fat to stop her, as Tom found out the hard way.
• Go Fetch: One form of distraction that Tom uses at the eponymous guard dog in "Flippin' Fido" is throwing frisbees at him.
• Good All Along: In "Doom Manor", a witch's Frankenstein-like minion (who name is Igor) leaves with Tom and Jerry, telling them he's on their side and has been trying to get out of the witch's castle for a long while.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Miss Vavoom is seen as attractive to Droopy, Dripple, McWolf, and everyone else. Justified because she is an Expy of Red.
• Heart Beats out of Chest:
  • In "The Vermin", Jerry invokes this after the titular band's female member uses her feminine wiles to convince him to join the band.
  • In "Battered Up", McWolf experiences this when he sees Miss Vavoom for the first time. Even his heart beats for him.
• High-Pressure Emotion: Mostly done by Droopy and McWolf in their Wild Takes involving Miss Vavoom.
• Hitchhiker's Leg: Parodied in "Dakota Droopy and the Great Train Robbery" where McWolf uses an inflatable fishnet-clad female leg to stop the train containing the gold.
• Holding Hands: The closing credits for the first season depict silhouettes of Tom and Jerry walking while holding hands.
• Hypocrite: In "Chumpy Chums", Spike decides to force Tom and Jerry to become friends in order to show Tyke brotherly love - but he himself has absolutely no intention of making friends with cats until Tyke guilt-trips him into it.
• Kangaroo Court: The court in "Twelve Angry Sheep" becomes this when McWolf realises that judge Droopy may side in favor of Dripple when they call each other "pop" and "son" respectively. This leads him to lampshade this trope.
• Karma Houdini:
  • "Marvelous Marvin" had a movie director firing a stuck-up feline actor, Marvin and replacing him with Tom. Marvin teams up with Jerry to sabotage Tom and get him fired. They succeed and the actor gets his job back, even though Tom did nothing wrong.
  • The babysitter in "Tom the Babysitter" who never receives any of punishment for constantly talking to her friend on the phone instead of doing her job.
  • Spike spends the entirety of "Chumpy Chums" bullying Tom and Jerry (who, keep in mind, are children) into behaving the way he wants them to, and receives no punishment for it (unless you count being forced to kiss Tom so that Tyke doesn't realize that he's a hypocrite who doesn't practise what he preaches).
  • The Witch from "Tom's Terror" is another example. See The Bad Guy Wins.
• Kitchen Sink Included: In Droopo: First Bloodhound, fugitive McWolf, disguised as a sheriff, chases Droopy and Dripple's jeep and begins to throw all kinds of objects from a helicopter. Dripple comments "Wow! He's throwing everything at us but the kitchen sink" as McWolf is about to throw one but changes his mind because the joke was too corny. ^note 
• Lighter and Softer: Basically Tom and Jerry with pulled punches. Well, it was The '90s, after all.
  • Lampshaded in one instance where it looks like McWolf is shooting at Droopy and Dripple only to reveal he's physically tossing bullets at them, bemoaning how stupid it looks when he's not allowed to use a gun.
• Love Makes You Crazy: One of the few things capable of making Droopy show any emotion is a kiss from Miss Vavoom.
• May–December Romance: In the segment "Dakota Droopy Returns", Droopy and Dripple are on a quest to rescue a beautiful young jungle princess, but they discover she has already been rescued by Grandpa Droopy and two have since gotten married. And the beautiful young princess is now Droopy and Dripple's new grandma.
• Monster of the Week: Aside from McWolf, the only recurring villain of the Droopy and Dripple shorts, there are a lot of one-short villains that don't ever make an appearance in later episodes ever again. (One exception is the Yolker, who appeared again in Droopy, Master Detective, but as a human in a chicken costume instead.)
• Musical Episode: "Rap Rat Is Where It's At" has Droopy, Dripple, and the titular antagonist rap for the entire short.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the short "Yo Ho Ho... Bub", when Miss Vavoom is introduced, her walk animation resembles that of Red in the ending of the Tex Avery cartoon "The Shooting of Dan McGoo".
  • "Droopo: First Bloodhound" has McWolf escape from a high-security prison just like in Dumb-Hounded, complete with the searchlight finding him and scaring him, but unlike the original short in which he walks up the wall, he lifts the wall upward and escapes underneath it.
  • The name of the short "Fraidy Cat" is a Call-Back to the 1942 Tom and Jerry short of the same name.
• Never Say "Die": A "Wanted!" Poster says Sheik McWolf is wanted "Alive or Otherwise".
• Pac Man Fever: "Monster Maze Zap Man" has an arcade that took its sounds from the Atari version of Donkey Kong.
• The Pen Is Mightier: In "Droopio and Juliet", McWolf once effortlessly parried Droopy's sword attacks with a quill pen, boasting, "The pen is mightier than the sword!" Droopy nonchalantly countered by chucking a water balloon at him.
• Perplexing Pearl Production: Invoked by McWolf in "Double 'O' Droopy" by using his brother, Shukky McWolf, to make lame jokes to his audience of clams. This in turn irritates the clams and makes them generate perfect-looking pearls quickly and immediately to fuel McWolf's plan to topple the global economy.
• Picnic Episode: One Spike and Tyke outing in "This Is No Picnic" has them try to have a picnic, but they get attacked by army ants that are trying to steal their food.
• Revival: Blast-Off Buzzard and Crazy Legs Snake, one of the recurring segments in CB Bears, are the main characters in two segments of the fourth and final season, "Destructive Construction" and "Abusement Park". Unlike their original appearances, they speak here.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: In "Gator Baiter", a wrestling gator is fed up of being humiliated by other wrestlers that can break the rules, so he decides to leave. Jerry helps him return to his swamp while avoiding his ex-manager and opponent AND in return protecting Jerry from Tom.
• Showdown at High Noon: In "Mutton for Punishment", Sidewinder McWolf challenges Dakota Droopy to a showdown after his gunslingers run away from the mere mention of Droopy's name. Further parodied by McWolf converting "high noon" to other American time zones.
• Singing Mountie: In "Pooches in Peril", Droopy and Dripple are RCMP officers. Wherever they go, they sing a theme song that includes the chorus "Mounties! The Mounties! Rah, rah, rah!"
• Smooch of Victory: Miss Vavoom kisses Droopy or Dripple in this fashion very often in their shorts.
• Spinoff Babies: It's not called "Tom and Jerry Kids" for nothing.
• Tempting Fate: Done three times in "High Speed Hounds" (and fell for all three times):

