Red Riding Hoodwinked

Maybe "Red Riding Hoodwinked" wasn't the best cartoon that the Looney Tunes creative team ever made, but it was pretty funny. Little Red Riding Hood is on her way to Granny's house. The Big Bad Wolf wants to eat the two of them, and Sylvester wants to eat Little Red Riding Hood's present for Granny: Tweety Bird. At first, Sylvester and the Wolf are rivals in trying to get to the house, but they are forced to join up once the girl arrives. But even then, Granny has a few tricks up (or should I say "in front of") her sleeve.

I think that this the only time when the Wolf can't remember Little Red Riding Hood's name. Well sufferin' succotash!

Looney Tunes did their take on Red Riding Hood quite a bit, so it makes sense they would do it with the Tweety & Sylvester series since it has Granny. Surprisingly, Tweety is not Red in this. Red is her own character and she's bringing Tweety to Granny as a gift. Sylvester follows after the girl, hoping as always to get Tweety for his dinner. But the Big Bad Wolf enters the picture and it becomes a contest between Sylvester and the wolf to see who can get to Granny's house first. Nice music from Milt Franklyn. Excellent voice work from the always reliable Mel Blanc. June Foray takes over as Granny here, replacing Bea Benaderet and giving Granny a more gruff voice. Her Granny is also doing a Ralph Kramden impression for some reason. The animation is lovely and colorful, if a little sketchy in places. The dialogue has some kick and the gags are pretty funny, too. Sylvester and Tweety are both in fine form. The Wolf is a fun character with a bad memory. He looks a little like a mangy dog and sounds like Foghorn Leghorn's cousin. Definitely one fans of the Sylvester & Tweety series will enjoy. And if you are someone who doesn't normally like Tweety, as there are unfortunately some out there, then you might still like it as most of the humor comes from Sylvester and the Wolf.

The big twist in this Looney Tunes version of "Little Red Riding Hood" is having two creatures (instead of one) trying to get "Red." Not only do we have the "big bad wolf," but "Sylvester," too!

The latter is there because "Tweety" is being brought in a cage by "Red" to grandma as a present. Sylvester followed the girl and her bird all the way from the city to the forest and is ready to take Grandma's spot in bed to fool the little girl. However, so is the wolf and the two battle it out.

This inventive story also featured the new animated artwork of the period, which started, from what I've observed, around this time: 1955. The drawings are modern, now, and look totally different from previous cartoons.

One thing that didn't change was the humor by the writers: it was usually clever material, geared to make adults laugh as much, if not more, than kids.

Several of the key jokes in this cartoon revolve around the wolf's lack of memory. He can never remember who is who. Anyway, we get two adventures-in-one here: the wolf trying to eat Red and Sylvester trying to eat Tweety! It turns into a hectic last two minutes which includes Granny imitating "Ralph Kramden!"

Perhaps a tad too short, but Red Riding Hoodwinked is still extremely good. Here we get not one or two "adversaries", Sylvester for Tweety and The Big Bad Wolf for Red Riding Hood. I really liked this Looney Tunes twist on Little Red Riding Hood. It had lush animation and good music. It had some terrific dialogue and sight gags, and a focus on the Big Bad Wolf's short term memory. It had appealing characters particularly Big Bad Wolf, a solid story and excellent vocal characterisations from Mel Blanc. So overall, fun and clever, maybe not the best of the lot, but a solid enough cartoon that I recommend if you like fairytale-themed cartoons or either Sylvester and Tweety. Oh and the ending with Granny is hilarious. 9/10 Bethany Cox