The Tao of "Tom and Jerry"

Long before “The Wonder Pets” used teamwork ...

DJ Lance taught us to "Jumpy Jump Jump" on “Yo Gabba Gabba”... and “Spongebob's" pet snail Gary slithered his way through Bikini Bottom...…Long before Papa Smurf called to order a meeting under the Great Oak and Oscar told Maria to “Buzz off” on “Sesame Street”…Long before Mr. Rogers changed into something more comfortable and even before Morgan Freeman and Bill Cosby got their big breaks on “The Electric Company,” there was the powerhouse duo of “Tom and Jerry.”


Being the Millennium Mom that I am, I had quickly abolished anything on television lacking educational value. I thought I was being progressive. I thought I was doing the right thing, just like all the other lemmings moms were doing. But when M, at the tender age of two, informed me that the star from his shape-sorter was actually a 10-sided decagon; and V brought me a piece of paper with no less than 5 well-written, correctly spelled words, in decent penmanship (for a 3 year old…) I decided I was just being BORING! I had bucked the “junk” TV long enough. Besides, I KNEW that Big Daddy was slipping in “Wacky Races” whenever I looked the other way. It was time to get “old school.” All it took was one episode. They were hooked, nay, ADDICTED to the clumsy, plotting tom cat and his brown rodent foil.
I really don’t mind “Tom and Jerry,” per se, which is NOT to say that I approve to violence, bad behavior or destruction of property…oh, and if I have to see Tom in “blackface” one more time…I swear I will scream (and I think “The Family Guy” is controversial…) I’ve actually been waiting for my kids to tire of the twosome, and yet, even when I know they are watching a repeat…one they may have already seen several times, they are captivated. There is a phrase in Latin… “Sunt pueri pueri, puerilia tractant” Children are children, [therefore] children do childish things. I may balk at Jerry slicing off Tom’s tail and feeing it to him in soup, but my kids think it is the funniest thing they’ve ever seen.

My son, who quit napping at a very early age, fell asleep before Mr. Rogers even got his cardigan buttoned up. Quite frankly, I did, too. There isn’t much excitement in a soft-voice and a pair of Hush Puppies.
Today as we drove to nursery school, I gave V the extra-special privilege of watching a DVD in the car…a treat usually reserved for long car trips. Of course, the DVD-du jour was another riveting episode of “Tom and Jerry.” When the nursery school aide was getting V out of the van she noted what she was watching (as I sat sheepishly in the front seat in my Mommy Uniform of sweatshirt, yoga pants and dirty hair pulled back into a greasy pony tail en route to the YMCA for much needed after-holiday-engorgement-cardio/free-weight training…)
“Hey! “Tom and Jerry! I LOVED them growing up!” the aide exclaimed.
I turned and smiled with chagrin…
“Yep! Nothing educational goes on in THIS van!” I announced with mock-pride, “I mean, they have the rest of their lives to be in school, right? Why not “dumb ‘em down” a little with violence and cross-species insensitivity? Heh heh” I chuckled.
“Ha ha!” the aide agreed, “Those ‘educational shows’ aren’t NEARLY as fun as the ones we had growing up.
I had to agree… “Blue’s Clues” didn’t have NOTHIN’ on “Richie Rich,” a show about a self-indulgent dandy of a rich kid (was that an ASCOT that he was wearing?) whose selfish demands necessitated the services of a brilliant inventor whom was kept on retainer. Riiiiight.
And who wants to watch “Max and Ruby” when they could watch “Jem (a.k.a Jerrica Benton) and the Holograms?” I mean, she really WAS truly outrageous in her slutty, breast exposing mini-dresses riding up on her thigh like a horse at a rodeo! Remember the original “Transformers” cartoon?! Unlike the kinder, gentler version our kids today know and love, the original Megatron transformed into a loaded gun! How avant gard…
As I drove off to the Y for some much need relaxation and exercise, I giggled about the lack of substance in “Tom and Jerry” and forgot about it…until later that night…
…The kids were bathed, brushed, in their jammies and ready for bed. We had just finished reading several bedtime stories and it was time to go to sleep. As is typical for our house (read: bucking the norm), the kids have opted against having their pick of any of the 4 other available bedrooms in lieu of sharing bunk beds; and as they hopped up to and in to their respective beds, I decided to change out their music. In my haste to hustle them off to bed in order to get back to the final book in the “Twilight” series, I picked the first thing in their music drawer…a choice that, after picking it, I was sure would be “rejected.” It was a classical music CD…Chopin Waltzes. I continued to coo softly to the kids, telling them I loved them and wishing them a good night as the music started.
“Momma?” V asked, full of innocence…
“Yes, My Love?” I replied, as Chopin’s Waltz in E Minor sounded playfully in the background….filling my head with images of cat-and-mouse chases…hey wait a…

“We're listening to TOM AND JERRY MUSIC?!” Vivien (correctly!) asserted.

Take that Dora and Boots!