Mouse Cleaning is an animated Tom and Jerry short released on December 11th, 1948 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, and produced by Fred Quimby.
The episode begins with Mammy Two Shoes finishing the house's cleaning. Unfortunately for her, Tom enters the house Covered in Mud while chasing Jerry at full-speed, thus leaving the kitchen dirty again. She orders him to clean the mess while she's off for some shopping, and warns him that the house must be clean and unpolluted again by the time she returns. Jerry overhears this conversation, so he begins a plan to make as much of a mess in the house as possible to frame Tom and have him kicked out for it. Cue Tom trying to prevent him from succeeding.
This is one of the two "banned" Tom and Jerry shorts, having not been released on home media since LaserDisc days for years and being disallowed from being included on the Spotlight and Golden Collection DVD series. It only got a proper restoration in 2025 with the release of the Golden Era Anthology Blu-ray/DVD set. Runner-up on The 50 Greatest Cartoons.
This animated feature provides examples of:
- Ash Face: When a truck comes to deliver coal to the house, Jerry moves the chute from the basement to the living room, burying Tom in coal just as Mammy arrives. Tom emerges in Blackface, which fools Mammy for a few seconds before she recognizes him.
- Bowdlerise:
- The scene where Tom comes out of the coal in blackface telling Mammy Two Shoes that he had not seen "...no cat around here" has been cut from most TV versions in America, particularly the version shown on Cartoon Network and Boomerang in America.
- A 1960s redrawn version of this cartoon exists where the scenes of Tom emerging from the coal and trying to slink away were redone so that way Tom does not look like he is in blackface, act like Stepin Fetchit, or say anything at all.
- Cartoon Juggling: Jerry juggles with five eggs while walking across a tightrope, making up for a very risky maneuver. He actually knows the risk of failing and does the trick because of it, since he aims to make Tom feel paranoid over the resulting mess (as he strives to keep the house clean and avoid being kicked out by Mammy Two Shoes). Jerry, being the Troll he is in this episode, forces Tom to juggle with the eggs upon throwing them forward, and also makes him keep a spinning pie balanced while still juggling with the eggs. Jerry finally pulls the carpet Tom is standing on to make him lose balance, and while the cat manages to catch all eggs, the pie ends up falling onto his head.
- Covered in Mud: During the start of the episode, Tom chases Jerry and passes through a moat of mud, getting much of his body dirty. As a result, when he enters the house at full speed, the recently-cleaned kitchen gets stained, drawing the ire of the hard-working Mammy Two Shoes.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: Jerry throws a tomato at Tom, who promptly dodges it... except that's exactly what Jerry expected Tom to do, because the tomato ends up hitting the wall instead, which leaves a mess he has to clean up before Mammy Two Shoes returns.
- Eye Pop: Tom uses water tries to clean a wall after he inadvertently made a mess there when trying to attack Jerry with a tomato and missing. Jerry then tampers the water with a pen's blue ink, resulting in Tom painting the wall blue. When Tom worriedly looks at how the wall looks like now, replicas of his eyes pop up forward and a Jaw Drop follows suit, indicating how horrified Tom is.
- Food Fight: At one point, Tom throws a tomato at Jerry; he misses, leaving a huge splatter on the wall. This is a problem for Tom, because he's supposed to keep the house clean per the orders of Mammy Two Shoes.
- Inevitably Broken Rule: Mammy threatens to kick Tom out if he makes a mess while she's out shopping. So Jerry takes the opportunity to make the biggest mess he can.
- Oh, Crap!: Tom makes a facial expression of horror every time Jerry spreads pollution to the house, or when he inadvertently makes a mess himself.
- Race to Clean Up: Mammy Two Shoes tells Tom not to make a mess in the house while she's away. Jerry sees this as an opportunity to mess with Tom, causing Tom to try to clean up the house before Mammy Two Shoes gets back.
- Road Apples: Invoked when Jerry brings a horse in the house, and Tom hurriedly carries him out before he — ahem — does his business all over the floor.
- Wild Take: Tom does one when he realizes his attempt to clean a tomato splattered on the wall accidentally leaves an even bigger mess due to Jerry substituting the water pail with cans of paint. He does multiple eye pops, followed by his jaw dropping all the way to the floor.