Thoughts on the Ending of Tom and Jerry

My childhood was spent playing in the mud after a storm, reading fairy tales and fantasy, listening to Abba and watching Tom and Jerry or The Roadrunner Show. Pokemon came much later, in my pre teen years.

I want to talk about Tom and Jerry today. I want to tell you how a child's heart was captured by a cat chasing a mouse about a house ad infinitum. Tom and Jerry's antics, sometimes with a bird or a duck filled the child with so much happiness that he thought he would burst. I remember the child chortling as Tom slammed headfirst into a door while Jerry hid in the nearby mouse hole. I remember the first time I laid eyes on them and I remember being in my twenties and laughing fondly at the memories Tom and Jerry had given to me.

All of these memories are the reason why I was shocked to learn how the series ended. The wise Internet said that Tom and Jerry both threw themselves in front of a train. I couldn't believe that, I wouldn't believe that. But then my curiosity got the better of me and I logged on to the net and Googled Tom and Jerry Final Episode and (SPOILER ALERT) found out that it was true-that Tom and Jerry do indeed commit suicide by sitting on train tracks while we hear the whistle of an oncoming train as the scene fades to the credits.

I would like to pause here and ask a very simple one word question to the creators of Tom and Jerry; and that question is- Why?

Why would you end a children's cartoon in such a macabre way? There was no need for this. You could have just gone on giving us the same of what we loved. A cat and a mouse chasing each other around a house sufficed to fill millions of small hearts with joy. Why take that joy, sucker punch it and leave a gaping hole where it was?

Why kill Tom and Jerry and that too for such a stupid reason?

The last episode shows Tom falling for a cat and having a rival who stays one step ahead of him. If tom buys a bottle of perfume, his rival buys her a truck full of perfume. We see Tom squander his savings and his life insurance and we see him take on debt in the lower millions just to please some randomly introduced cat. She isn't even fleshed out like the other characters in the series. She's a one hit wonder. Meanwhile, Jerry narrates all this in a sad voice, filled with concern over Tom. But the producers and creators were not satisfied with creating such a dark episode as the finale of an iconic children's story. They took it to the next level by showing Jerry's girlfriend cheating on him with another mouse.

Let me pause here one more time and ask another question- Why make a children's cartoon so adult? Which parents would allow their children to watch such an episode? What were you guys even thinking? Scratch that-what drugs were you on when you made this episode? Is this how we are supposed to see Tom and Jerry end? Couldn't you have had the decency to just show them chasing each other in their middle age and left it at that?

Indecent. That is what sums up my feelings in a nutshell. I find this episode to be indecent and it has hurt me to watch it. I do not know why you took such a wonderful series and perverted it to this.

 I just feel very sad. The child in me is crying.

The Bilge Master