Tom And Jerry Shows — Not What You Think
Tom and Jerry plays originated in London, but they were brought to New York on 3 March 1823. The original play was called Tom and Jerry, or, Life in London and the play was by Moncrieff (Bordman 8). More specifically, the author was William Moncrief. The original story was by Pierce Egan in a novel that he entitled Life in London (Author).
The plot of the play is that Jerry Hawthorn, who is from the country, goes to London to visit Corinthian Tom. Along with Bob Logic, they visit London’s high spots. Afterwards, they become involved in a street fight and get hauled off to court. After that, they lose all of their money in a gambling house. Tom and Jerry are then saved by their girlfriends as Jerry’s girlfriend Sue comes to take him back home to the country and Kate helps to restore Tom’s fortune and then they get married (Bordman 8).
The three character in the story were loosely based on the three brothers, Isaac Richard and George Cruickshank [sic] that first collaborated on the illustration for Egan’s book and Egan himself. Part of the popularity of Life in London is that it portrayed the contrasts between the rich and the poor of London (Author). Another reason that it was popular, was that even though Egan claimed to Eschew slang, he used many of the popular words and phrases of the day (Farina 150).
The stage adaptation was a success and this was confirmed by the facts that it was a play that was repeated frequently for the season and a band of Negro players quickly adopted the story for a performance. The play, since it was quickly put together, allowed for the insertion and deletion of stage effects at will for each performance and the scenes rapidly changed as well. Afterwards a burlesque called The Death of Life in London; or, Tom and Jerry’s Funeral was produced in 1824 (Bordman 8).
There is no evidence that Tom and Jerry has connections to the Aesop’s fable The City Mouse and the Country Mouse, but there are undoubtedly similarities in how somebody from the country goes to the city and gets in trouble. The differences are in how they return. The Country Mouse decides to return on his own (Aesop’s), but Tom has to be brought back to the country by his girlfriend, Sue (Bordman 8). Then, of course, there is the famous cat and mouse duo with the same names, although there is no evidence that they are in anyway related to Egan’s or Moncrieff’s characters. However, the characters that Egan created did cause the phrase “Tom and Jerry” to be proverbial for young men causing disorder and there is no doubt that this is what the cat and mouse duo do (Broadside). There is even an episode of the cat and mouse duo called Mouse in Manhattan that closely resembles both the Aesop’s fable and the plot of both Egan’s novel and Moncrieff’s play.
Works Cited
Bordman, Gerald Martin. American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. Fourth ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.
Farina, Jonathan. “Flash Romanticism: The Currency of Urban Knowledge in Tom & Jerry.” Wordsworth Circle 41.3 (2010): 150. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 May 2016.
“Tom and Jerry: Mouse in Manhattan.” TV.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2016.
“Broadside on ‘Life in London: Or, the Sprees of Tom and Jerry’” The British Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2016.
“Aesop’s Fables.” The City Mouse and the Country Mouse. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2016. <http://www.storyit.com/Classics/Stories/citycountrymouse.htm>.
Author, The Gentle. “Tom & Jerry’s Life in London.” Spitalfields Life RSS. N.p., 28 Mar. 2012. Web. 11 May 2016.
