Release Date:

January 12, 1957

Main Character(s):

Tweety and Sylvester

Summary:

Sylvester pursues Tweety at the zoo and gets himself in trouble with the various inhabitants.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1432 and was released as a Merrie Melodie.

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue.

The title is a pun for the song “Sweet Sue”.

As of this writing, this is currently the only 1957 cartoon to not be restored on disc. It was restored for HBO Max in 2020 though, so hopefully it will end up on a future Blu-ray set.

This cartoon was released on the same day that ex-Pixar executive John Lasseter was born (he was a noteworthy admirer of Jones, and Jones himself heavily praised “Toy Story 2”, as he was able to see it before his death in 2002).

Paul McCartney’s 1980 song, “Check My Machine” (released 10 years after the Beatles’ last album was released due to the band’s 1969 breakup), uses several audio clips from this cartoon (McCartney fans should definitely check this one out if they’ve heard that song). What’s specifically used in the song are the rhino’s retort to the zookeeper’s insulting description of him and the tiger and tour guide greeting each other.

Other than birds, Sylvester’s diet also consists of fish, mice, milk, and cream.

The lion in this cartoon behaves in a similar way to the one in “Tweety’s Circus”.

Favorite Scene:

The British Bengal tigers, with one of whom named Cedric not watching what he eats.

The lion getting attacked by the gators is also a standout since it’s definitely not every day you see the “King of the Beasts” being the victim of an attack.

What Happens in This One:

At the City Zoo, the zoo’s tour guide is seen showing people the various animals starting with a rhino. “Here we see the rhinoceros. Found in the African velt. The rhino’s a powerful animal- treacherous, ill-tempered, savage, thick-skinned, dumb”. The rhino retorts in a hilariously dopey voice, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Nyah!” The tour guide greets a tiger when he walks up to his cage, “Morning, Terry”, to which the tiger greets him, “Hi, George”. The tour guide then describes the tiger as “This handsome creature’s the Bengal tiger. Native to Indian French Indo-China. His every action is poetry emotion. Truly a regal specimen” (animated by Virgil Ross). Passing the cage of a skunk, the tour guide runs past it quickly while holding his nose and also talks quickly with everyone following him at the same speed, “If you look quickly to the right, you will see a specimen of the North American skunk”. At Tweety’s cage, the tour guide’s description for him is, “And in this cage, we see the rare and only specimen of the Tweety bird. This bird is very tame and lovable. And right this way for the monkey cages”. Everyone leaves, except for Sylvester, who stares at Tweety flying around in his cage (animated by Arthur Davis).

Tweety realizes, “I tawt I taw a putty tat!” Sylvester enters the cage and starts chasing Tweety who runs out while shouting, “I did! I did taw a putty tat!” (animated by Ross) Tweety flies into the area where the bear resides and takes refuge on the tree in there. “You can’t get me here, you bad putty tat!” (animated by Gerry Chiniquy) Failing to spot the “Warning Do Not Tease the Animals” sign on the wall to his right, Sylvester picks up a net and attempts to catch Tweety with it, only to end up hitting the sleeping bear on the head every time. The bear eventually dodges and then grabs the net, lifting it up so that Sylvester slides down the handle and stops in front of him. Sylvester turns to the audience and lets out a pathetic “Mother”. Once the bear starts attacking Sylvester offscreen, Tweety comments, “Ooh! Wook at the nice teddy bear! Wants to pway with the putty tat!”, before reminding, “Don’t fight! Pway nice!” Unharmed, Sylvester climbs out of the bear’s area and briefly cringes before the bear throws out the net, which he has snapped in half. Tweety asks, “What’s the matter, putty? Don’t you want to pway with the teddy bear no more?” (animated by Davis)

