Double or Nuttin' is the second entry in the DePatie-Freleng Tom and Jerry cartoons, released on December 29, 1968. The title is a play on the gamble phrase, "Double or nothing".
Synopsis[]
Tom is chasing Jerry in a house backyard. Tom eventually becomes exhausted from chasing Jerry and leans against a nut tree in the yard, where Jerry pops out from a hole in there and offers the cat a water bottle. Tom, however, fails to realize his enemy until he has drunken half of the water, and the chase recommences. Jerry then tricks Tom into running into the tree by jumping out of the way just as Tom charges towards him, causing the nuts on the tree to fall and pile on Tom.
Tom emerges from the pile, but begins to hallucinate Jerry as a nut and chases him while making some little squirrel sounds. Jerry takes shelter in the house, realizes his mistake, and tries to figure out why Tom is acting like a squirrel. Searching through a "Diseases" book, he finds "Amnesia". Below the title of the disease he reads the following description:
It is a condition caused by a whack on the head. The cure to this condition is another whack on the head.
Determined to restore his nemesis, Jerry goes back outside to see the squirrel-brained Tom munching on the nuts that fell from the tree earlier. Wielding a heavy anvil, he goes up to the top of the tree and drops the anvil on Tom. However, the cat crawls away to find more nuts, completely unaware of the falling anvil leaving it to dig into the ground.
Refusing to give up, Jerry sets up a Wile E. Coyote-esque trap, arranged like this:
- One end of a rope hangs up a bowling ball while hanging on a tree branch.
- The other rope end is tied to a large nail pinned slightly into the grass.
- Nuts are placed below the bowling ball as bait.
Tom sees the nuts and proceeds to eat them. Jerry hears munching sounds and severs the rope-end tied to the nail. The trap succeeds and the ball lands on Tom's head, restoring his memory. Unfortunately, this doesn't last long; Tom accidentally slips on the bowling ball trying to run to Jerry and falls flat on his back, the bowling ball landing on his face returning his squirrel-amnesia.
Tom sees Jerry as a nut again and runs after him with a hungry look in his eyes. Jerry manages to lead Tom inside the house and traps him in the cellar, where his loud door bang causes all the furniture inside to pile on Tom. Jerry opens the door revealing Tom, back to his normal state permanently. An angry and irked Tom slowly walks to Jerry, who steps away and unintentionally knocks over a table, making the fruit basket drop it's contents onto the mouse. Jerry frees himself from the pile of fruits, but now has amnesia and is acting like a cat! He snuggles up to his rival's foot and purrs, and Tom gives an irritated sigh as the cartoon ends.
Trivia[]
- The cartoon is a remake of the 1951 Hanna-Barbera short, Nit-Witty Kitty.