  "If I cheated, let a piano fall on me!"
  "What I meant to say was, may a safe fall on me!"
  "What I really meant was, if I cheated, may a house fall on me!"

• Title Theme Tune:

  It’s the Tom and Jerry Kids!
  Gotta be there where all the action is!
  Tom and Jerry Kids!
  Tom and Jerry Kids new show!

• Twin Switch:
  • In "Dakota Droopy & the Great Train Robbery" McWolf keeps on throwing Droopy and Dripple off a train but more of them keep showing up. It turns out Droopy's all identical family was aboard the train.
  • As a nod to Northwest Hounded Police, "Super Droop and Dripple Boy Meet the Yolker", "Foreign Legion Frenzy", and "Dirty Droopy" also end up showing an army of Droopy clones at the end.
• Universal-Adaptor Cast: The Tom & Jerry and Droopy shorts have a wide range of settings, such as space, the jungle, ancient Egypt and so on.
• Walk Into Camera Obstruction:
  • "Flippin' Fido" with Tom and a guard dog when the dog is first chases Tom along an aisle.
  • With Tom during the 2nd opening of the show after he runs through a fence chasing Jerry.
• "Wanted!" Poster: Played for laughs in "Foreign Legion Frenzy". Instead of the usual "Dead or Alive", it's "Alive or Otherwise"^note , with "Alive" written in big, red letters.
• Wild Take: Happens from time to time, especially in the Droopy shorts.
• World of Mammals: Mostly played straight in "Battered Up". The only human character present in this segment is Miss Vavoom and the umpire after McWolf was struck out.

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