Bats What I Like About the South

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Bats what I Like About the South
The title card of Bats What I Like About The South displaying a white bat.
Written by	Robert Ramirez
Directed by	Tim Maltby
Presented by	Warner Bros. Animation
Composer(s)	Tom Erba
Broadcast
Original airing	October 28, 2006 (United States)

"Bats What I Like About the South" is the tenth sub-episode of Tom and Jerry Tales.

[edit] Episode Summary

The episode starts with Jerry fleeing from his predator, which is Tom. Later, Jerry squeezes through an iron fence to get away from Tom and hides himself in a misty graveyard. He pants for breath, sighs with relief but gets easily scared by a gargoyle statue, accompanied by lightning. He slowly takes his steps away from the gargoyle statue and ends up in Tom's mouth. Luckily, Jerry manages to escape by pulling out his tongue, tying a knot around a tombstone and sprinting off.

The rains starts to fall as Jerry finally stops in front of an unknown mansion. He keeps checking behind to see Tom's still pursuing him, squeezes himself through a double door of the mansion and rolls inside. Jerry wanders around the dark, spotless mansion, observing its valuable splendour until then, a shadow of a ghouly bat appears, scaring Jerry again. He runs outside to save himself from the shadowy bat but Tom halts him in his tracks. Jerry has no choice but to lure him into a posh, music department and hides inside one of the pipes in a church organ. Tom loses sight of the mouse and starts to search, sense and track down his target in the entire room. Later on, he fits his eye into an organ pipe but has no luck finding him. He attempts again by sticking his fingernail inside. Jerry bites Tom's fingernail, causing Tom to squeal in pain. Knowing that Tom has already found his prey, he snatches sheet music from the inside of a piano stool, places it on a piano stand, stretches his fingers and performs. Jerry flies up obliviously from the pipes, leaving Tom a chance to swat him with a fly swatter. At Tom's 3rd try, Jerry counterattacks by hitting him on the head with an organ pipe and running away.

In the living room, Tom arms himself with a fireplace poker and whacks every possession down in order to find Jerry. After Jerry being found and evading every swipe of Tom's vengeance, Jerry cowers himself at a nearby pillar (supporting the mansion) while Tom charges towards him and stabs the pillar, barely missing Jerry. Cracks started to expand as the entire room gives way and starts to collapse. Rocks fell from the ceiling, smashing the piano and everything in the living room. Jerry tries to escape from all this mayhem but suddenly, gets splattered on by a huge rock from the ceiling. Through all the destruction caused, Jerry is actually, very much alive but only covered in white powder dust. He decides to walk away when he suddenly discovers another species of his kind, preferably being like another white mouse. Jerry greets him, shakes his booty at him, plays rock, paper, scissors with him and finally figures out that he has made friends with a young bat. The young bat wonders why Jerry doesn't have wings like he has; Jerry replies by shaking his head. The young bat amuses him by flying around in random circles to demonstrate his wings. They both laugh at each other's entertainment when Jerry shuts him up and points at Tom who picks up a rock, encrypts Jerry's body figure on it and bawls, feeling terrible that Jerry is dead and about what he did to him. Jerry laughs at Tom's drama and figures out a plan for both of them to take advantage of their appearances and scare Tom. They both agree.

Tom plants his overgrown daffodil on the rock and cries all over it. He then stops to hear funeral music and wonders off to find the source of that music. The music lures him into the music department where a floating fly swatter pops out of an organ pipe and swats Tom on the head. Tom carefully looks behind him and screams to find out a ghost of Jerry's former self haunting him. He zooms off with a streak of fire, leaving Jerry to point at him, laughing at his stupidity. Tom tries to escape outside the mansion but then glances at a young bat, closing 3 locks on the double door, basically trapping Tom inside. Tom flinches and runs away.

Meanwhile, in the dining room, Jerry uses a spider web from a small hole above the chandelier to tie it around a fork and a spoon. He signals the young bat by giving him a thumbs up and hides inside a folded serviette. Tom marches in, frightened of the experience of seeing Jerry's ghost and a young bat. He uses the furniture to block every route leading to the dining room to protect himself. He relaxes on a chair with no hope of being haunted. Unknowingly, he finds out that the cutlery has come to life. He fetches another spoon and competes against the alive spoon. The fork stabs him in the butt, causing Tom to flip out. He then manages to succeed by hitting the cutlery with a mixing bowl. He triumphantly walks away, feeling proud of defeating 2 alive accessories. He hesitates to look at a moving folded serviette. He tries to reach his hand to lift the serviette to see what's inside but doesn't have the bravery of doing that. Again, he faces his fears by slowly removing the serviette to find 2 more serviettes. He removes them and finds Jerry's ghost. Screaming with fear, Tom falls into a coma and collapses down onto the table. Both teammates awoke Tom up by placing a pan lid on him and whacking it once violently with a spoon. Tom flees and escapes through the blockade (which is now wrecked by Tom's disappearance) as Jerry and his teammate both laugh and congratulate each other.

Tom runs up a storey of the mansion and by the top of the stairs, he stops to see a flying bat. He shrieks and runs back down a storey until Jerry scares him by blowing a raspberry. Tom runs back up again while Jerry whips the carpet, sending Tom flying into the air, smashing through a window pane and plummeting back down. Jerry approaches Tom's face and stares ominously at him. Tom shrieks again and begs the ghost to spare his life. Rain falling from the broken window pane splatters over Jerry and ruins his white disguise. Tom realizes that Jerry has been tricking him to thinking that he's actually dead. Jerry smiles whimsically as Tom feels extremely angry. Their original chase continues again.

Jerry's teammate swoops in to aid in the young mouse's suffering but get completely foiled by Tom, trapping him in a firefly jar and placing him on a banister. Jerry hides behind a ball of yarn, setting his eyes on a sewing pin and nicks it. Tom rolls up his sleeve to reveal a 'No Jerry's' sign tattooed on his arm in his attempt to beat him to a pulp. Jerry appears from a faceless mannequin and swoops over Tom's head to save his friend. Tom reacts quickly by throwing a ball of yarn at the jar, knocking it off the banister. Jerry, with little time left, dives down to comfort his landing on his back in mid-air. He frees the young bat out of the jar on a large chandelier and whispers to his ear his next plan. Tom glances over to see Jerry swarm around him and his teammate fit a jar onto his head. Both airborne bats grab Tom by the tail and thrash him head first into a chandelier.

Tom is now ended up being hung onto a chandelier next to Jerry and his friend (a young bat), soundlessly asleep, hung onto a chandelier as well. The episode ends with the circle iris closing in on both asleep animals.

[edit] Notes

• This is not the first time Jerry has covered himself in a white substance to get the best of Tom. In a classic short, The Missing Mouse, he masquerades as a white mouse--by covering himself in shoe polish--and pretends to be a mouse that Tom had just heard about on the radio who had ingested an explosive and escaped from a lab.
• A scene with Tom punching the keys on a pipe organ to get Jerry out recalls a similar scene from an Academy Award-Winning cartoon: "The Cat Concerto".