After pacing back and forth a few times in front of the bear’s area, Sylvester sports a devious smile before running off. Tweety figures, “Ooh! It wook wike the putty tat got tired and went home!” He then flies off the tree and out of the bear’s area. Tweety passes by a lunch cart, unaware that Sylvester was hiding in there. Before Sylvester can get out of there, the zookeeper is heard saying, “Well, it’s feeding time again”, forcing him to go back down into the cart’s interior. He stops at the area of the Bengal tigers and calls to them, “Okay, tigers! Come and get it!” as he tosses steaks to them as well as Sylvester before leaving. Noticing that his fellow inhabitant is smacking slowly with a disgusted expression, the unnamed tiger reveals they speak in British accents when he asks, “What’s the matter, Cedric? Didn’t you like your dinner?” Cedric replies while coughing and spluttering, “Peculiar taste… keeps coming back on me!” Sylvester then opens Cedric’s mouth and runs out of it, much to the unnamed tiger’s shock. The unnamed tiger scolds, “You ought to watch what you eat, Cedric!” (animated by Chiniquy)

Tweety walks up to the elephant’s cage with a bag of peanuts, “Hewwo, Mr. Edephant! Would you wike a peanut? Here’s a nice one for you!” Instead of sucking up just that one peanut, the elephant sucks up not only the entire bag but also the bag itself and Tweety. When he spits Tweety back out of his trunk, the latter tells him in annoyance, “Ooh, you’re a GLUTTON, Mr. Edephant!” Sylvester then enters from behind with a “HA!” He chases Tweety into the elephant’s cage with Tweety hiding in a hole in the ground and the elephant walking over there to stand atop it. With him in the way of Tweety, Sylvester attempts to push the elephant off of the hole and lift him up by the toes, neither of which work. He then kicks the elephant’s left front leg, only to succeed in injuring his foot. Sylvester winds up a toy mouse and gets the elephant’s attention by whispering, “Psst! Hey! Jumbo! Look!” The elephant notices the wind-up mouse and jumps into the air in fear, ending with him landing right on top of Sylvester. Sylvester manages to grab a club and hit the elephant with it four times to get him off. Once the elephant jumps off of him, Sylvester walks around on all four’s flattened in the shape of a table (animated by Ross).

Tweety walks along a brick wall before noticing Sylvester popping up from behind him, “Uh oh!” Sylvester resumes the chase (animated by Chiniquy), chasing Tweety to the alligator pond which he doesn’t realize until he’s standing in the water and the gators’ heads emerge. He runs out, managing to avoid their snapping jaws, and once back on land, sputters in fear, “Crocod-….cr-cr-crocodi-…alligators!” Sylvester then spots Tweety sitting on the tree in the middle of the gator pond waving at him (animated by Davis).

Sylvester paces back and forth and doesn’t realize he’s doing this in front of the cage of a lion watching him until the lion roars angrily at him. In response, Sylvester grabs a nearby oar and hits him on the head with it, “Ah, shut up!”, and upon seeing this oar came with a rowboat, pulls said rowboat with him to row across the pond to get to Tweety. The gators slightly emerge from the water with smirking expressions. As Sylvester rows his way across the pond with the other oar, the camera pans back to reveal that the lion has somehow joined him in the boat. Realizing this when looking behind him, Sylvester runs out back to land when the lion roars at him again, dropping the other oar in the process. The boat then sinks from the lion’s weight and the lack of oars, with the lion shortly getting attacked by the gators. The lion quickly runs back to his cage with a few bits of fur missing and pants heavily. Upon spotting Sylvester having run back into his cage, the lion drags him out by the tail and takes him back to the pond, dipping him in headfirst for the gators to chew off Sylvester’s fur from the head down to his chest. He then kicks him aside, causing Sylvester to fall into the bear pit where he gets attacked by even more bears than the one he previously annoyed (animated by Davis).

Looking across the gator pond at Tweety still on the tree in the middle, Sylvester grabs a pole and gets a good running start with it in an attempt to pole vault to Tweety. Tweety throws a banana peel in the way, causing Sylvester to slide into the water with the pole and submerge. He is then seen backing out of the water and using the pole to keep the gators back all the while shouting “DOWN!” numerous times, before making it back out unharmed (animated by Chiniquy).

Walking out of the zoo disgruntled, Sylvester has given up as he takes out a piece of paper listing his diet, “From now on, birds are off my list!” as he crosses it out. “There!” Presumably having heard this, a flock of birds fly near him and use him as a moving rest area, causing Sylvester to sulk, “Sufferin’ succotash! What a fine time I picked to go on a diet!” (animated by Ross)

Where Can I Watch It?

At toontales.net!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕 ½