CNPS numbers spotted 0 (867).
I was fairly hungover today, mainly thanks to the extra booze we got at the restaurant (we'd been on our way home when the criminal struck and I hadn't really needed another four glasses of wine!) But it was actually rather nice to just stay in all day, not going out with any women or putting my body through some physical extreme or another. Instead I watched "Freaky Friday" and "A Mighty Wind" on DVD. The latter was a bit disappointing given the past history of the participants (many of whom appear in my favourite all time film "This Is Spinal Tap."
The pastiches in this were maybe a bit too loving and accurate and weren't particularly amusing and the film only got flying in a few scenes. It's probably still worth a look, but only just.
Whilst browsing through the paper I saw that they are releasing "Tom and Jerry" on DVD. I won't be buying it; I'm nearly 37 years old, but it brought back an ancient memory of the programme and of one of my earliest moments of confusion and disappointment.
I used to really love Tom and Jerry, particularly enjoying the crazy antics of the mouse one. I would laugh with glee as he stuffed an iron in the face of the cat one, or chopped off his tail or whatever. Contrary to your expectations I was not 28 years old at the time; in fact I must only have been three or four.
I loved that little mouse. He was my hero. I loved little Tom the mouse.
Perhaps you now see why I was heading for a fall.
It's strange that I still remember this - I can only have been 5 at the most when I found out - but it's really clear to me. I can still feel the lurching in my stomach when I found at the truth.
I had always thought the mouse was Tom. That seemed right to me. Jerry was a stupid name and Tom was a cool one, and the mouse was cool and the cat was stupid, so the mouse had to be Tom. In any case that is what I wholeheartedly believed to be the truth. Tom was the mouse.
I can't remember exactly who disabused me of this notion, but I do remember how distraught I was to find my world turned upside down. I remember they didn't appreciate the psychological effects of what they were telling me; clearly they didn't or they would have broken the news to me more gently. Tom was the cat - as in tom cat and Jerry was the mouse.
Not only was that so hideously wrong it also made me question everything else I understood about the world. My whole life I had grown up believing the mouse to be Tom, but now he was Jerry. What if I discovered now that the person I had thought was my mum was my dad? Or that the place I believed to be my bed was actually a toilet? Or that Father Christmas and Jesus were just made up?
I was genuinely heart-broken about it. Tom and Jerry was now ever so slightly ruined for me. The mouse was called Jerry. What a stupid name for a mouse. He was my hero when he was Tom, but now he was Jerry he seemed weak and ineffectual. His pranks suddenly seemed nerdy or cruel. Worst of all I had been a tiny idiot and got totally the wrong end of the stick.
And over thirty years on the disappointment still resonates.
