Muscle Beach Tom

Muscle Beach Tom
Tom and Jerry series
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Produced by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Story by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Music by	Scott Bradley
Animation by	Lewis Marshall Kenneth Muse Ed Barge Irvin Spence
Layouts by	Richard Bickenbach
Backgrounds by	Robert Gentle
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	September 7, 1956
Color process	Technicolor CinemaScope
Running time	6' 45"
Language	English
Preceded by	Busy Buddies
Followed by	Down Beat Bear

Muscle Beach Tom is the 101st one-reel animated Tom and Jerry short, created in 1956, directed and produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The cartoon was animated by Lewis Marshall, Kenneth Muse, Ed Barge, and Irven Spence (erroneously credited as Irvin Spence), with backgrounds by Robert Gentle and layouts by Richard Bickenbach. The cartoon's music was composed by Scott Bradley. It was released on September 7, 1956 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Plot

It is a busy day at Muscle Beach; Jerry sunbathes while several cats are working out with weights. Tom and his girlfriend arrive and Tom dumps their beach equipment on top of Jerry. Jerry crawls out from the pile and moves his beach towel further down the beach, but Tom happens to pick where Jerry is lying to plant his beach umbrella. When Jerry digs himself from out of the sand, Tom has started carelessly throwing garbage his way. Jerry angrily marches up to Tom and slaps him with a banana peel and is rewarded with being filled up with helium from a balloon and let go to rocket into the distance.

Tom is fighting Butch to get the heart of the female cat.

Tom turns back to his girlfriend, but she is now paying attention to Butch, who is impressing her with awesome displays of weightlifting. Tom confronts Butch, but Butch brushes him off. Tom tries to confront Butch again, but Jerry interferes, leaving Tom relatively crabby.

Jerry struggles with his "weights".

Still determined to win his girl back, Tom engages Butch in games of one-upmanship which ultimately prove futile. In a last-ditch effort, Tom stuffs his bathing suit with helium balloons to make it look like he is heavily muscled. The balloons make Tom float over the ground, so he ties an anchor around his waist to hold himself down. Tom returns to where Butch is showing off for his girlfriend and vanquishes his rival with a well-place swing of the anchor.

Tom flexes his "muscles" for his girl but is annoyed by the sound of Jerry eating noisily nearby. Tom silences Jerry, who exacts his revenge by untying the anchor of Tom's waist. Tom has to hold onto his beach umbrella to keep from floating away, so Jerry inflates Tom's suit like a balloon with a helium canister, and then pricks him with a safety pin, causing Tom to spin in the air and float away into the sky. Jerry attempts to impress Tom's girlfriend by lifting a barbell made with two tomatoes, but the weight is too much for him; like Tom in his earlier attempt to impress his girlfriend, Jerry ends up flattened between the weights.