Ah, Sweet Mouse-Story of Life

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = Ah, Sweet Mouse-Story of Life
series = Tom and Jerry

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caption =
director = Chuck Jones
Maurice Noble
story_artist = Michael Maltese
Chuck Jones
animator = Ben Washam
Ken Harris
Don Towsley
Dick Thompson
Tom Ray
voice_actor = June Foray
Mel Blanc
musician = Eugene Poddany
producer = Chuck Jones
Les Goldman
studio = Sib Tower 12 Productions
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
release_date = flagicon|US 1965
color_process = Metrocolor
runtime = 6'
preceded_by = "The Unshrinkable Jerry Mouse"
followed_by = "Tom-ic Energy"
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0058887

"Ah, Sweet Mouse-Story of Life" is a 1965 cartoon directed and produced by Chuck Jones. The cartoon's title is a play-on-words of the play "Ah Sweet Mystery of Life", though the storyline (or lack of it) bears no resemblance.

Plot

Tom's pursuit of Jerry circles around a room and back to Jerry's mouse hole. Tom is moving so fast, he runs into the wall and turns into a four-legged stool. Tom attempts to cut off a 4x4 area of the wall with Jerry's mousehole in it in order to reach the mouse, but instead, the rest of the wall falls—on him.

Then Jerry is being chased by Tom in another direction, and suddenly a second Jerry zooms past. Tom is puzzled as six more Jerrys zoom past, and faces the direction they are coming from, angry. A ninth Jerry comes from the other direction, and pulls back Tom's eyelids.

Tom then chases Jerry outside into the air. Jerry breaks off before falling into space, but Tom fails. He sees the streets 50 stories below and grabs onto the drapes again, which brings him back inside but wraps him up with the drapes.

Tom and Jerry then both run into free-fall. Jerry grabs a question mark and catches a pipe. Tom grabs onto an exclamation point and then twists it into a hook shape when he sees Jerry safe, but too late—he slams into the ground shortly thereafter. Tom climbs a rain gutter, but falls and lands in a manhole (similarly to "Bad Day at Cat Rock") and screams.

Jerry discovers an air horn, which Jerry sounds behind Tom on a ledge. Tom is left chattering on a nearby pole. Next, Jerry retreats into a second rain gutter, but Tom lassos him using a fish hook, and gives Jerry a taste of his own medicine. To get revenge, as Tom is laughing, Jerry dreams up some knives and throws them at Tom. Tom runs to the end of the convert|500|ft|m|sing=on-high sidewalk and narrowly avoids all ten knives. Tom then becomes stuck in the down pipe of the second rain gutter, with his head and front legs at the bottom and his tail and hind legs at the top, while trying to chase Jerry through it. Jerry suggests using the air horn to "scare" Tom's hind legs and tail down the pipe so Tom can be free. After this, the two shake hands, and the chase then recommences. As Tom chases Jerry around a corner at the end of the cartoon, the audience can see that Tom's midsection is now several meters long.