Tom and Jerry/YMMV

"Human: Besides, a mouse doesn't eat very much...
 * Alternate Character Interpretation: Several cartoons imply that Tom and Jerry are actually friends who enjoy their game of chase. The Movie made it pretty explicit.
 * Also, fans who view Jerry as the Villain Protagonist.
 * Archive Panic: The original MGM series lasted for the better part of 20 years, and that's not counting the Deitch and Jones shorts, TV shows, and movies, if you're really a completist.
 * Contested Sequel: Or series in this case. The Chuck Jones shorts, while generally considered better than most if not all other post-Hanna Barbera installments, are either loved or hated.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: "Solid Serenade" and "Saturday Evening Puss".
 * Designated Hero: Jerry skirts this line in many cartoons.
 * Designated Villain: By the same token, we're almost never meant to be rooting for Tom, even if he didn't actually do anything to provoke Jerry (or if Jerry doesn't even have the right to be provoked, like in the short when he screws with Tom's opera recital because it was disturbing his sleep; nevermind that Jerry's the idiot who decided to set up shop in a concert hall. Other 'genius' places he's decided to set up shop include inside a piano and inside a pool table.).
 * Dork Age: The Gene Deitch shorts, which wreck the formula by giving Tom a Jerkass owner who beats the stuffing out of him whenever he slips up. Moreover, it suffered a lot of animation errors. Not to mention the 1980s TV shorts.
 * Downer Ending: Opinions may include Jerry losing to Tom, or one of them dying.
 * Family Unfriendly Aesop: Stealing food is good. Punishing those tasked to stop you is good.
 * It's arguably meant to act as Truth in Television. Jerry is a mouse and thus takes whatever food is available to survive, making him more of a Loveable Rogue. Though granted there are shorts where he steals a bit more than his own means.


 * Jerry glances at a huge pile of stolen food hidden in his mousehole*"


 * Ho Yay: There's some of this as well, considering the fact that both Tom and Jerry are males. Jerry even kissed Tom more than once, just to annoy him.
 * Iron Woobie/Jerkass Woobie: Tom.
 * Memetic Mutation: "We've GOT to have money."
 * Also from the movie: The Villain Song "What Do We Care" is apparently so much an Ear Worm that it's spawned numerous Fan Vids starring cartoon villains.
 * "Doooon't youuuu believe it!"
 * That meme was actually started by a radio show debunking WWII propaganda.
 * Mwahahahaaa, in me power!
 * "Sigh...I love you. When I wiz you, I am, how you say, a hip cat.
 * "Boy, are you corny. How many times have you been told that?"
 * An Aside Glance of Tom's from the cartoon "Bad Day at Cat Rock" became a 4Chan fad.
 * Motive Decay: Tom originally wanted to eat Jerry. Now he just mostly harasses him.
 * Nightmare Fuel: "Don't you believe it!", many Gene Deitch-directed Tom and Jerry shorts.
 * And in The Movie, there's the shot of Dr. Applecheeks walking toward the ice cream cart with a stalker-riffic look on his face.
 * There's also the "Heavenly Puss" short where Tom gets sent to hell, even after getting Jerry's forgiveness. I bet that scared a few kids rather than amusing them. Of course, it was all a dream, but even so.
 * And then there's "Blue Cat Blues", which has a Downer Ending of a depressed Tom and Jerry sitting on the train tracks with the train just about to come. Holy crap.
 * There's also one where Tom's about to eat Quacker, then Jerry throws a brick at Tom, and Tom breaks apart.
 * In "Year of the Mouse", Jerry and a mouse friend basically Gaslighting Tom. The poor cat's just trying to nap, but keeps waking up to find signs that he might be trying to kill himself as he sleeps.
 * A Quackers episode ends with Jerry and Quackers thinking they've defeated Tom. End of episode, right? Not so fast; Tom steps inside their safehouse and closes the door, laughing evilly. Common enough sight in the middle of these cartoons, but in this case, that's where the episode ends...
 * "Pecos Pest" features Jerry's Uncle Pecos chasing Tom with an ax, because he needs "Yer' wisker for mah' git-ar string!". It sounds funny until you see that Pecos is The Determinator when it comes to getting that string, and consider the consequences had he wanted anything else.
 * And how could this list be complete without Tom actually getting guillotined at the end of "The Two Mouseketeers"?
 * Rooting for The Empire: Tom.
 * Ron the Death Eater: Jerry is a Complete Monster! Tommy never ever did anything wrong! Tom was only following his instincts, how dare Jerry object to being eaten!
 * Draco in Leather Pants: Jerry is a cute lovable mouse! It doesn't matter if he ruins Tom's life again, again, and again! It doesn't matter if he steals food and other things from the houses owners! That dirty tomcat deserves all the abuse he gets!
 * This actually made it's way in universe to some extent. Allegedly Hanna Barbara got several letters from fans rather irked by the heavy punishment Tom suffered in many early short. As a result many more later shorts actually let Tom get the last laugh (most of which were karmic victories due to Jerry starting the feud).
 * Squick: the abovementioned Heavenly Puss (the implied causes of death of the cats in line for the train - most particularly the kittens in a burlap sack).
 * Though at the very least, the St. Peter stand in shakes his head and mutters "Some people..." when he sees the kittens.
 * Unintentionally Sympathetic: Tom
 * Values Dissonance: Many shorts that still appear on DVDs and television, such as "The Milky Waif" and "Yankee Doodle Mouse", had blackface gags edited out, leaving the resulting cartoon very choppy. In the case of "The Milky Waif", we suddenly jump from Nibbles squirting milk in Tom's face to Tom suddenly being hit in the face with a frying pan. Also occurs in "The Mouse Came to Dinner" where they edit out Mammy's intro... which means Tom is coming out of a potted plant at the start for no reason whatsoever. It's rare to find unedited versions.