Release Date:

July 23, 1949

Main Character(s):

Tweety and Sylvester

Summary:

Sylvester’s pursuit of Tweety includes using a girder as a trampoline, painting his finger to look like a female canary, and Tweety being mistakenly used as the birdie in badminton.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1095 and was released as a Merrie Melodie.

The storyboards for this cartoon were recently revealed online.

Tweety attacking Sylvester every time he bounces up at the start of the cartoon while berating him is somewhat of a callback to Tweety’s debut in “A Tale of Two Kitties” where he beats up on Catstello every time he bounces up.

The title is a nod to one of Tweety’s catchphrases (which he does indeed say in this particular cartoon).

This cartoon proves that Tweety is a male as he becomes smitten with Sylvester’s female canary disguise: “I tawt I taw a (wolf-whistles)”. This is also the only ever time where Tweety shows interest in the opposite gender.

Sylvester does not have any dialogue in this cartoon, unless you count his screaming at one point.

The two badminton players are caricatures of Tedd Pierce (the tall thin one who Sylvester knocks out and replaces) and Michael Maltese (the short pudgy one).

There is yet another reference to Freleng, as “Friz” is seen on a box at one point.

With the exception of the first scene and up until Tweety begins to control Sylvester after flying into his mouth near the end, Tweety wears a sailor cap like he did in “I Taw a Putty Tat”.

What I Like About This One:

The very jazzy rendition of “Baby Face” over the opening credits (this is easily the best rendition of this song, in my opinion).

We begin with the pole for Tweety’s bird house shown to have been lined with barbed wire and the camera panning down to reveal that Sylvester already took the brunt of this as he is bandaged and pondering his next scheme (animated by Ken Champin).

Sneaking out of the bushes, Sylvester constructs a trampoline made from a girdle. After he bounces up a few times, his presence causes Tweety to realize he taw a putty tat so he runs over to a glass case, “In Case of Putty Tat Break Glass”. It contains a squirt gun that has a mechanical boxing glove inside as Tweety punches Sylvester with it. Every time Sylvester bounces up, he gets punched by Tweety who berates him first with a baseball bat: “Bad ol’ putty tat!”, then with a seltzer bottle: “You fwighten me! You make me wittle heart quiver!” After Tweety says the latter, Sylvester dons a diving helmet and sticks his tongue out at Tweety. With the next bounce, Tweety puts a dynamite stick in the helmet, which explodes offscreen. Tweety finishes, “Bad ol’ putty tat!” when Sylvester bounces back up with the destroyed helmet (animated by Champin).

Sylvester attempts to saw the bird house down as Tweety realizes, “Uh oh. The putty tat after me again. He MAD at me. I will have to fwee for me wittle wife”. He uses a clothespin to zipline down a wire only to find Sylvester’s tooth attached to the other end of the wire (animated by Manuel Perez). When the wire slumps to the ground, Sylvester searches for Tweety in confusion only to find (animated by Champin) that Tweety has attached the other end of the wire to a rocket which he ignites, pulling Sylvester’s teeth out of his head and causing his muzzle to droop (animated by Gerry Chiniquy).

In the workshop, Sylvester is seen painting his finger to look like a female canary before putting a nest over it, poking his arm out of a tree, and blowing a whistle with a bird on it that makes the appropriate tweets. Tweety realizes he “taw a (wolf-whistles)” and flies over to “her”. Sylvester puts his paw over the nest and sneaks out. Realizing this, Tweety tells the disguised finger, “Don’t worry, wittle chickadee! I’ll save you!” but instead pulls “her” bonnet off, revealing Sylvester’s claw. He decides, “You know, I think my wittle hat looks better on YOU!” as he puts on the bonnet. Sylvester bites what he thinks is Tweety, but upon seeing the actual Tweety fly into the air, realizes he bit his own finger and screams in pain (animated by Virgil Ross).

Tweety runs near a badminton court and hides in the can of birdies. Just as Sylvester discovers his hiding spot, the tall badminton player comes by and grabs the can of birdies to take into the court, much to Sylvester’s annoyance (animated by Perez). Tweety finds himself being used as the birdie as he is whapped back and forth by the players’ rackets. “Now how do you suppose I got me wittle self in such a pwedicament?” Sylvester knocks out the tall badminton player offscreen and takes his place before opening his mouth when Tweety flies back to his side. Tweety instead shouts, “Bombs away!” and drops a dynamite stick down his throat. Realizing what he just swallowed, Sylvester drinks the water straight from the water cooler in order to put out the fuse, but the explosion happens anyway, blasting him right into the water tank (animated by Chiniquy).

Back in the workshop, Sylvester constructs a bird house of his own and puts it over his head before climbing up a long pole and standing atop it (animated by Perez). Tweety thinks to himself, “Oh, but something tell me that putty is somewhere awound here cwose to me, with his wong teeth and his sharp cwaws!”, before trembling in fear, “Ooh! I scared!” (animated by Ross) He flies into the bird house and into Sylvester’s mouth (animated by Champin), figuring “that bad ol’ putty tat never gonna find me in here” (animated by Ross).

Delighted that this scheme worked, Sylvester removes the bird house and slides down the pole before walking off happily on all fours. Tweety first appears in Sylvester’s eyes and then in his ear before donning a railroad engineer’s hat. “Goody goody for me. I is wunning a choo-choo twain!” He pulls the cord for the “whistle” and decides, “I will give it full speed ahead!” (animated by Perez)

Suddenly, all of Sylvester’s fours begin to move as if he’s chugging like a train and he then starts to make train noises as he starts moving as fast as one. Tweety is enjoying this, “Whee! I’ll bet we doing 90 miles an hour!” Sylvester ends up crashing into a brick wall as it is a “dead end street” (animated by Champin). The hit creates a Sylvester-shaped hole in the wall as Sylvester collapses front-first from the hit (animated by Perez). Tweety sees that he “wecked the putty tat” before confiding, “You know, I wose more putty tats that way!” (animated by Champin)

Where Can I Watch It?

At toontales.net!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