Claws for Alarm

A comedic but genuinely terrifying piece of vintage animation.

It really gets to me, these gremlin on the plane scenarios, in which only one character sees the danger but is not believed.

The archetypally creepy house with Porky just totally oblivious to any possible danger could teach the horror movies a thing or two. There is a skin crawlingly real sense of an unseen menace that could be just about anywhere.

Yes, it's funny too and also somewhat poignant and the pay off is great.

I really like this silent Courage the Cowardly Dog-esque version of Sylvester and with that I think I have a sufficient character count.

Several years after Scaredy Cat, Porky Pig and Sylvester the Cat would once again play master and his pet who is easily frightened especially by malevolent mice when they visit a haunted house. As before, Porky is oblivious to everything as he tries to sleep and blames his pet for any disturbances he gets while Sylvester is only trying to save him at every opportunity. Plenty of genuine scares and laughs abound, that's for sure! Also, as before, Sylvester doesn't speak to emphasize his underling relationship with Porky which works perfectly well for them in these cartoons of which three were made. Actually, in this one, Sylvester does somewhat take charge at the end. Kudos to Chuck Jones and his team for making these entertaining shorts.

Porky Pig and Sylvester are driving in a spooky town looking for a place to stay the night. When Porky finds a hotel, Sylvester is scared silly. An unseen presence keeps trying to kill Porky only to be saved by Sylvester, but Porky never sees it. Porky thinks that Sylvester is going crazy.

This is a great little Looney Tunes for Halloween. I love the start of the unlikely duo driving into a spooky town and I love the designs of the buildings. I do wonder if WB shouldn't show a bunch of these cartoons for Halloween although they may be too morbidly violent for today. I can see parents groups going crazy.

Porky and Sylvester are teamed as owner and pet in this one. They are out driving somewhere in the middle of night in the middle of nowhere but Porky is excited to drive up to "Dry Gulch," which looks like a ghost town. Sylvester sees it for what it is but Porky, for some unknown reason, sees it "as a perfectly splendid place to spend the night." To him, the fact nobody is around just means these country folks must go to bed early.

This is a theme I saw in another Porky & Sylvester cartoon in which Porky doesn't wake up to reality until the last minute and poor Sylvester constantly gets accused of being a "scaredy cat." The only thing different is the setting: this being in a ghost town out West.

Poor Sylvester gets accused of every mental illness you can think of, after each time he saves his dumb master's life because the latter doesn't see what's really going on. It's deadly mice trying to kill Porky.....a slew of them, but our loyal cat is up to the task, even if he's not appreciated. This, like the other cartoon with the same theme, is both funny but frustrating we wait - and hope - Sylvester gets the credit he deserves.

I can't give away the ending.....but it's downright diabolical! This cartoon can be seen on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three.

Chuck Jones's 'Claws for Alarm' is an inferior remake of his own 'Scaredy Cat'. While 'Scaredy Cat' had provided a brilliant combination of laughs and genuinely creepy horror, 'Claws for Alarm' very much concentrates on the former. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing had 'Scaredy Cat' not done everything 'Claws for Alarm' attempts better already. 'Claws for Alarm' uses more limited animation than the lush 'Scaredy Cat' which, while it is lively and colourful, doesn't come close to creating as affective an atmosphere as the former cartoon's gorgeous, intricate look. The plot is almost entirely identical (Sylvester attempts to rescue Porky Pig from some psychotic mice) except that this time round Porky never realises the truth, eventually driving Sylvester to violence. This leads to an ominous ending which is perhaps the only thing about 'Claws for Alarm' that is actually better than 'Scaredy Cat' (which had a rather weird ending based on an outdated reference). While many people's personal preference may be down to which they saw first, 'Scaredy Cat' is, to my mind, clearly the superior picture and its very existence renders 'Claws for Alarm' entirely redundant.