The Cat Concerto (Tom and Jerry)

The Cat Concerto is an American 1947 Tom and Jerry cartoon directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. It is the 29th Tom and Jerry short from the Golden Age of Animation.

Plot
Tom is a pianist playing Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" on the piano in front of a large audience. While playing, he accidentally wakes up Jerry, who was sleeping in the piano.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Awesome music, with Tom playing Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 on the piano.
 * 2) Extraordinary comedic timing in perfect sync with Tom's piano playing.
 * 3) Fluid animation as usual for the series, which helps aid the timing of the music and the jokes.
 * 4) The cartoon does a good job at making both Tom and Jerry likable. Tom only wanted to play "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" flawlessly, while Jerry just wanted to sleep.
 * 5) Great ending, where Jerry plays the final notes rapidly and repeatedly to tire out Tom until he collapses.
 * 6) Beautiful, detailed backgrounds as usual.

Reception
The cartoon currently sits at an 8.2/10 on IMDb, and won the Academy Award for Best Short Film in 1947.

Trivia

 * The cartoon is notable for being involved in one of the most infamous plagiarism disputes in cartoon history (in this case, with the Looney Tunes cartoon Rhapsody Rabbit, which had a similar plot with Bugs going up against an unnamed mouse while trying to play the exact same piece, and was released around the same time); to this day, nobody knows who ripped off whom, or if it was all just a bizarre coincidence.
 * Friz Freleng (the director of Rhapsody Rabbit) insists that it was a coincidence, and animation historian Joe Adamson maintains that Technicolor, being swamped with work, accidentally sent finished footage of Rhapsody Rabbit to MGM, who rushed the cartoon to completion and submitted it to the academy for consideration.