The Flying Cat is an animated Tom and Jerry short released on January 12th, 1952 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, and produced by Fred Quimby.
Tom tries to eat a canary, but Jerry soon saves the latter and the two run for safety inside a tall birdhouse, to which Tom tries to reach by several ways until he accidentally ends up wrapped into some corsets which he uses as wings to fly.
This animated feature provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: The canary is in disbelief when Jerry tries to tell him that Tom is flying and soon burts out laughing. He soon realizes that Jerry is right when Tom tries to grab him by flying.
- Circling Birdies: After Tom crashes into a mailbox after his first flight, he sees replicas of himself flying around his head.
- Clip Its Wings: More like untie, as the canary saves Jerry from a flying Tom by untying his corset wings from his back.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Seamstress: While trying to pole vault to the birdhouse, Tom crashes through the upper floor of a house and is left dangling out the window from a dresser, wrapped up in a corset. Noting that the corset looks like a pair of wings, Tom uses them to fly.
- The Joy of First Flight: Tom dons a lady's corset in such a way as to mimic bat's wings and gains the ability to fly. After a wobbly start, Tom gets the hang of it, and leers triumphantly... then crashes into a mailbox.
- Low Clearance: A case involving an actual clothesline. While chasing Jerry Mouse outdoors, a canary pulls one clothesline of a set of four down to chin-high on the cat. Tom gets caught in this trap, and flips over to impact against the other three lines. At this point, the clotheslines behave like surgical wires, cutting Tom into four segments that fall to the ground.
- Wild Take: When the canary sees Tom flying, his feathers all fly out of his body for a brief second.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Jerry tries to convince the canary that Tom is flying towards them, and the canary laughs it off, especially as Jerry imitates Tom's face to convince him. The canary soon believes him when seeing Tom by himself.