Invisible Tom With Vanishing Cream

Submission 14,629

Part of a series on Tom and Jerry. [View Related Entries]

About

Invisible Tom With Vanishing Cream refers to a scene from a 1958 episode of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Tom and Jerry in which Tom applies "vanishing cream" to his arm and smiles deviously after it turns invisible, realizing its potential use for capturing Jerry. The scene became the subject of video edits and memes starting in 2020.

Origin

On May 2nd, 1958, the 112th Tom and Jerry short, titled "The Vanishing Duck,"^[1] premiered. At one point in the episode, the cat Tom gets his hands on a tub of "vanishing cream," which makes the user invisible, that Jerry and Quacker the duck have been using to harass him. He tests the cream out on his arm and it works, resulting in a devious smile. The isolated scene was uploaded by YouTuber^[2] chiefsittingpretty on December 9th, 2010, garnering over 57,000 views in 10 years (shown below).

Spread

On March 9th, 2020, YouTuber^[3] kitaro uploaded a video splicing together the scene of Tom applying vanishing cream with a scene from the film Scary Movie 2 in which a ghost has sex with a woman, implying Tom is performing the acts while invisible (shown below). The video gained over 10,000 views in a year and is the earliest known upload. It is set to the song "Machi No Dorufin" by Kingo Hamada.^[8]

The edit was reuploaded by numerous YouTubers^[5]^[6] over the course of the month, gaining thousands of additional views. It also inspired a number of new edits where it appears as if Invisible Tom is causing mischief. For example, on March 11th, YouTuber^[7] Rusli Anda uploaded a video splicing together the scene with a video of a man twerking while appearing to sleep, garnering over 40,000 views in a year (shown below, left). On March 17th, YouTuber^[9] BENZMO_CH uploaded a new edit of the video, garnering over 17,000 views in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

On March 23rd, Instagram^[10] meme page @livingin2077_official posted a new version of the format using footage of a runaway motorcycle, garnering over 318,000 views in a year (shown below).

On September 7th, YouTubers^[4] MxR Plays posted a video reacting to a number of memes, including Invisible Tom memes, garnering over 1.3 million views in six months and increasing interest in the clip (shown below).