Pup on a Picnic is an animated Tom and Jerry short released on April 30th, 1955 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, and produced by Fred Quimby.
Spike and Tyke store some food in a basket to prepare for a good old picnic day. In the meantime, Tom tries to capture Jerry as usual, resulting in him having to search through the dog's food due to Jerry hiding in it.
This animated feature provides examples of:
- Ant Assault: A marching swarm of ants (whose synchronized marching may cause dangerous vibrations) shows up to cause bother. They show up to collect food from Spike and Tyke's picnics.
- Irony: During most of the episode, Spike does his best to prevent Tom from plundering his picnic food (which Tom only does to capture Jerry, he's otherwise uninterested in the food itself). At the end of the episode, a group of ants shake violently the tree that is next to Spike in order to steal the picnic food, resulting in lots of fresh, edible apples falling onto him. The ants manage to steal the picnic food, but also leave Spike with even more food than before.
- Impact Silhouette: During the start of the episode, Jerry exits the house to escape from Tom and, right after opening the door, closes it so Tom crashes into it. This results in a silhouette shaped like the cat's body, though the hole doesn't appear until Tom opens it.
- Metaphoric Metamorphosis: At one point, Tom detaches the hot dog he was grabbing from a chain of several hot dogs, and fools Spike into a "fetch" game by throwing it into the water. Spike falls for it, and his head briefly turns into a signpost that says "Sucker".
- Pepper Sneeze: Tom tries to find Jerry inside Spike's picnic basket, which makes Spike think the cat just wants to plunder his food. After the cat does two rounds of "plundering", the dog hides inside the basket, so when Tom puts his front paw in for the third time, Spike bites it. Tom grabs a pepper flask and pours some of it into Spike nose to force him to sneeze and release the bitten limb.
- Picnic Episode: The episode revolves around Spike and Tyke going on a picnic, with Tom and Jerry as uninvited guests. The dogs want to enjoy the day while trying to avoid having it ruined by the cat and mouse. In the end, what ruins the day is a group of ants.
- Rod-and-Reel Repurposed: Near the end of the episode, Tom uses a fishing rod to try to grab Jerry (who's hiding inside Spike's picnic basket) while sitting atop a tree's branch. Jerry manages to avoid getting captured by putting some of the basket's food into the reel's claw so Tom only gets that, but this results in a group of ants noticing the food and climbing the tree to take it away from Tom (and, by extension, from Spike and Tyke).
- Squashed Flat: Upon being sneezed at full speed by Spike and bouncing back at him by a wire fence, Tom grabs the dog's basket as he quickly flies by, only to crash into a tree. Due to the impact, Tom knocks out part of the trunk and stops right between the tree's base and the upper part, getting crushed in the process and having his whole body flattened.
- Strong Ants: The climax of the episode shows ants who are not only strong but whose synchronized marching can set up destructive vibrations.
- Watch Out for That Tree!: A variation is for Tom to knock off the bit of tree (or pole) he hits, causing the rest to fall on top of his head, flattening him.