Switchin' Kitten

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = Switchin' Kitten
series = Tom and Jerry

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caption = The title card of "Switchin' Kitten"
director = Gene Deitch
story_artist = Gene Deitch
Eli Bauer
animator = Vaclav Bedrich
voice_actor =
musician = Steven Konichek
producer = William L. Snyder
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
release_date = September 7, 1961
color_process = Metrocolor
runtime = 9 min
movie_language = English
preceded_by = Tot Watchers (final "Tom and Jerry" cartoon produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera)
followed_by = Down and Outing

Switchin' Kitten is a Tom and Jerry cartoon from 1960, and the first of thirteen to be directed by Gene Deitch and his team of animators in Czechoslovakia. It was also the first cartoon to be filmed in Metrocolor as opposed to Technicolor.

Owing to its status as the first Tom and Jerry short (in fact, the first animated short of any kind) to be produced by Deitch's newly formed team, it suffers from a number of technical glitches, perhaps moreso than any other short in the entire Tom and Jerry series. These glitches include characters going out of focus during a shot, frames being incorrectly exposed, characters and objects changing positions between shots, misplaced sound effects and some missing animation elements. Owing to the team's meagre budget, they were never able to correct any errors that cropped up, and could only try to avoid duplicating them in future shorts.

Plot

During a storm, Tom is trying to find a place to stay. In the meantime, Jerry is assisting a mad scientist in a castle. They take a ginger cat, and strap him to a table next to a dog that is strapped to another table. The mad scientist and Jerry push a number of buttons and controls to switch the brains of the cat and dog, that is, the cat now has a dog's brain and vice versa. The mad scientist gives the "cat" to Jerry as a companion. While they are sleeping, Tom approaches the castle, noticing Jerry. The cat (with dog-brain) growls and threatens him. Tom tries to convince the cat that it is a cat, but fails. Over the next few minutes, Tom's efforts to catch Jerry are thwarted by the other cat. As Tom runs off in fright, he comes into contact with other animals that the mad scientist has experimented on, including a chirping elephant, a chicken that baas like a lamb, a mooing cuckoo, the dog who's brain with switched with the cat, and Jerry, who roars rather like the MGM lion, Leo. This scares Tom and he runs away from the castle while Jerry winks at the camera as the cartoon closes.

Trivia

* Jerry was roaring like Leo the MGM lion once he went into his Ars Gratia Artis mousehole.
* The MGM logo has no music in it.