Royal Cat Nap

Royal Cat Nap
Title Card
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Produced by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Story by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Starring	Francoise Brun-Cottan Daws Butler
Music by	Scott Bradley
Animation by	Carlo Vinci Lewis Marshall Kenneth Muse
Layouts by	Richard Bickenbach
Backgrounds by	Robert Gentle
Color process	Technicolor CinemaScope Perspecta
Production company	MGM Cartoons
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	March 7, 1958
Running time	6:45
Language	English French

Royal Cat Nap is the 111th one-reel animated Tom and Jerry cartoon which was released in 1958 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed and produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with music by Scott Bradley. The animation was credited to Carlo Vinci, Lewis Marshall and Kenneth Muse, with backgrounds by Robert Gentle and layouts by Richard Bickenbach. It was the last of four Mouseketeer shorts and also the only Mouseketeer short not produced by Fred Quimby, which were a send-up of the famous Three Musketeers novel and film(s), beginning with the Academy Award-winning short The Two Mouseketeers in 1952.

Plot

The king is sleeping peacefully in his bed until Mouseketeers Jerry and Nibbles sneak into his bedroom to help themselves to several leftover treats. Nibbles accidentally causes a grape to fly into the king's mouth. The king starts to suffocate, but Jerry causes the grape to be swallowed safely. The Mouseketeers decide to retreat, but Nibbles runs into a teacup and breaks it, waking up the king. Before he can apprehend the mice, the king ends up being stabbed in the nose by Jerry and angrily calls for Tom, who answers the summons moments later. The king tasks Tom with guarding his sleep, warning him not to be disturbed again or else he will have him executed.

After the king has gone back to sleep, Jerry and Nibbles, who have overheard the king's instructions, sneak back into the room and begin to play various pranks with Tom. First they throw down a number of plates and dishes, forcing Tom to catch and precariously balance them out of the castle. As he rushes back in, Jerry scatters tacks across his path, driving Tom into exiting the castle yet again to release his scream of pain unhindered. Next, he confronts Jerry but is stabbed in the nose, making him cover the king's ears to prevent him from hearing his scream. In order to forestall waking up the king, Tom plugs the monarch's ears with champagne corks before confronting Jerry when he makes a suit of armor do a tap-dance. However, Nibbles closes up the king's nose and mouth with clothespins, and the pent-up breath makes the corks blow out. Tom hurriedly plays Brahms's Lullaby on a violin, and the king falls asleep again.

Tom chases the mice outside, then locks all the doors, swallowing the key so that they cannot get back in. However, Jerry and Nibbles shoot an arrow from a crossbow through the keyhole into Tom's backside. Tom tries to hold in his scream of pain until he can get outside, but with no way to get out, Tom can only with a shrug resign himself for the king's wrath and yell inside the room, causing the king to jerk awake. The king promptly threatens Tom with immediate execution, but Nibbles saves Tom's life by singing Frère Jacques and thus sending the king back to sleep. Tom, Jerry and Nibbles tip-toe outside the room, shake hands together, and then start their fight. Nibbles concludes "C'est la guerre." ("That's war.") and immediately resumes the fight.

Availability

VHS

• Cats & Dogs

DVD

• Tom and Jerry's Greatest Chases, Vol. 5
• Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Vol. 3, Disc Two

External links

• Royal Cat Nap at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• Royal Cat Nap on IMDb