Release Date:

May 3, 1947

Main Character(s):

Tweety and Sylvester

Summary:

When Sylvester (called “Thomas” in this one) catches Tweety on a snowy night, his mistress takes pity on Tweety and takes him in, warning Sylvester not to try any tricks. He attempts to catch Tweety anyway, but fails every time.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1026 and was released as a Merrie Melodie.

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue. The original titles for this one being found have a rather interesting history. Television prints of this cartoon from the Associated Artists Productions Company (which owned the rights to all of the pre-August 1948 color cartoons from 1956 to the mid-1990’s) kept the original opening audio. In late 2010 or early 2011, black and white images of the original title card and credits were found by animation historian David Gerstein. Finally, in 2023, a black and white print with the original titles was found and while both the audio and title cards had been found since the early 2010’s, this was the first time people were seeing them both on an actual film print.

This is a historically significant cartoon in that it was the very first Warner Bros. cartoon to win an Academy Award. There would be four more Warner cartoons to win an Academy Award, with those being “For Scent-imental Reasons” (1949), “Speedy Gonzales” (1955), “Birds Anonymous” (1957), and “Knighty Knight Bugs” (1958).

This is the first pairing of Tweety and Sylvester, as well as the first time Tweety has yellow feathers. When Bob Clampett created Tweety, he was featherless, which made him look naked. The Hays Office thought so too, and had Freleng give Tweety a coat of yellow feathers once he took over the character.

This cartoon was the first of many examples of producer Eddie Selzer thinking something wouldn’t work but would be proven wrong. Sylvester’s second appearance, “Peck Up Your Troubles” had him going after a mute woodpecker, which Selzer wanted to be Sylvester’s recurring antagonist. However, Clampett had recently left so Freleng wanted to use Tweety. Since Selzer demanded otherwise, Freleng threatened to resign until that night Selzer gave in and told Freleng via phone call to do it his way. And we are all glad he did because it led to one of the best character dynamics in all of Looney Tunes, as well as their first Oscar.

The title is a pun for “sweetie pie”. In some places people have referred to Tweety as “Tweety Pie” likely because of this cartoon, which means that the people who refer to Tweety as that are missing the point of the title’s pun. However, the creators did use that a few times, with the most notable being for a visual gag in “Tree Cornered Tweety” (1956) and for a title: “A Pizza Tweety Pie” (1958) where an Italian-accented Sylvester chases Tweety in Venice.

At one point in the 2020 movie “Birds of Prey”, Harley Quinn and Cassandra Cain are seen watching this cartoon.

The Rube Goldberg trap in this cartoon is the same one from “Trap Happy Porky” with the only differences being the cuckoo pushing a bowling ball off its perch rather than a jumbo olive and that this trap backfires.

This is the only time Sylvester is referred to as “Thomas” which is very likely a reference to the Tom and Jerry cartoons at MGM where Tom is sometimes referred to as that. Obviously, this didn’t stick as Sylvester would end up being the permanent name for the lisping cat beginning with Jones’ “Scaredy Cat” (1948).

What I Like About This One:

As Tweety is warming himself by a cigar butt, Sylvester pops out of a snowman and puts tennis racqets on his feet to make it easier to sneak up in the snow. Tweety is presumably grabbed after he says “I tawt I taw a putty tat!”, but as Sylvester walks away after presumably pouncing on him, he passes Tweety who realizes he did taw a putty tat (animated by Ken Champin). It turns out Sylvester actually grabbed the cigar butt and after screaming in pain, cools his hands off in the snow (animated by Gerry Chiniquy).

Grabbing Tweety for real this time, Sylvester hears his mistress shouting, “Thomas!” and asking what is in his hand. He has nothing in either hand, but the mistress notices Tweety wrapped in Sylvester’s tail trying to get away. Taking pity on Tweety, the mistress scolds, “Thomas, aren’t you ashamed? Now come over here and kiss the poor little birdie and make up!” Tweety repeats her words with, “Come here, Thomas, and kiss the ‘ittle birdie”. Sylvester acts like he’s about to do so, but eats Tweety instead so the mistress makes him spit him out (animated by Chiniquy).

The mistress pleasantly tells Tweety good night but sternly warns Sylvester to not try any tricks. A halo appears over his head and he points to it but it immediately disappears once the door shuts (animated by Virgil Ross).

Having stacked some furniture to reach Tweety’s cage, Sylvester finds Tweety not in his cage, but on the floor sawing a table leg since said table was the bottom piece of furniture, causing a crash. Seeing the mistress coming down stairs, Sylvester hastily puts everything back in its proper place before feigning being asleep but the mistress isn’t fooled, and repeatedly whacks him with her broom (animated by Champin).

Tweety hears a dinging noise and it’s Sylvester tapping against furniture with metal legs. This time, Tweety combats this with a blowtorch to melt the leg of the bottom furniture and briefly lifts up his mask to aside to the audience, “Keep your eye on the putty tat!” Sylvester waves a meek bye bye before falling and fakes sleeping again but is once more whacked by the mistress’ broom (animated by Champin).

Sylvester next straps an electric fan to his back but finds Tweety standing next to the power outlet that the fan’s cord is plugged into. Sylvester desperately pleads for Tweety to not pull it out but Tweety keeps nodding with their gestures being timed to the music as if they’re saying, “Don’t pull the cord!” and “Yes pull the cord!” respectively. After Tweety pulls it out and Sylvester crashes, Tweety laments, “Poor putty tat. Forgot his parachute.” (animated by Manuel Perez).

Sylvester reels himself up to Tweety’s cage with a fishing pole but Tweety starts making a noise that would bring the mistress down so Sylvester quickly reels himself back down and does his fake sleeping routine. When nothing happens, Sylvester somehow gets into Tweety’s cage and pops a glass over him in between his hands so that Tweety’s calls for help only come out as silence. After pricking Sylvester’s hand with a nail, Tweety’s noise becomes loud enough for the mistress to come down. Realizing it’s no use at this point, Sylvester just gives a “Here we go again” face as he is hit with the broom. This time, he is tossed out of the house for good measure (animated by Ross).

Seeing that Sylvester is trying to sneak back into the house through the chimney, Tweety starts a fire, which causes Sylvester to zoom out of the chimney and land into a water bucket outside (animated by Champin).

Drawing up blueprints for his next scheme, Sylvester leaves a trail of bird seed as bait and once Tweety happily jumps on a box of bird seed, this triggers a toaster to eject a piece of toast that hits a knife keeping an iron in place, which causes the iron to descend each rung down a ladder before landing on the stepping part of a garbage can which opens the door to the ironing board. The ironing board lands on a bellows which causes sails to blow, with said sails being attached to a string that turns on the oven and gets the kettle to whistle and pop out a cork plugging it up. The cork hits the fridge which opens and a string tied to it sets the cuckoo clock to 12 with the cuckoo coming out and pushing a bowling ball off its perch. It hits Sylvester instead, however. Angry that this failed, Sylvester tears up his blueprints (animated by Perez).

Finally, Sylvester attempts to get Tweety from the attic by means of sawing a hole around him but the whole ceiling gives way except for the part hanging Tweety’s cage. Not wanting to be hit with the broom again, Sylvester snaps it in half and throws it in the fire, where it immediately disintegrates. This time, Tweety does the hitting and does so with a shovel while exclaiming, “Thomas, you coward! You brute! Take that! And that! You bad ol’ putty tat!” (animated by Champin)

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