Shrouded in Mystery:

The Origins and Duration of the Tom and Jerry Party

Historians fiercely debate the beginning date of the Tom and Jerry Party in the version conducted under the aegis of Brian Gratton. Chronological sequence is about all the discipline has to offer–don’t start with us on critical thinking or intersectionality, it’s been a rough week–and the TnJ controversy exposes that historians can’t even get “if A occurs before B” right. We’ve done our best and we conclude that the party to be celebrated on 18 March 2023 will be the

48th Annual

We, Professors Gratton and O’Donnell, base our conclusions on a careful study of the invitations. All those still known to be extant are provided on this web site, under the odd title “Invitations from the Past.” Review them at will. Note our conservative and circumspect use of evidence. We cite only known invitations even though sources suggest the party had begun as early as 1972. A letter from B. Gratton written to his parents, dated 16 December 1972, states: “I am having my “Johnson ‘of course’ party,” a clear reference to his grandfather Carl Johnson’s famous TnJ fiesta, an event his parents had also hosted for a decade. No year is given on the earliest extant invitation, the infamous “First Great Awakening,” in the Boston Series. Using a variant of Babwani’s formula, Gratton and O’Donnell determined that the Saturday, Dec. 18th in the text must have occurred in 1976. This conclusion was reinforced by several rude references in the mimeographed invite to the arrival of a new administration from the South, viz., the Carter Presidency! The second extant invitation is dated 1977. The invitation bears the useful line “we invite you to Tom and Jerry’s 3rd Annual Christmas Meeting.” This text has given rise to the controversial claim by the Schneider School that the first party was held in 1975. That School’s position has been largely confirmed by 1980 and 1982 invitations stating that a party had been held in 1975. The party shifted from December to January between 1978 and 1980, meaning that there was no 1979 date. There were 2 parties in 1987, but 1988 did not appear, with a shift to a January date in 1989. Failure to follow carefully these shifts led to the erroneous declaration in the 2007 invitation that it was the 30th Annual, when it was in fact the 32nd. These various bits and parcels of evidence add up to the unshakable conclusion that 2023 will witness, god willing, the 48th annual Tom and Jerry.

Please note that the Massey School argues that the two principals in party development in the mid-1970s, Brian Gratton and Eric Schneider, had imbibed so much of the grog that they thought three years had passed rather than two. Also, Dr. Gratton did not yet have graduate students to do the quantitative work he is himself incapable of doing, although he has fraudulently based his meager career upon his supposed math skills. (“All Historians Count,” declared the American Historical Association in 2019, newly alert to the declining number of academic positions.  “Not very well,” responded Gratton, from his retirement cave.) Such an interpretation is bolstered by a similarly inebriated comment on a subsequent “True Origins of Tom n’ Jerrys” article, published in this rag, obviously written under the influence. It is so filled with lies and quarter truths that Gratton and O’Donnell conclude that nothing in it can be trusted, it is but the merry jester playing tricks on and interrogating the positionality of the categories.

The Thomas Lee and Louisa May Institute, swarming with social science types sporting improbable names, too insignificant to constitute a school, has pointed out that even if 1976 is accepted as the first year, 2006 would then have constituted the 30th or 31st party. Gratton and O’Donnell have cleverly discovered the fatal flaw in the numerical approach: it does not add up! In the same year of the “True Origins,” they spied the shift from December to January for the day of the party. Hence a year was lost! They think. Dr. O’Donnell would also like to point out that all dating is rendered problematic by the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in the 18th century. This doesn’t really have anything to do with the Tom ‘n Jerry, but it is one of her few facts, and she really likes pointing it out.

Anyway, 48 it is. Make your presence known, since there is a rumor there will only be two more…..

^1. Gratton is still trying to live down his earliest essay on the subject, “(Re)-presenting Rural Diasporas: Political Mimesis at a Tom ‘n Jerry Party,” Historical Frivolity 21:2 (Summer 1977): 27-52. The idea for this essay reportedly came to him after a frenzied night of gambling with his old friend Clifford Geertz.

^2. “When an Apostrophe Matters: The Onamastics of Alcohol in the United States,” Annals of the Association of American Navel Gazers 3 (1997): 1-114.