The Cat Concerto c.1947 : Hanna / Barbera Oscar Winning Cartoon

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were, like their most famous creation, a match made in animation heaven. In Leonard Maltin’s book Of Mice and Magic, the film historian described how the two complemented each other: “Barbera’s forte was gag comedy. Hanna aspired to be a director and possessed a keen sense of timing.” Hanna was the musical one (and would later write The Flintstones theme), and Barbera’s talent was drawing “like hell” (his words). With their Tom and Jerry shorts, their strengths always rose to the occasion, and the collaborators worked almost exclusively on the two natural enemies for 15 years after their debut short, Puss Gets the Boot.

The Cat Concerto is one of both duos’ zeniths of situation, timing, and gag-based comedy. Tom is a concert pianist animated with a pompous affectation (modeled on the short’s music supervisor, Scott Bradley), and Jerry is a rascal inside the piano looking to ruin Tom’s big performance of Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. What unfolds is a battle of wits built around Bradley’s dynamite explosion of a score. The Tom and Jerry cartoons were created with the highest craft at MGM, racking up numerous Academy Award nominations and wins in the process, and the escalating violence of the premise was lightning in a bottle for the studio.

Tom and Jerry’s influence has stretched across the decades, from its ubiquity on television over the years to absurdly vicious and bloody spoofs like The Simpsons’ Itchy and Scratchy cartoons. Like Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry shorts solidified a type of animated violence that feels distinctly American.

https://www.vulture.com/article/most-influential-best-scenes-animation-history.html