The first Tom and Jerry cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, premiered in 1940. MGM released the nine-minute animated short to theaters on February 10, 1940.
The cartoon was created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera while they were working in producer Rudolf Ising’s unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The cat and mouse were not yet called Tom and Jerry: the cat was Jasper, while the mouse was unnamed. Their familiar names were adopted later after MGM held a contest to rename the characters.
Puss Gets the Boot established the basic formula of domestic chaos, escalating destruction and a human housekeeper threatening to throw the cat out. Its success helped persuade MGM to continue developing the pair, despite the studio’s initial reluctance to order more cat-and-mouse cartoons.
The short was also recognized beyond its debut. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject: Cartoons at the 1941 ceremony. The nomination credits Rudolf Ising, reflecting MGM’s production-credit practices, and did not yet present the characters under the names Tom and Jerry.