Release Date:

June 4, 1955

Main Character(s):

Tweety and Sylvester

Summary:

Deciding to go to the local circus, Sylvester finds Tweety as one of the circus animals and pursues him around the big top. Sylvester must also contend with a lion who he angered earlier.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1334 and was released as a Merrie Melodie.

This is the final cartoon to use the 1945-1955 Merrie Melodies opening theme and the final cartoon to use the 1941-1955 Merrie Melodies ending theme (the latter having been used for a whopping 15 years!).

In production order, this is the first Warner cartoon to have animation by Ted Bonnicksen and the first to have animation by Gerry Chiniquy since his return to the studio.

While “Me-Ow” had been utilized in several Warner cartoons, this is the only time any of the song’s lyrics are ever used in a Warner cartoon. It is sung by Sylvester at the start as follows: “All the pussycats have got a song, Me-Ow! Me-Ow! Uh, you can hear the song the whole night long! Me-Ow! Me-Ow! (scats) Uh, you can hear the song the whole night long! Me-Ow! Me-Ow!”

When the cartoon was restored for HBO Max in 2020, the 1959-1960 Merrie Melodies end card was erroneously used instead of the original. This is also the case when the cartoon was later put on the Looney Tunes Collector’s Vault Volume 1 Blu-ray set in 2025.

Freleng’s director credit in this cartoon inexplicably has the “L” in his last name capitalized, making it appear as “I. FreLeng”.

Sylvester’s offscreen demise when being eaten by several lions (and a tiger) after mistakenly locking himself in a cage full of them proves that these lions are cannibals, due to lions also being cats.

Favorite Scene:

Sylvester attempts to disguise as “Flamo the Fire Eater” to fool the lion, only for the lion to make him swallow a flaming poker to prove it.

What Happens in This One:

After the credits are shown on a camera pan across a fence, it then pans to Sylvester, who sings a rousing chorus of “Me-Ow”. Upon hearing the circus music and spotting said circus nearby, Sylvester is delighted, “A circus!? Sufferin’ succotash! I love circuses-s-s!”, as he gets down and walks up to the circus tent, “Oh, boy! Pink lemonade! Cotton candy! P-p-peanuts!” Seeing no one around inside the tent, he figures, “Well! I must be early! No one’s here yet!” He continues scatting to “Me-Ow” as he walks in before he comes across the cage of the lion and reads the description aloud, “Lion. King of the Cats”. Outraged at this, Sylvester retorts to the lion, “‘King of the Cats’, eh? Well, you’re not MY king!” The lion roars at him in response, to which Sylvester decides, “You want to be king, eh? Okay, KING, I’m crownin’ ya!”, and does so with a shovel, making the lion angry as he lets out another roar. Sylvester claws at him on all four’s while screeching before he leaves (animated by Arthur Davis).

Sylvester walks past a few of the circus animals while saying their species aloud, “Camel”; “Elephant”; “Tiger”. Upon passing Tweety swinging in his circus cage, Sylvester obliviously says, “A Tweety Bird”, before realizing this, “A Tweety Bird!?”, and going back to watch him. Tweety stops swinging upon realizing, “I tawt I taw a putty tat!” Sylvester sneaks under the rope in front of Tweety’s cage and opens it only for Tweety to immediately fly out, “I did! I did tee a putty tat!” Sylvester then chases after him and picks up a mallet to knock Tweety out with. He only ends up skidding into the lion’s cage through the bars, and upon coming face to face with the lion, hits him with the mallet. When the lion initially has no reaction, Sylvester hits him on the head five more times, which DOES get the lion mad as he pounds Sylvester into the ground like a stake (animated by Davis).

Walking along, Tweety decides, “I better keep my eyes open for that putty tat! He’s a bad one, he is!” Upon seeing Sylvester peeking his head out from a corner at him, Tweety lets out an “Uh oh” and runs off. After Tweety crawls into what is presumably a fire hose, Sylvester grabs the “hose” and repeatedly slams it on the ground to get Tweety out, “Oh, no ya don’t! Come on out! Come out! Come on!” The “hose” turns out to actually be the trunk of one of the elephants! Sylvester manages to push Tweety out of this elephant’s trunk, but upon grabbing him, is grabbed himself by the angry elephant wrapping his trunk around him and slamming him onto the ground numerous times for revenge. The elephant then tosses Sylvester off to the side and back into the lion’s cage. Sylvester grabs a chair and a whip and attempts to keep the lion back by acting as a lion tamer. The lion takes both items and whips Sylvester in the rear several times. Once Sylvester manages to get out of the cage, he audibly taunts the lion, only for the lion to successfully claw at him. Having been sliced into four, Sylvester walks off, with his head and chest, then the middle part of the torso, and then the lower part of his torso and his tail falling off, leaving only his crotch and legs walking away (animated by Davis).

