Hanna-Barbera (1940)

Puss Gets the Boot is a 1940 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the first short in the Tom and Jerry cartoon series, though the duo are not identified as such in this short. It was directed by William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Rudolf Ising, and produced by Rudolf Ising and Fred Quimby. As was the practice of MGM shorts at the time, only Rudolf Ising is credited. It was released to theaters on February 10, 1940 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

William Hanna, a native of Melrose, New Mexico; and Joseph Barbera, born of Italian heritage in New York City, first met at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio in 1939, while working at its animation division (thru its Rudolf Ising unit) and thus began a partnership that would last for over six decades. Their first directorial production and collaboration was the Academy Award-nominated Puss Gets the Boot, featuring a cat named Jasper and an unnamed mouse, released to theaters in 1940. It served as the basis for the popular long-running Tom and Jerry series of short subject theatricals. Hanna and Barbera served as directors of the shorts for over 20 years, with Hanna in charge of supervising the animation and Barbera in charge of the stories and pre-production.