Release Date:

August 30, 1952

Main Character(s):

Tweety and Sylvester

Summary:

Sylvester pursues Tweety in Stacy’s Department Store when it’s closed for the night.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1217 and was released as a Looney Tune.

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue.

The title is a pun for the 1900 song, “A Bird in a Gilded Cage”.

Shockingly, this is the first time since the VERY FIRST Warner cartoon, “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub”, all the way back in 1930, to use a tune called “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” (which plays near the end when Sylvester leaves in satisfaction thinking he has consumed Tweety).

During the scene where Sylvester tries on all the various hats in front of the mirror, he finds that Tweety is posing as the bird on the last one. Six years later, Freleng would base an entire cartoon around this called “A Bird in a Bonnet” where Sylvester chases Tweety into a hat shop where Granny is picking out a new hat. Tweety poses as a stuffed bird on a hat, which happens to be the one Granny buys, to elude Sylvester, so now whenever he tries to get at Tweety, Granny assumes he’s after her hat.

“Stacy’s” is a pun for Lacy’s.

The door gag from “Little Red Riding Rabbit” and “Buccaneer Bunny” is used here. This is also the only instance of it appearing outside of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Freleng would use the gun gag from this cartoon again in “A Star is Bored” (1956), while McKimson would use it in “Tease for Two” (1965). This gag is also used in the opening titles of “Revenge of the Pink Panther” (1978).

Favorite Scene:

Sylvester’s game of “sandwich” and when he tries on numerous hats and making faces of disgust at each.

What Happens in This One:

Sylvester walks past Stacy’s and stops upon seeing Tweety’s cage, advertised as “Special Bird and Cage. $19.59” (somehow changes to $19.50 when Sylvester later gets to Tweety’s cage). After Sylvester watches him sing “Ain’t She Sweet”, Tweety realizes he tawt he taw a putty tat. Sylvester enters the store by going through the chute next to the mail slot labeled “Drop Bundles Here”. Sneaking past while only shown from the chest down, due to curtains being pulled over most of the windows, Sylvester passes by mannequins (where only their legs are shown) modeling “French Bathing Suits” and goes back to wolf-whistle at them (animated by Manuel Perez).

Sylvester stacks some books to reach Tweety and pulls the curtain all the way down in order to not be watched while grabbing for him. The curtain opens up all the way, however, so Sylvester pulls it down again (animated by Perez). After Sylvester opens his cage, Tweety asks, “What are you going to do, putty tat?” Sylvester responds, “What am I gonna DO!?” before asiding, “How naive can ya get?”, before deciding, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll play ‘sandwich’”. Tweety is intrigued, “‘Sandwich’? Oh, goody-goody! How do you pway it?” Sylvester instructs, “First, you just step on this slice of bread”, which Tweety does. “Then I cover you with the other slice. Like this”. Tweety emerges from between the two bread slices and asks, “What do I do now, putty? What do I do now?”, but Sylvester shoves him back in, “Ah, ah, ah, ah! No peekin’!” before chuckling evilly. Muffled from inside the sandwich, Tweety is heard asking, “What did you say, putty? What did you say? I can’t hear you!” Sylvester takes a chomp out of the sandwich, only to find that Tweety has managed to avoid his jaws as he shudders in horrified annoyance, “Oooooh! I don’t wike that game!” (animated by Ken Champin)

Sylvester then chases Tweety into another room where Tweety takes refuge on a light fixture. He demands, “Come down here, ya little squirt!”, only for Tweety to tell him, “Ooh, you’re a bad putty tat, that’s what you are!” (animated by Virgil Ross) Sylvester takes first the armless torso of a female mannequin, and then another one with arms, coming back to pick up the left arm after it’s come loose and fallen off. Shortly, he has made a whole stack of female mannequin legs and bikini-clad torsos to reach up to Tweety on the light fixture. Unbeknownst to Sylvester, as he’s climbing up the mannequin stack, Tweety is descending down it at the same time. By the time Sylvester gets to the top and finds Tweety no longer there, he looks down to find that Tweety has somehow gotten a pair of roller skates under the feet of the mannequin legs on the bottom. He asks, “You wanna go for a wide, putty?” before pushing the whole stack forward with Sylvester on top down into the basement, causing a crash. Tweety laments, “Aw, the poor putty tat fall down” (animated by Perez) before Sylvester, with a lump on his head, comes running back up with a mannequin torso and mannequin legs before they cause him to trip up and stumble while still running (animated by Champin).

Tweety hides among a pile of hats, and while he’s searching through them, Sylvester decides to try some on while looking in the mirror in tune to “Oh, You Beautiful Doll”. He makes a disgusted face over one with flowers on it that obscures his eyes, makes a drooping muzzle face and then another disgusted face at a bonnet that also has flowers on it, silently chuckles at a very tiny hat that is priced $105.95, but finds that he dislikes this one as well and flicks it off of his head. He finally puts on a large hat and finds that Tweety is standing atop it like the bird on a hat. He attempts to mallet Tweety, only to give himself a lump in the process (animated by Ross).

Later, Sylvester sneaks around a corner of a counter that a doll house is on (animated by Perez). Tweety realizes, “Uh oh. Something tells me that putty tat awound here someplace!” Tweety goes into the doll house as Sylvester’s fingers go in there, acting as legs. Every time Sylvester’s fingers get to a door that Tweety has gone into and tries to open, Tweety exits out another. Sylvester then tries to grope for Tweety in one of the doll house’s rooms but Tweety brings out a small can of yellow paint into the open, so Sylvester unknowingly dips his finger in there. Sylvester sees his yellow finger peer out of a dark room and upon mistaking it for Tweety, shoots it with a gun, only to realize he just shot his own finger and silently jump around in pain (animated by Arthur Davis).

Sylvester grabs a rifle and attempts to shoot at Tweety with it, only to create a hole in the wall and in the floor. Tweety goes into the hole in the wall as Sylvester sticks his gun into it, only to find a gun pointing to him from the floor. In order to make sure this isn’t the same gun, he ties a red bow on the barrel. When he sticks it back into the wall, the gun from the floor has a yellow bow tied to it. He shoots, and the gun from the floor also shoots him in the behind. Upon pulling his gun from out of the wall, Sylvester finds the same yellow bow attached to the barrel! (animated by Davis)

After Tweety exits the hole in the wall, Sylvester chases him to two tubes, labeled “In Coming” and “Out Going”, respectively. Tweety goes into the “Out Going” tube that sucks him in before Sylvester can grab him. Sylvester goes to where the “Out Going” tube ends on the other side and opens his mouth in front of it so that Tweety will end up exiting in there. However, Tweety exits out another tube and seeing Sylvester expecting him, he puts a dynamite stick in the alternate outgoing tube next to the one he came out of, which goes into Sylvester’s waiting mouth. Unaware of what he actually consumed, Sylvester licks his lips and rubs his stomach in satisfaction (animated by Davis).

In tune to “Tip Toe Through the Tulips”, Sylvester happily walks out of the store humming. After he turns a corner, the dynamite in his stomach explodes. Though it’s left him charred, Sylvester believes he ended up getting indigestion from Tweety, “Well, birds are off my list! That one sort of upset my stomach!”, as he continues walking along the street, groaning (animated by Ross).

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕 ½