Jerry Mouse is a young brown house mouse, who first appeared as an unnamed mouse in the 1940 MGM animated short "Puss Gets the Boot". Years later, William Hanna gave the mouse's original name as "Jinx", while Joseph Barbera claimed the mouse went unnamed in his first appearance. In a story entitled "Dancing Dan's Christmas", Damon Runyon describes a pre-prohibition era drink named "Tom and Jerry". It seems likely that Jerry's naming may have been inspired by either the name of the drink (if indeed it really existed), or, since the stories pre-date the cartoons, Mr Runyon.