 In 1940 , Hanna and Barbera jointly directed Puss Gets the Boot , which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best ( Cartoon ) Short Subject . The studio wanted a diversified cartoon portfolio , so despite the success of Puss Gets the Boot , Barbera and Hanna 's supervisor , Fred Quimby , did not want to produce more cat and mouse cartoons believing that there were already enough cartoons of those in existence . Surprised by the success of Puss Gets the Boot , Barbera and Hanna ignored Quimby 's resistance and continued developing the cat @-@ and @-@ mouse theme . By this time , however , Hanna wanted to return to working for Ising , to whom he felt very loyal . Barbera and Hanna met with Quimby , who discovered that although Ising had taken sole credit for producing Puss Gets the Boot , he never actually worked on it . Quimby then gave Hanna and Barbera permission to pursue their cat @-@ and @-@ mouse idea . The result was their most famous creation , Tom and Jerry . 
