Ain't She Tweet

Funny Sylvester and Tweety short, directed by Friz Freleng, that has Sylvester trying to get at Tweety in the pet store and later at Granny's house. It's fairly routine plotwise but the gags of Sylvester failing in multiple ways to reach his prey are pretty funny. Great voice work from Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet. Carl Stalling's music is, as always, excellent. The animation is wonderful, with lovely colors and some well-done action sequences. A couple of the better gags are Sylvester using stilts to try and cross a yard full of bulldogs and Sylvester hiding in a package meant to be meat for the dogs. It's a fun cartoon that most fans of the series will love. I think it works well as a companion piece to 1954's Dog Pounded.

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.

Sylvester cat is adamant about catching and eating Tweety Bird, but there's a catch Tweety has been bought by Granny who has countless vicious bulldogs in her fenced yard. The usual hijinx ensue. This is good only because of Sylevester as I detest that everything about that damned speech impediment singing Tweety bird and the Granny. This animated short can be seen on Disc 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 and also features an optional commentary by Greg Ford that is infinitely better than the actual cartoon that it comments on. I'm really getting tired of having to review Tweety cartoons.

My Grade: C

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

While most of the Sylvester/Tweety pairings would feature just one bulldog (I seem to recall that his name is Hector) to counter Sylvester's actions, "Ain't She Tweet" features a whole garden of dogs. When Granny brings Tweety home from the pet store* - where Sylvester had already tried to go after him but had to abort his plan - Sylvester can't seem to get past the canine ocean. Why must he always suffer so?! Obviously, his mishaps form part of the cartoon's plot line, sort of like what befalls Wile E. Coyote when he tries to trap Road Runner. But no matter how you look at it, this is still a funny cartoon. Little more than a way to pass time, but worth your while.

*I noticed that the shop next to the pet store said I. Wyner. No doubt that was an in-joke referring to background artist Irv Wyner.