Dicky Moe
| Dicky Moe | |
|---|---|
| Tom and Jerry series | |
|
Title card | |
| Directed by | Gene Deitch |
| Produced by | William L. Snyder |
| Story by |
Eli Bauer Gene Deitch |
| Voices by | Allen Swift |
| Music by | Stěpan Koniček |
| Animation by | Václav Bedřich |
| Studio | Rembrandt Films |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | July 20, 1962 |
| Color process | Metrocolor |
| Running time | 7:06 |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Calypso Cat |
| Followed by | The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit |
Dicky Moe is a Tom and Jerry animated short film, released on July 20, 1962. It was the eighth cartoon in the series to be directed by Gene Deitch and produced by William L. Snyder in Czechoslovakia. The plotline and title of the short is a parody of the book Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
Plot
In a 19th-century whaling harbor, the peg-legged captain of the Komquot is obsessed with catching the great white whale Dicky Moe to the point of drawing cuts of meat on Dicky Moe's picture, then eating the picture. His obsession frightens his crew so badly that they all desert the ship in fear, angering the captain for their cowardly behavior. Shortly afterward, the captain finds Tom searching for food in the harbor, knocks him out and takes him aboard. Tom believes at first that he is going on a cruise, but the captain soon puts him to work scrubbing the deck.
As Tom works, he sees Jerry set up a beach chair outside his hole. He grabs Jerry and scrubs away all his colors, leaving the mouse visible only as an outline. Jerry returns to his hole to get his colors back, switches Tom's water bucket for one filled with tar and tricks him into scrubbing the deck with it. Tom chases Jerry across the deck, only to get the entire bucket of tar dumped on his head; he briefly poses as the captain's shadow to avoid being spotted, then gets wiped clean when the captain throws a door open, smashing him into the wall.
Next Tom spots Jerry lounging in the rigging; he begins (or tries) to shake Jerry loose by undoing the knots. One of the heavy blocks swings loose and knocks Tom into a barrel of harpoons, leaving his nose stuck in one of them as the captain grabs it. Enraged, the captain pulls every which way and finally throws the harpoon for target practice, finally dislodging Tom. Jerry tricks Tom into stabbing his own tail with the harpoon. Tom sets a trap with a dangling anvil; Jerry comes, but spots the trap and switches Tom's bait (a piece of cheese) with a fish. Tom dives for the fish, but the anvil drops on his own head, sending Tom crashing through the ship's hull and into the ocean.
With the help of a rope thrown by Jerry, Tom climbs back on board just as the captain sights Dicky Moe and fires a harpoon gun at him. Tom realizes too late that he is holding the free end of the harpoon's rope and is yanked off the ship. As the whale swims off with Tom tied to him by the rope screaming "Help", the captain shouts for him to "come back with [his] whale!" In his hole, Jerry settles down with a book, scoffing at the situation.