Dicky Moe

Dicky Moe
Tom and Jerry series
240px 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 fishing harbor, the captain of the Komquot is obsessed with catching the great white whale, Dicky Moe, as he draws the parts then eats 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 goes mad and begins (or tries) to shake him 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, pulls everywhere and throws for target practice. Jerry tricks Tom into stabbing his own tail with the harpoon. Tom sets a trap, Jerry comes, but thinks about the trap and settles with a fish, and faintly dropping an anvil on his own head, which sends Tom crashing through the ship's hull and into the ocean.

With the help of a rope thrown by Jerry, Tom climbs aboard as the captain sights Dicky Moe and fires a harpoon gun. 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 and reads it, scoffing at the situation.

External links

• Dicky Moe at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Dicky Moe at IMDb