Magic Cat is an upcoming 164th short of Tom and Jerry, distributed by Warner Bros., and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures Animation. It will release in select theaters with Talking Tom & Jerry (sequel to a 2021 film Tom & Jerry, directed by Robert Zemeckis, and produced by Tom Hanks), very soon. However, there’s no official release date yet. It will also be the first and only cartoon produced and directed by Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone, and without Tom and Jerry co-creators and co-founders of Hanna-Barbera William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (due to their deaths in 2001 and 2006).
Plot
Tom is dressed up as a Vaudeville era magician (also known as Tomacio), famous for a hat trick wherein he pulls his mouse assistant Jerry out of his top hat. A hungry and irritated Jerry is locked in a cage, unable to reach his cheese. After Tom returns from eating a meal, he begins practicing his act with Jerry, revealing that his top hat is magically connected to a wizard's hat kept backstage with Jerry. Anything that passes into either hat will emerge from the other.
Intending to feed Jerry, Tom realizes that his show is starting and rushes onstage instead. Jerry refuses to cooperate with the act until he is given the cheese, and cleverly turns the hats against Tom in a variety of ways that lead to escalating degrees of humiliation. This includes causing Tom to catch his finger in a mousetrap, hit himself in the eye with an egg, close his hand in a drawer, poke himself in the face, stick his head in an air vent, and hit himself in the crotch with a ladder. Each of these mishaps is interpreted by the audience as being part of the act, and they applaud. Tom begins to antagonize Jerry at the same time, first turning the carrot into a flower and later smashing it; Jerry retaliates by using the hats to stick Tom's finger into an electrical socket.
Fed up with Jerry's behavior, Tom chases him backstage, but catches his foot in a rope and is yanked up into the fly space above the stage when the curtain opens. When Tom's foot comes loose, he falls, as do several props and a hanging piano. Realizing Tom will be crushed, Jerry uses the hats' magic to save him, earning the audience's wild approval. Tom gratefully restores the cheese and gives it to Jerry; later, Tom gives Jerry second billing on the posters advertising the act.
Characters
Production
On June 2025, the 164th short of Tom and Jerry is set in the development, alongside the upcoming third theatrical film Talking Tom & Jerry (TBA), based on the characters, following the second theatrical film Tom and Jerry (2021), and the first theatrical film Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992).
Voice Cast