Tom and Jerry/Characters

Thomas "Tom" Cat

 * Anthropomorphic Shift: In Puss Gets the Boot he's barely recognizable as a four-legged cat.
 * Anti-Villain
 * Arch Enemy: Jerry.
 * Big Eater
 * Butt Monkey/The Chew Toy
 * Cats Are Mean: Implied in most shorts, for better or for worse.
 * Determinator: He never gives up going after Jerry, even when it would probably be wise not to do so.
 * Iron Butt Monkey
 * Jerkass: In episodes where he starts things off by abusing Jerry for no reason.
 * Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Sometimes.
 * Love Makes You Crazy
 * Punny Name: Tom Cat means male cat.
 * The Rival: Butch (Depending On the Writer)
 * Silent Bob
 * Simpleton Voice: When he's actually voiced.
 * Throw the Dog A Bone: Sometimes, writers actually let him win against Jerry, it's rare, but it has happened.
 * Villain Protagonist
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: With Butch (Depending On the Writer)
 * Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Jerry is able to cross-dress to fool Tom sometimes, and Tom won't go after him because of this, until Jerry's dress falls down or something.
 * Would Hurt a Child: Though probably not again after the beating Jerry gave him for hitting Nibbles.

Jerry Mouse

 * Anti-Hero: Type IV or Type V.
 * Arch Enemy: Tom.
 * Berserk Button: Do NOT harm Nibbles.
 * Big Eater
 * Cross-Dressing Voices: In Anchors Aweigh and Tom and Jerry The Movie. In the original shorts he either sounded like a chipmunk or a grown man when voiced.
 * Friend to All Living Things: Except cats (he makes an exception for kittens sometimes though).
 * The Hero
 * Hero Antagonist: Sometimes.
 * Heroic Comedic Sociopath
 * Honorary Uncle: To Nibbles.
 * Jerkass: Very fond of Disproportionate Retribution in a lot of shorts. He enjoys it too.
 * Karmic Trickster: In the original shorts. He became more of a Screwy Squirrel in the Chuck Jones shorts.
 * Killer Rabbit
 * Lovable Rogue
 * Papa Wolf: When it comes to Nibbles.
 * Silent Bob
 * Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: He inverts them with the long eyelashes and cute face.
 * Troll: Sometimes just causes trouble for Tom for no reason at all.
 * Villain Protagonist: At his worst. Sometimes he loses when he's this.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: He sometimes takes advantage of the fact that Tom Wouldn't Hit a Girl, even if it's a mouse.

Mammy Two-Shoes

 * Audience Surrogate: In the sense that she was written to be a bridge between the everyday human world and the insane antics of Tom and Jerry, and is often the only human character present in the shorts she's in.
 * Eek! A Mouse!
 * The Faceless: And who never wanted to see her face as a kid? Come on, hands up!
 * Large Ham: "And when I says 'Out,' Jaspah. I means, 'Out!' O-U-W-T, OUT!"
 * Mammy
 * Race Lift: In Tom and Jerry Tales, she was a fat, white woman whose accent sounds like a mix between Irish and Southern U.S.
 * In the edited for TV versions of some Tom and Jerry cartoons (particularly Saturday Evening Puss), Mammy Two Shoes was redrawn as a white young woman.
 * Sassy Black Woman: And how!
 * The Other Darrin: Played straight in the reruns that air in the modern-day. Because of Values Dissonance, Lillian Randolph's voice for Mammy Two Shoes is often redubbed with June Foray's voice (or Thea Vidale's voice); averted in the theatrical version. When Hattie McDaniel (the actress best known for playing the black maid on Gone With the Wind and the inspiration behind the character) died, Mammy Two Shoes was retired and replaced with either a white housewife, a man, or sometimes there'd be no human character.

Nibbles / Tuffy

 * Big Eater: He has both Tom and Jerry beat in this department, which is quite a feat itself.
 * Bilingual Bonus
 * Canon Immigrant: Actually debuted in the comics before appearing in any shorts.
 * Composite Character: When he appears in modern Tom and Jerry adaptations, his name has usually reverted back to Nibbles but he still speaks in a French accent, a nod to the Mouseketeer shorts.
 * Cousin Oliver
 * Cross-Dressing Voices: He's usually voiced by a girl whenever he talks. Kath Soucie voices him in recent adaptations.
 * Door Step Baby
 * Everything Sounds Cuter In French
 * Gratuitous English: Slipped in a few English phrases in some of the Mouseketeer shorts.
 * Gratuitous French: In modern adaptations where he's speaking English with a French accent.
 * Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Always wears what looks like either a pair of diapers or white shorts (in later episodes he seems too old for diapers).
 * Heartwarming Orphan
 * I Have Many Names: Well, only two, and they haven't been used with much consistency. He was Tuffy in the Mouseketeer shorts and some of the later shorts, but in his first appearances and in some of his modern ones he goes by Nibbles.

Spike

 * Androcles' Lion: He protects Jerry in a lot of shorts after Jerry does him a favor.
 * Angry Guard Dog
 * Berserk Button: Messing with his son, waking him up, or taking his bone away.
 * The Brute
 * Bully Bulldog
 * The Ditz: This is one incredibly dumb dog. On one occasion he couldn't tell between Tom and Tyke until Tom meows in a failed attempt at barking.
 * Lampshaded by momentarily replacing him with a Jackass figure when he realizes he's been fooled.
 * Also lampshaded in a short where Tom and his friends watch a Clip Show highlighting the times of Tom making a fool of Spike.
 * Hair-Trigger Temper
 * Just Whistle: Makes this arrangement with Jerry on occasion, after Jerry gets him out of some sort of trouble.
 * Papa Wolf: Spike mellowed somewhat when they added his son, Tyke. But if you mess with him...

Tyke

 * Chaste Toons: One of the scant few aversions in the Golden Age.
 * Cheerful Child: He's just so happy and innocent, even when he's barking at Tom.
 * Everythings Precious With Puppies: Goes without saying.
 * Missing Mom: We never see his mother.

Butch

 * Big Eater: Eats Tom and Jerry out of house and home while pretending to be a Door Step Baby in one short.
 * Murder The Hypotenuse: Tom and Butch try to do this to each other whenever there's a woman involved.
 * The Rival: To Tom (Depending On the Writer)
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: With Tom (also Depending On the Writer)

Toodles Galore

 * Hello, Nurse!
 * Humanoid Female Animal
 * Petting Zoo Person
 * White Furred Pretty Girl

Little Quacker

 * Brown Bag Mask: When concerned that he's ugly in Downhearted Duckling.
 * Driven to Suicide: In Downhearted Duckling, where just because he thinks he's ugly, he attempts to cut himself in half with an axe, and later tries to force Tom to eat him (and Tom is more than willing to oblige before Jerry stops him).
 * Emo Teen: Quacker was Emo before Emo was in.
 * Feather Fingers