The Night Before Christmas (1941)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Since this was only the third Tom & Jerry cartoon, you can be sure of one thing--exquisite animation. In the early 1940s, MGM suddenly began making the most artistic animated shorts around--even nicer looking than Disney or Looney Tunes. In particular, the backgrounds are delightful works of art. While the Tom & Jerry cartoons remained well animated into the early 1950s, the quality then rapidly went downhill. Now I am not saying the early ones were always the funniest (sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't) but they were so beautiful that even today they stand out as high points in the history of animation.In "The Night Before Christmas", Tom and Jerry naturally are fighting with Christmas ornaments and decorations strewn about the house. They also interact using the children's' toys--such as the train set and boxing gloves. What follows is mostly predictable--with lots of bonking and kicking. However, a holiday-infused schmaltzy ending follows. While it's not too bad, I personally wanted more bonking! Still, with such lovely animation, it's no wonder this one was Oscar-nominated.

This early Tom and Jerry cartoon can be excused if it is overly cute-over-comedy in subject matter. Hey, it's the Christmas season and this cartoon reflects that in an old-fashioned, nice way.Apparently, this is Jerry's first Christmas because he's amazed to see Christmas tree ornaments, candy canes and stuff animals and other presents under the tree.This does have the usual chase scene, but isn't that long and the film ends on a very touching sentimental note the last few minutes.As others have said, this is about as nice as Christmas cartoon as you're ever going to find. At the beginning, I thought this might be nothing but it's such a feel-good Tom & Jerry that it's very, very worthy of being in anyone's collection.

The Night Before Christmas is one cutest holiday cartoon past and present. I recently saw this on Cartoon Network late at night. I remember 15 or more years the TV would not play cartoons at a certain time. It is refreshing to see this cartoon late at night on Christmas Eve.

This short is reasonably good, has good background art and detail work and is a staple on The Cartoon Network around the holidays. It has to be the cutest Tom and Jerry that I've seen. It almost becomes a little too cute in spots, but just hits the right grace notes at the end. Tom and Jerry were still new as characters and were just beginning to develop as characters. Traces of what they would become are shown here and there. Not a great Tom and Jerry cartoon, but entertaining and a good Christmas cartoon. Recommended.