A moment after a bottle of white shoe polish pours on Jerry, Tom hears on the radio that a white mouse, having swallowed an explosive, has escaped from an experimental laboratory and that slightest jar of the mouse could cause it to explode and blow up the entire city. It is then that Tom notices now-white Jerry and concludes it's the escapee.
Direction
Hanna-Barbera timing is surgical perfection.
Sound
Radio voice sells the absurd premise hard.
Practical Effects
Hand-drawn panic faces hit different.
Director
William Hanna
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This short satirizes Cold War atomic anxiety—escaping lab animals and city-destroying threats mirrored real 1950s nuclear fears.
Paul Frees voiced the radio announcer; he later became the iconic voice of The Haunted Mansion's Ghost Host.
US
