Tom & Jerry's Reception
In January 2009, IGN named Tom and Jerry as the 66th best in the Top 100 Animated TV Shows. In an interview found on the DVD releases, several MADtv cast members stated that Tom and Jerry is one of their biggest influences for slapstick comedy.
Controversy
Like a number of other animated cartoons in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, Tom and Jerry was not considered politically correct in later years.
Many shorts featured racial stereotypes, such as characters shown in blackface following an explosion, which are subsequently cut when shown on television today,
although The Yankee Doodle Mouse blackface gag as well as another blackface gag at the end of Safety Second, and a short scene from The Dog House remain intact,
depending on the country. The black maid, Mammy Two Shoes, is often considered a racist stereotype because she is depicted as a poor black woman who has a rodent problem.
Her voice was redubbed by Turner in the mid-1990s in hopes of making the character sound less stereotypical; the resulting accent sounded more Irish.
One cartoon in particular, His Mouse Friday, is often completely out of television rotation due to the cannibals being seen as racist stereotypes.
If shown, the cannibals' dialogue is edited out, although their mouths can be seen moving.
In 2006, United Kingdom channel Boomerang made plans to edit Tom and Jerry cartoons being aired in the UK where the characters were seen to be smoking in a manner that was "condoned, acceptable or glamorised."
This followed a complaint from a viewer that the cartoons were not appropriate for younger viewers, and a subsequent investigation by UK media watchdog OFCOM.
It has also taken the U.S. approach by editing out blackface gags, though this seems to be random as not all scenes of this type are cut.
Cultural influences
Throughout the years, the term and title Tom and Jerry became practically synonymous with never-ending rivalry, as much as the related "cat and mouse fight" metaphor has. Yet in Tom and Jerry it wasn't the more powerful (Tom) that usually came out on top. Palestinian President Yassar Arafat noted this fact and loved the cartoon show because "the little guy--the mouse and not the cat--always won" Author Steven Millhauser wrote a short story called Cat 'n' Mouse which pits the duo against one another as antagonist and protagonist in literary form. Millhauser allows his reader access to the thoughts and emotions of the two characters in a way that wasn't done in the cartoon.
In popular culture
The Simpsons characters, Itchy & Scratchy, the featured cartoon on the Krusty the Clown Show, are spoofs of Tom and Jerry – a "cartoon within a cartoon."
The cartoon violence of Tom and Jerry is parodied and intensified, as Itchy (the mouse) dispatches Scratchy in a variety of gratuitous, gory methods.
In another episode, "Krusty Gets Kancelled", the short cartoon "Worker and Parasite", is a reference to the Eastern European Tom and Jerry cartoons directed by Gene Deitch.
To produce the animation, director David Silverman photocopied several drawings and made the animation very jerky.
In 1945, Jerry made an appearance in the live-action MGM musical feature film Anchors Aweigh, in which, through the use of special effects, he performs a dance routine with Gene Kelly.
In this sequence, Gene Kelly is telling a class of school kids a fictional tale of how he earned his Medal of Honor:
Jerry is the king of a magical world populated with cartoon animals, whom he has forbidden to dance as he himself does not know how.
Gene Kelly's character then comes along and guides Jerry through an elaborate dance routine, resulting in Jerry awarding him with a medal. Jerry speaks and sings in this short film; his voice is performed by Sara Berner.
Tom has a cameo in the sequence as one of Jerry's servants. This sequence was later lifted and reanimated frame-for-frame in an episode of Family Guy, where Jerry was replaced with Stewie.
Both Tom and Jerry appear with Esther Williams in a dream sequence in another big-screen musical, Dangerous When Wet.
In the film, Tom and Jerry are chasing each other underwater, when they run into Esther Williams, with whom they perform an extended synchronized swimming routine.
Tom and Jerry have to save Williams from a lecherous octopus, who tries to lure and woo her into his (many) arms.
In 1988, the duo were lined up to appear in the Oscar-winning Touchstone/Amblin Entertainment film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a homage to classic American animation, but their inclusion in the film was scrapped due to legal complications.
Johnny Knoxville from Jackass has stated that watching Tom and Jerry inspired many of the stunts in the movies.