Release Date:

January 2, 1954

Main Character(s):

Tweety and Sylvester

Summary:

Sylvester finds that Tweety has taken up residence in a tree in the city dog pound and makes numerous failed attempts to get past the hundreds of bulldogs guarding him.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1278 and was released as a Looney Tune.

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue. In September 2022, a 16mm print with the original opening and closing rings was found.

This is the first cartoon to use the smaller opening rings and smaller background for the Warner Bros. shield to zoom in from, which would be used on all subsequent cartoons until the original 1964 closure. This was due to widescreen becoming a new thing and Warner Bros. wanting to make all of the copyright and credits info intact so they don’t get accidentally cropped out if theaters showed them in their improper aspect ratio (I’ll explain more about this in a special Saturday post next week).

The cartoon is a reworking of “Ain’t She Tweet”, only that these bulldogs aren’t owned by Granny, but rather the pound.

Not counting “Duck Rabbit Duck”, “Robot Rabbit”, and “Punch Trunk”, this is the first cartoon to use the 1954 orange rings with the blue background. The 1954 and 1955 cartoons that use these rings still use the larger rings and the larger background in the outros, however.

The title is a play on words for “dog pound”, which appropriately this cartoon takes place in.

The cartoon is notable for having Pepe Le Pew make a cameo appearance at the end. It is his only appearance in a Freleng cartoon, the only time after his debut in “Odor-Able Kitty” where he mistakes a male cat for a female skunk, and one of his only two appearances in the Golden Age outside of a cartoon not made by Jones’ unit, with the other being “Odor of the Day”.

As the Looney Tunes Super Stars Pepe Le Pew Zee Best of Zee Best DVD set from 2011 contains Pepe’s entire filmography, Jerry Beck wanted it to be as complete as possible and also had this one included on that set, fully restored, making it the outlier, due to Pepe only making a cameo at the end (though I am definitely not complaining about that because I have made it very clear that I want all 1000 Warner cartoons put out on disc fully restored and uncut at some point, and the cartoon itself looks stunning).

The cartoon is in the 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons book.

Favorite Scene:

Sylvester attempts to tunnel underground, only to find out that the bulldogs had predicted this attempt and have been waiting for him underground in the opposite direction while wearing mining helmets.

What Happens in This One:

Sylvester walks along hungry and unhappy and opens a trash can, only to find another alley cat inside the can and in the middle of a private meal. Embarrassed, Sylvester tells the annoyed cat, “Oops! Pardon me”, before putting the lid back atop him. Still walking a while later, Sylvester hears and looks up at Tweety singing “On Moonlight Bay” atop a tree. Tweety stops and looks down to see that “I tawt I taw a putty tat!” After Sylvester loudly exclaims, “Mmm-mmm!” in delight, Tweety realizes, “I did! I did taw a putty tat!” Sylvester excitedly runs into the yard where Tweety is residing, only to find out the hard way that this is the city dog pound. He makes it back out while panting in fear completely white and with one of the bulldog’s dentures attached to his tail. He looks back up over the fence and sees all of the bulldogs angrily glaring at him. Sylvester paces back and forth thinking of an idea, and out of curiosity to see if they’re expecting him, he sticks his head through a knothole in the fence, to which the bulldogs chew off all his head fur offscreen (animated by Manuel Perez).

Sylvester climbs up a telephone pole with an umbrella and uses said umbrella to balance while walking across the electric wire to get to Tweety in tune to “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter”. Tweety laughs, “Here comes the dawing young cat on the fwying twapeze!” The bulldogs all respond by blowing up at him in unison which causes Sylvester to sail into the air with the umbrella before coming back down. Sylvester attempts to blow air upward into the umbrella to go back up, to no avail, and is subsequently attacked by the bulldogs (animated by Virgil Ross).

Next, Sylvester attempts to dig an underground tunnel and use a pickax to make his way through the underground dirt. As the camera pans across in time to Sylvester’s digging, it’s eventually revealed that the bulldogs have predicted Sylvester was going to do this, have dug their own tunnel from the opposite direction, and are waiting for him while wearing mining helmets. We cut back to the surface as the ground moves while the bulldogs begin attacking Sylvester offscreen. They continue attacking him when he attempts to come out of the tunnel. Sylvester, with a few bits of fur missing, manages to get out and starts filling it back up so the bulldogs can’t follow him that way (animated by Arthur Davis).

