Tom & Jerry were nominated for an Academy Award for 1951's "Jerry's Cousin". Unfortunately, they lost out to UPA's Gerald McBoing-Boing.
Jerry sends for his street tough cousin, Muscles (voiced by Paul Frees), to help him when Tom is getting a little too hot under the collar. In effect, Bill Hanna & Joe Barbera had introduced MGM's answer to Mighty Mouse, except that Muscles doesn't seem to ever be happy. Cats fear him, and soon, Tom learns that important lesson.
Frees' only other work for MGM was narrating Tex Avery's "_______ of Tomorrow" series, insofar as I know.
Rating: A+.
2 comments:
Didn't realize this was Paul Frees as Muscles!
Always loved this toon - an old premise but still funny! Love how the cats are scrambling to get out of Muscles' way!
I'd heard of Gerald McBoingboing but it couldn't have been better than this toon!
This was on Da Boom last night. As soon as I heard Muscles talk, I suspected it was Frees doing an Orson Welles mimic of some kind. A check of Wikipedia after I went online showed I was right about Frees doing this gig.
It's just too bad Muscles wasn't spun off into his own series of shorts. MGM blew it with this guy.
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