Tweety climbs up the ladder for the high dive with Sylvester following. Once they both reach the top of the platform, Tweety jumps off and lands in the bucket of water safely before climbing out. Sylvester jumps off, but Tweety goes up to a different elephant to bring him over to the water bucket, “Aw, you must be awfuwwy thirsty, Mr. Edephant! I give you a dwink of water!” Sylvester silently reacts in shock as the elephant drinks up the water with Tweety saying, “That a good edephant! Dwink it all down!” Sylvester then lands in the now-empty bucket with a thud (animated by Gerry Chiniquy).

With the front of his body flattened from the impact, Sylvester chases Tweety once more (animated by Chiniquy), only for Tweety to open the lion’s cage, allowing the lion to run out towards Sylvester (animated by Ted Bonnicksen). Hoping to fool the lion, Sylvester stands behind the table of “Flamo the Fire Eater” and also puts on Flamo’s turban. The lion comes up to him, unconvinced, so Sylvester takes a poker and puts it on the fire for it to burn while sporting a nervous smile. The lion then points to a banner above reading, “The Fire Eater”, so Sylvester is forced to put the hot poker in his mouth and swallow it! After the lion leaves, Sylvester smells something burning, and realizes it’s his fur burning away from the ingested fire. With his fur from the feet up to his chest having been burned off, Sylvester screams in pain (animated by Chiniquy) and jumps into the refilled water bucket to put it out (animated by Bonnicksen).

Sylvester comes up from out of the water and sees that the lion is looking around for him, so he goes back down while holding his breath. The elephant Tweety had drink out of the bucket earlier drinks the water out of the bucket a second time, leaving Sylvester holding his breath at the bottom of the again-empty bucket. Looking up and noticing the lion staring at him, Sylvester jumps out in fright (animated by Bonnicksen).

Sylvester goes up another high ladder to elude the lion (animated by Chiniquy) as Tweety spots him ascending said ladder from atop the platform, “Uh oh! Here comes that putty tat again!” He grabs an umbrella and uses it to balance while walking across the tightrope wire. Sylvester chases after him, but goes back upon realizing how difficult it is to balance on the wire. He uses a vaulting pole to balance, only to hear Tweety calling to him, “Hewwo, putty tat!”, where it’s revealed that he is on the end of the pole from Sylvester’s right. Shocked, Sylvester puts the pole down and attempts to walk across it to get to Tweety, only for the pole to begin tilting downward due to his weight. He runs off the wire and comes back with four bricks to put on the other end of the pole and hold it steady. Sylvester manages to grab Tweety and licks his lips hungrily, only to see the smirking lion having come up with a trapeze and standing next to the end with the bricks on it, so he puts Tweety down nervously and pats him on the head. The lion then kicks all four bricks off the pole, causing Sylvester to lose his balance and fall. The lion goes back down and waits for him, before Sylvester lands in the lion’s mouth with his tail sticking out (animated by Davis).

Sylvester runs out of the lion’s mouth (animated by Davis) and into another cage before locking it to make sure the lion can’t get in. Believing he’s now safe, Sylvester swallows the key and figures, “Well! I guess that solves my lion problem”. As he walks further into the cage, however, it turns out he’s locked himself in a cage full of lions and a tiger as well. We cut to the outside of the tent where roaring is heard. Tweety dons a carnival barker hat and announces, “Huwwy! Huwwy! Huwwy! Step wight up! The gweatest show on Earth! Fifty wions and a putty tat! Huwwy! Huwwy! Huwwy! Fifty wions and a-” A ferocious roar is then heard, indicating that the lions have consumed Sylvester, so Tweety changes his spiel, “Step wight up! Fifty wions! Count ‘em! Fifty wions! Huwwy, huwwy! Fifty wions!” (animated by Chiniquy)

Where Can I Watch It?

At toontales.net!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕 ½