The Yankee Doodle Mouse is a 1943 animated short that is the eleventh Tom and Jerry cartoon and the first ever to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
This short disappointed me so much and I have to say that in my opinion it is very overrated. The whole war going on between Jerry and Tom is endless here, starts abrupt in a weak beginning and just goes on forever with similar action scenarios. And the whole propaganda quality to it is unfortunate and I really feel bad that even they had to succumb to that during the war.
But it is still a solid film as it has its moments, mainly the dynamite exchange which is the first in the series and is executed rather well with a very funny outcome. During their fight, the two have their moments and are overall solidly funny and entertaining, but they still disappoint compared to some other earlier shorts.
I like its colorful animation here and the weapons are all well incorporated. The use of blackface in unfortunate, but you have to watch it in context. The action is really quite solid, I have to give them props to that. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is very tiresome, repetitive and at times uninspired. But the humor is still solid which is great. This is the worst short yet from the duo and it did not deserve its Oscar at all.
The Yankee Doodle Mouse is an overrated film that has its moments, solid action and humor, but is overall disappointing, repetitive, not deserving of its Oscar and the worst yet from the duo.
The Yankee Doodle Mouse Review
