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A Texas businesswoman saved Tom and Jerry
Her name was Besa Short and she loved short films!
It's hard to imagine that Tom and Jerry might have been lost to cartoon history as one-off characters, but that is exactly what almost happened to them, if not for one woman's letter begging MGM to bring the cat and mouse back to theaters.
Picture it, the year was 1940: Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were young animators trying to create a cartoon together, and their cat-and-mouse pitch was rejected over and over until finally, MGM relented and let them make the cartoon. That cartoon was Puss Gets the Boot, which was later nominated for an Academy Award.
In an interview with the Asbury Park Press, Hanna recalled, "We had this cat-and-mouse idea, and made one. It was looked at and we were told to not make anymore. They felt the cat and the mouse was good for just one (cartoon), period." Hanna and Barbera went off and co-directed other cartoons, like Gallopin' Gals and Officer Pooch. For a moment, it seemed that Tom and Jerry was over.
Eventually, Puss Gets the Boot ended up in the Texas theatrical circuit, where a woman named Besa Short was responsible for deciding which movies were featured in over 175 movie theaters in the southwest region. Short's appreciation for short films began during the Great Depression, when theaters were struggling to attract customers with feature films and double features. She became the manager for the Short Subjects Department for Interstate Theaters and used her position to entice moviegoers with specials featuring multiple short subject films instead of features, or a feature with a few accompanying shorts. In addition to selecting the shorts for the theaters' programming, Short also managed the publicity by planning special theater events and writing weekly bulletins.
Short also knew the power of cartoons, often pairing a Looney Tunes or Disney cartoon as light entertainment after a more serious feature film. She used the entertainment factor and name power of popular cartoons to "garnish" a documentary or obscure feature that otherwise might have gone unwatched. Walt Disney even credited her for her work in promoting Disney cartoons and helping make them a nationwide success.
By 1946, Short was running a nationally recognized department that every theater company was trying to replicate, and the Academy of Motion Pictures recognized her as a major authority and expert on short films. When she spoke, the film world listened.
So, after Hanna and Barbera were told to stop making Tom and Jerry cartoons, Short aired Puss Gets the Boot at her theaters. And she continued airing it, waiting and hoping for another addition to the cat and mouse series, and...nothing arrived. Short wrote a letter to MGM, telling them how much audiences loved the short and asking, "When are you going to make some more of those delightful cat and mouse stories?"
Producer Fred Quimby then went to Hanna and Barbera with the approval to make more Tom and Jerry cartoons, and Hanna recalled: "We started making them then, and I think that was practically the only thing we did for the next 20 years."