Sylvester goes into the pound disguised as a very phony-looking dog that the bulldogs immediately snarl at, and cause his costume head to come off. He puts it back on, and tries to make a convincing dog by literally saying, “Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! (pants) Woof! Woof! (pants)” One of the bulldogs looks at another bulldog who shakes his head at him to signify this isn’t a real dog. After they all snarl at him, Sylvester runs out of the pound without any trouble and across the street. He is immediately brought back by the dogcatcher who puts him back in the pound, “We can’t have you dogs roaming the streets, you know. So we’ll just put you back where you’ll be safe and sound” (animated by Davis).

Pacing back and forth again, Sylvester peeks over the fence, only for a random bulldog to walk towards the fence at this time and cause the board Sylvester’s peering over to move him upside down into the pound. He gets attacked by the other bulldogs while this bulldog looks around in confusion before going back and causing the board to move back to its proper position, revealing Sylvester’s state after his latest beating (animated by Davis).

Having studied a book on “Mass Hypnotism”, Sylvester boldly walks into the pound. Once the bulldogs start after him, he hypnotizes them all into freezing in place, allowing him to walk past easily. In Sylvester’s grasp, Tweety attempts to call out to them, “Hey! Wake up, doggies! The putty tat’s got me! Help! Here’s the putty tat, doggies! Here’s the putty tat! Doggies! Help!” Sylvester taunts him, “Go ahead. Yell your little yellow head off. There’s only one thing ‘ll wake ‘em up!” Tweety asks him, “What, putty? What’ll wake ‘em up? What? What’ll wake ‘em up?”, to which Sylvester confidently but foolishly answers, “Ha! Ya think I’m gonna tell YOU it’s a police whistle?” Tweety happens to have one, “Wike this, putty?” but before he can blow it, Sylvester puts a cup over him and holds it with both hands so he can’t be heard. Tweety pricks Sylvester’s hand with a hat pin, causing Sylvester to jump into the air while screaming in pain. Tweety blows his whistle, which gets the bulldogs out of their trance. Sylvester attempts to run out, only for the bulldogs to catch him by the back of the neck and pull him back in for another beating (animated by Ross).

Later, Sylvester opens the gate to find the pound seemingly empty. Once climbing up the tree, however, he finds that all of the bulldogs are perched on the branches! After another offscreen attack by the bulldogs, Sylvester comes back down with most of his fur missing (animated by Perez).

Sylvester attempts to fly up to Tweety by using a rocket on his back. After Sylvester ignites the fuse with a match, Tweety laughs, “Now that putty tat thinks he’s Buck Wogers!” The rocket instead blasts off without Sylvester and leaves him hairless from the chest up. His lower fur slumps down and reveals his blue underwear with purple polka dots, so he holds it together while sneaking away (animated by Davis).

The bulldogs angrily bark up at Sylvester standing atop the telephone pole with a swing as he taunts them, “Yeah, try and stop me this time!” The swing ends up going down into the bulldogs’ reach and a few of them end up on it while beating up on Sylvester. When they come back down, the swing goes back up to where Sylvester jumped off of it without Sylvester himself (animated by Ken Champin).

Lastly, Sylvester paints a white stripe down his back to look like a skunk. Coming in on all four’s, he manages to successfully scare the bulldogs away. He laughs at them being scared, “Look at them run!”, before going up to the tree and informing Tweety, “Come on, breakfast! You’ve stalled long enough!” Sylvester climbs up the tree and comes back down with Tweety while chuckling fiendishly. Suddenly, Pepe Le Pew comes in out of nowhere and starts flirting with Sylvester having mistaken him for a female skunk, “Ah! Le petite skunk femme fatale! Mm, come with me to ze Casbah! Ah, ze fond embrace! Le smooch! Ze eyes!” Tweety watches this in amusement and laughs, “That putty tat’s turning out to be an awful stinker!” (animated by Champin)

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