Ain't She Tweet

Sylvester never gets a break in this cartoon. The repeated attempts are so clever, and they should work if not for Tweety's quick thinking and unforgiving nature.

Another winner from Fritz Freleng.

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.

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"

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.

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.