The Night Before Christmas is a 1941 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the third Tom and Jerry short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, produced by Fred Quimby and animated by Jack Zander, George Gordon, Irven Spence and Bill Littlejohn. It was nominated for the 1941 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons, but lost to the Mickey Mouse short film Lend a Paw, making it the only Tom and Jerry cartoon to lose to a Disney film.This third cartoon uses what has become the basic "cat stalks mouse" premise, but also hints at a softening in Tom Cat's character: when Jerry is out in the freezing cold, Tom worries about him, indicating that the rivalry between them may not be entirely a fight to the death.