Tom the cat from Tom and Jerry, created for MGM cartoons in the 1940s, is famous for long, humanlike screams of pain voiced in early shorts. Those screams were clipped and reused for decades, and in the earrape era of meme editing fans boosted them into distorted scream meme staples for Discord, TikTok and YouTube edits. The joke works because a childhood cartoon reaction is now so loud it feels like a prank, which keeps it popular for shock transitions.