Tom and Jerry: The Movie is a 1992 American animated musical comedy film based on the characters Tom and Jerry created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. It was produced and directed by Phil Roman, with a screenplay written by Dennis Marks, who also scripted some episodes of the then-airing TV series Tom & Jerry Kids. It features original songs written by Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse and a score also composed by Mancini. The film stars the voices of Richard Kind, Dana Hill, Anndi McAfee, Tony Jay, Rip Taylor, Henry Gibson, Michael Bell, Ed Gilbert, David L. Lander, Howard Morris, and Charlotte Rae.
It is the very first theatrical feature-length animated film featuring the titular characters, as well as the first piece of theatrically released Tom and Jerry media in 25 years. Although largely mute in the original cartoons, Tom and Jerry are given extensive spoken dialogue for the only time to date. Joseph Barbera, co-founder of Hanna-Barbera Productions and co-creator of the characters, served as the film's creative consultant. The movie tells the story about an eight-year-old girl named Robyn Starling, who enlists Tom and Jerry's help to escape from her evil legal guardian and reunite with her lost father.
Following its premiere in Germany on October 1, 1992, Tom and Jerry: The Movie was released theatrically in the United States on July 30, 1993, by Miramax Films, which was a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company at the time. The film grossed $3.6 million and received negative reviews.
Plot A cat named Tom and his owners move to a new house, but he is distracted by his pursuit of a mouse named Jerry and is left behind by the moving van. Tom chases the van, but is attacked by a bulldog and forced to hide in the empty house.
The next morning, the house is demolished by a wrecking ball, leaving Tom and Jerry homeless and wandering the streets until they meet a stray dog named Puggsy and his flea companion, Frankie. Upon introducing themselves, Tom and Jerry, discovering they can both speak, are persuaded to befriend each other to survive, but when Jerry accepts to be Tom's friend, Tom disagrees, leaving Jerry to do the same. While Tom and Jerry search for food, Puggsy and Frankie are captured by dogcatchers, and when Tom is confronted by a hostile group of singing alley cats, Jerry traps them in a sewer.
Tom and Jerry soon meet Robyn Starling, a young runaway girl whose widowed father was supposedly killed in an avalanche during an expedition in Tibet. Robyn and her family's fortune were put in the custody of her wicked guardian "Aunt" Pristine Figg and her lawyer Lickboot, who see Robyn only as a means to keep their obtained wealth, but will lose it if Robyn's father has survived. A police officer finds and brings Robyn, Tom, and Jerry back to her home.
Figg reluctantly allows Tom and Jerry to stay, but the pair's food fight with Figg's obese skateboard-riding dachshund Ferdinand and their discovery of a telegram confirming the survival of Robyn's father convinces Figg to send them to sadistic animal trafficker Dr. Applecheek. His public persona as a kind animal lover allows Figg to falsely assure Robyn, and she locks her in the attic to prevent her from learning of her father's survival.
Tom and Jerry reunite with Puggsy and Frankie, who suggest using a nearby control panel to release the cages, freeing all the captured animals. Tom and Jerry return to Robyn and inform her of her father's survival. The three set out on a raft to find Robyn's father, but the raft is struck and split by a ship and separates the group. Meanwhile, in Tibet, Robyn's father is alerted of his daughter's situation and flies back to America to find her.
The next day, Figg and Lickboot place a bogus $1 million bounty on Robyn that they have no intent on paying. Robyn is found and hosted by amusement park manager Captain Kiddie and his parrot puppet Squawk. Kiddie and Squawk are initially accommodating to Robyn until they see Figg's bounty on a milk carton, whereupon they detain Robyn on a Ferris wheel and contact Figg. Applecheek and his dogcatchers also learn of the bounty and attempt to collect it before Figg's arrival. Tom and Jerry manage to find and rescue Robyn, trap the dogcatchers and escape in a paddle steamer with Figg, Lickboot, Ferdinand, Kiddie and Squawk, and Applecheek in hot pursuit. Applecheek falls from a bridge and sinks Kiddie and Squawk's dinghy, while Figg, Lickboot and Ferdinand head to "Robyn's Nest" – a small cabin where Robyn and her father spent their summers – predicting that she will hide there.
At the cabin, Robyn is ambushed by Figg, Lickboot and Ferdinand; Lickboot locks Tom and Jerry outside. Robyn is offended that Figg has lied to her and refuses to return to her, but an oil lamp is knocked over and starts a fire. While Figg, Lickboot, and Ferdinand attempt to escape, Tom and Jerry save Robyn and take refuge on the roof. Figg and Lickboot manage to vacate the cabin, but stumble on Ferdinand's skateboard and crash onto the paddle steamer, which sails out of control down the river. Robyn's father arrives by helicopter to rescue her while Tom and Jerry barely manage to survive the cabin's collapse.
Sometime later, Robyn's father lets Tom and Jerry begin a new life in Robyn's luxurious villa and return to their old habits as rivals.
