Did you know that his name when he first appeared was Jasper. Not cool, right? Tom is much much better.
He's just a plain houshold cat that sleeps most of the day, and when he does not sleep, he tries to eat something nice - cheese, maybe a bottle of milk.
He would probably lead boring life if he lived alone. But he is not alone. There is a little mouse who lives under the same roof who just won't let him be.
To cut the long story short, Jerry is sharing food with Tom and most of the time that is a big problem for Tom. Better word instead of sharing would be stealing. Well, what can he do. People keep cats as pets mostly. They don't like mice that much.
Everything they do to each other is more like having a blasts of fun as everything goes well for them at the end. Tom and Jerry relationship is actually quite complicated, there's an interesting post right here.
Kids, no matter how young, realize it's all fake and not for real.
These cartoons are absolutely safe.
It is a very common scene to see Tom chasing Jerry while running away from Spyke.
Spyke just have zero tolerance for cats. It usually doesn't end well for Tom when he has to deal with Spyke.