Ain't She Tweet

Tweety and a little mouse are in cages at a pet shop, right in the front window. Sylvester is just outside the window and is licking his chops. Obviously, he has to figure out how to get these "meals."

Right from the first gag, in which the cat throws a brick at the window, is spotted by a cop and races to stop the brick before it hits the glass, this has a lot of the usual hilarious scenes.

Tweety is "sold" and delivered to Granny's house where the real fun now occurs, as Sylvester follows the truck and is in for the shock of his life.

In this Tweety episode, instead of Granny owning one big bulldog, she has an entire backyard full of them! What a shock when Sylvester discovers this! There are some fantastic scenes involving Sylvester and all those dogs as he has to get by all of them to get to Tweety. The bit with Sylvester on stilts was extremely clever.

This is one among several of Tweety and Sylvester (or Sylvester and Tweety) cartoons I remember watching and enjoying as a kid growing up in the '70s watching either on weekday afternoons after school or on Saturday mornings. In this one, the cat is pursuing the bird at first a pet shop, then in the house of Granny after she buys Tweety. But, first, Sylvester has to deal with a yard full of bulldogs! Director Friz Freleng fills the narrative with lots of sure-fire gags involving the cat's encounters with those bulldogs that just won't let him be! This is one of the funniest ones that I just rewatched on a Scandanavian Airlines flight recently. So, yes, that's a high recommendation of Ain't She Tweet.

The best scenes in this short are where Sylvester spends a minute inside a garage reading a blueprint on how to build a rocket in which he will fly over the dogs in order to reach Tweety, then he builds it (albeit low-budget looking!). When Sylvester lights the fuse, the rocket blows up on him and he ends up on fire and he frantically runs around trying to extinguish the flames.

This is similar to a gag in another WB Cartoon "Peck O'Trouble" where Dodsworth the Cat ended up on fire after a bottle of Nitroglycerine exploded on him while he lit up a cigarette)

Of course, there are a few other cartoons where Sylvester ends up with his backside on fire

"All A-Bird" "Tugboat Granny" "Tweety Pie" "Tweety's Circus" "Fowl Weather" "Tweety's S.O.S." "Snow Business"

Friz Freleng's 'Ain't She Tweet' is a very good Sylvester and Tweety cartoon. I'm not usually a fan of this series of cartoons because of its repetitive nature and my hatred of Freleng's cutesy version of Tweety. 'Ain't She Tweet' comes at the cat-and-bird battle from a different angle by placing constant obstacles between Sylvester and Tweety, first a pet shop window then a garden full of bulldogs. Not only does this provide some much needed variety to the series but it also effectively removes Tweety from the action at a very early stage! Once Tweety disappears for an extended period, 'Ain't She Tweet' really comes to life, closing the gap between each of Sylvester's attempts to get across the garden and his inevitable savaging. Crucially, there are some genuinely unexpected moments which is rare in the bulk of Sylvester and Tweety cartoons. My favourite is a beautifully directed moment in which Sylvester finds the garden empty and victoriously makes his way carefully to the front door only to find the dozens of vicious dogs inside the house. We know there's a savaging coming but Freleng still somehow manages to draw out some genuine suspense alongside the laughs. As a big fan of Sylvester without Tweety, 'Ain't She Tweet' offers plenty to enjoy. When Tweety does finally reappear at the cartoons end, his final bit to camera is the low point of the cartoon and an unfortunate way to end a genuinely funny short. 'Ain't She Tweet' is one of the best Sylvester and Tweety cartoons for one simple reason: it's virtually a Sylvester solo outing.

Ain't She Tweet is a delightful cartoon and among the best of the Sylvester/Tweety series(which I do enjoy on the most part). Those who likes the series will find plenty to love, and Ain't She Tweet is also a Sylvester/Tweety cartoons that even non-Tweety fans will enjoy. The animation is bright and colourful with lots of fluid movement and you do have to love how Sylvester's facial expressions are animated. All the characters look fine though. The music with the lush and characterful orchestration and very driven rhythms is great and enhances the action wonderfully. The dialogue is nearly always witty and amusing but it's in the visual gags where the funniest stuff is, the entire stuff with the rocket and Sylvester-on-stilts are hilarious as is all the parts and interactions between Sylvester and the funny and very brutal bull-dogs. But I do completely agree about Sylvester making his way to the front door, thinking his plan working, and finding the bull-dogs inside. That is a masterclass in how to make something potentially predictable actually unexpected, okay you kind of know the outcome but the build-up and the execution of this scene, with some great suspense and some fun animation for Sylvester, ensures that the scene manages to surprise us. The story is crisply paced and is not repetitive, sure it is basically Sylvester thinking of ways to get to Tweety without getting attacked by bull-dogs but the ways he uses are actually very clever and don't repeat themselves. The characters are great, Tweety doesn't have much to do but he is not an annoyance and while not as anarchic as Bob Clampett made him he's not too cutesy. Granny has even less to do but she's hardly pointless. But the stars of the show are the bull-dogs and especially Sylvester. The dogs are funny and brutal, while Sylvester is one of those characters who provides the laughs brilliantly when the material is strong(like it is here) yet you do feel a fair amount of pity for him. Mel Blanc is spot-on as usual as well as remarkably consistent and Bea Benaderet is good despite having little. The only thing that isn't so good is Tweety's lame and unfunny final line, Ain't She Tweet on the whole though is delightful, not just for Sylvester and Tweety but generally as well. 9/10 Bethany Cox