The cartoon starts with Jerry reading a book whilst taking cheese from a mousetrap. Nibbles arrives and passes Jerry, before trying to take all the cheese from the trap. Jerry saves Nibbles in time. Jerry has been asked to take care of Nibbles over the Thanksgiving holiday. However, Nibbles is, as the note pinned to his scarf says, always hungry. Jerry attempts to feed the little mouse with his own food, but his cupboards are empty. Quietly, he leads Nibbles out of the mousehole, and sneaks into the living room, where Tom is sleeping beside a bowl of cream. Jerry allows Nibbles to drink the cream from the bowl, before spotting a turkey. Mammy Two Shoes (in cameo) takes the turkey and puts it on the table then leaves. Nibbles spots the feast too. Nibbles proceeds to eat certain foods from the table, while Jerry dresses himself and Nibbles as pilgrims, but the trouble begins when Nibbles swallows an orange whole. Jerry hits Nibbles with a knife to remove the orange. It shoots straight out of Nibbles' mouth and right into the sleeping Tom, waking him up.
After Tom's rude awakening, he spies on the two mice, and wearing a feather duster as a Native American headdress, catches Nibbles. Jerry pops a champagne cork into Tom's face. Tom returns, grabbing Jerry and about to cut him with a knife. Nibbles takes a fork and propelled by a plate of jell-o, launches the fork into Tom's rear end. Tom jumps up as Jerry and Nibbles flee the scene. Tom pauses for a moment in midair to remove the fork from his bottom, then hurls it towards Nibbles, catching him by the diaper. As Tom catches Nibbles, Jerry runs up a nearby candlestick and whacks Tom in the face with a spoon.
Tom launches flaming cattails, melting Jerry and Nibbles' hiding places. As they flee, Jerry runs into a knife thrown by Tom, and is knocked out cold. Tom grabs Jerry once again. Nibbles catapults a pie into Tom's face, knocking the cat off the table. Nibbles slingshots a candle onto Tom's tail, burning him, so that he appears in blackface (Censorship). Finally, Nibbles launches a champagne bottle like a missile, which hits Tom and shoots him into a cabinet. Tom finally surrenders.
Finally, Tom, Jerry and Nibbles do grace at the table. Everyone finishes their prayers and prepare to eat, but Nibbles devours the whole turkey in the blink of an eye, leaving the little orphan with a full stomach with him patting it experiencing delight.
Notes[]
This is the fifth Tom and Jerry short to win an award.
This cartoon was not reissued and thus survives with its original titles.
On the poster, Nibbles' body color was copying Jerry's.
This is the third and final Tom and Jerry cartoon to re-use the opening theme from Polka-Dot Puss. After the latter short and The Cat and the Mermouse, as the next two cartoons did not use this theme.
The opening title reuses the picture of the gold Oscar statue from the opening title of The Yankee Doodle Mouse, the only difference is that the background behind the statue in this opening is red instead of blue.
The Little Orphan is one of the three Fred Quimby shorts which Hanna and Barbera remade in the CinemaScope format, under the title Feedin' the Kiddie. Its Cinemascope version is rarely aired on TV in favor of the original. As of 2010, this short is rarely aired on Cartoon Network or Boomerang due to their unofficial ban on any shorts featuring Mammy-Two Shoes.
When this short aired on MeTV, it was unrestored and on PAL audio.[1]
This also makes it one of two Tom and Jerry shorts presented as an unrestored 90s Turner master on MeTV, the other being Casanova Cat.
Censorship[]
The censored scene.
For the cheater cartoon Life with Tom, clips of this cartoon were edited; the part where Tom is burned by the candle is edited so that right before flames gets to his face, it cuts to where the champagne bottle is opened, as well as cutting out the shot of Tom getting knocked back.
Despite keeping the blackface gag, Feedin' the Kiddie cuts out the scene where Mammy Two Shoes puts the turkey on the table, as the character has been retired after Push-Button Kitty and replaced by Joan and George.
When this short aired on CBS in 1960, Chuck Jones' team reanimated scenes in this cartoon to replace the knife with a fork and re-edited Tom's blackface by having Tom retain his Indian headdress after getting burned by the candle instead of having it burn away into pickaninny braids as in the original version.
Similarly to Life with Tom, the part where Tom is burned by the candle is cut on Cartoon Network; however, it is cut so that after the candle is shown landing on Tom's tail it immediately cuts to where the champagne bottle is opened, removing Tom getting burned all together, and it also cuts out the shot of Tom getting knocked back. The exact same edit also occurs on its CinemaScope remake Feedin' the Kiddie when shown on both Turner networks.
In addition to having the aforementioned blackface scene removed, MeTV's Saturday Morning Cartoons block also removed Mammy Two Shoes' on screen appearance in this short, similar to how Feedin' The Kiddie cuts out her scene in that short. This edit strangely does not occur on Toon In With Me showings of this short.
