Mouse Cleaning (1948)

• 77%
• 1948
• Animation
• Comedy
• William Hanna
• Joseph Barbera

Mammy has just finished cleaning the whole house. Tom, meanwhile, has just chased Jerry through a mud puddle and into the house. Mammy stops him and makes him clean up the mess. She goes out shopping, and threatens Tom that if there's any mess when she gets back, he's out. Jerry hears this, and you know where it's going from there. First, a few scatterings of ashes from the ashtray. Tom throws a tomato, which hits the wall; as he's cleaning, Jerry empties a fountain pen into the water bucket. He then aims it at Tom, but it's empty; Tom fires the pen at the curtains, but for him, it works. A lightning wash-and-iron session, and the drapes are fine again. Now, some acrobatics from Jerry: he juggles lots of eggs, then throws them; Tom catches and juggles them himself, but Jerry has also started spinning a pie plate on a fork. Tom manages to take that over, too, but then Jerry pulls the rug out (literally). Tom catches the eggs in a carton, but the pie hits him. An exhausted Tom falls asleep. Jerry inks the bottoms of his feet with a stamp pad, then gets Tom to chase him. Another whirlwind cleanup session, hastened by the approaching figure of a grocery-laden Mammy. But Jerry's got one more surprise for Tom: a load of coal is being delivered, and he moves the ramp to the living room, where the coal engulfs Mammy. Tom runs down the street as Mammy throws coal; he thinks he's safely out of range when he taunts her, but he's wrong once more.