Voice cast Richard Kind as Tom, a bicolor cat Dana Hill as Jerry, a house mouse Anndi McAfee as Robyn Starling Charlotte Rae as Aunt Pristine Figg Tony Jay as Lickboot Michael Bell as: Ferdinand Straycatcher #1 Henry Gibson as Dr. Applecheek Ed Gilbert as: Puggsy Mr. Starling David Lander as Frankie da Flea Rip Taylor as Captain Kiddie Howard Morris as Squawk Sydney Lassick as Straycatcher #2 Don Messick as Droopy Tino Insana as a police officer B. J. Ward as Tom's Owner Greg Burson as Moving Man Raymond McLeod as: Bulldog Alleycat #1 Mitchell D. Moore as Alleycat #2 Scott Wojahn as Alleycat #3
Production Development There were numerous attempts to make a Tom and Jerry feature film, primarily in the 1970s after the successful reruns of the original cartoons and the airings of the new TV animated versions (although there have been debatable possibilities of making attempts in the golden age of cartoons). Chuck Jones, who previously worked on his take on the characters in his studio MGM Animation/Visual Arts, wanted to make a Tom and Jerry film but later dropped the idea due to not finding a suitable script to work with.
In December 1978, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced plans to adapt Tom and Jerry into a live-action feature film. By June 1980, writer David Newman and producer Martin Erlichman were reportedly attached to the project with Dustin Hoffman and Chevy Chase reportedly in consideration to voice the characters possibly suggesting that the film would be animated. By June 1987, it was reported that the film was still in active development with MGM anticipating a $6 to 7 million production.
The later idea to make a Tom and Jerry film came about from Joseph Barbera who remained an executive consultant on the film. Due to the large amount of his career he had spent on Tom and Jerry shorts and the impact they had left he felt it was a shame to see such a great property lying unused. Barbera eventually learned that Turner Entertainment Co. had acquired the rights to Tom and Jerry after briefly acquiring the MGM/UA Entertainment Company and then selling the physical production assets, lot, and the United Artists portion back to previous owner Kirk Kerkorian while retaining the film negatives of their film catalogue. Barbera met with then Turner Vice President Roger Mayer with Barbera telling off his involvement in the creation of Tom and Jerry and suggesting the possibility of doing either a television special or Feature film with the characters, with Barbera hoping for the latter. After the meeting concluded with Mayer seemingly uninterested in a Tom and Jerry project, Barbera received a call from Mayer saying Turner was interested and forwarded a $75,000 advance to develop a script, artwork, and partial storyboard for the project. Sometime between August 1987 and 1988, Barbera then presented the pitch to Ted Turner who liked the pitch and agreed to finance half the project with Hanna-Barbera Productions. Barbera managed to set up a meeting with friend and then 20th Century Fox head Joe Roth and President of Productions Roger Birnbaum and presented the same pitch that had impressed Ted Turner with the two impressed and the remaining half of support for the film sealed. However, momentum of the film was curtailed when Hanna-Barbera's parent company Taft Broadcasting experienced financial difficulties from a decrease in television revenues prompting the sale of Hanna-Barbera to Great American Broadcasting. Due to concerns of Great American about the advanced ages of Barbera and William Hanna, David Kirschner was hired to work with the two in running the studio and one of Kirschner's first actions was telling Barbera he didn't want to do a Tom and Jerry movie despite the pitch having already been sold and backing obtained. Barbera tried to find a way to keep the project going, but Kirschner had already met with Barry Diller at Fox and convinced them to drop Tom and Jerry in favor of one of his own projects, that being Once Upon a Forest, though Barbera bore Kirschner no ill will do to it being the nature of the business.
By February 1990, it was reported that the film had been put on hold due to story issues stemming from the muteness of the titular characters causing story problems. Turner ended up putting the project Turnaround while Hanna-Barbera went through a re-evaluation and alternative partnership was struct with Germany based company Media Special International and animation company Film Roman. Turner Entertainment Co. would eventually acquire Hanna-Barbera and all its assorted properties in December 1991, and increased the budget for the Tom and Jerry movie to $15 million. According to Barbera, Turner was still supportive of the project even after Fox dropped out and on Barbera's recommendation Phil Roman of Film Roman as Barbera had worked with him before. Barbera met with Michael Jackson as Jackson was an avid cartoon fan and wanted to discuss a potential project they could work on with Barbera hopeful that Jackson could contribute to the soundtrack for the film. However, Great American Communications sent a memo saying they had no interest in working with Michael Jackson and nothing further came of the idea.
In the early development of the script by Dennis Marks, some of its dialogue and actions in other scenes, including the main characters talking throughout at the beginning before encountering Puggsy and Frankie, had to be taken out. Originally, a comedic sequence before the further events of the duo talking was drafted as a prologue and homage to the original cartoons before the credits, but it was later decided to drop the idea and it was partially replaced by the animated slapstick scenes during the credits for the sake of moving forward with the story.