Heir-Conditioned

An interesting but not terribly funny short starring Sylvester the cat and Elmer Fudd, directed by Friz Freleng. This is a cartoon with a message, namely about investing your money instead of spending it on frivolous things. Sylvester inherits a fortune and his financial adviser Elmer must try to keep him from giving it all away to his greedy friends. There were three Looney Tunes shorts like this made, all three starring Sylvester and all three paid for by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Even though it's not particularly funny, it's still worth a look for Looney Tunes fans. The animation is bright and colorful. The music is lively and fun. The voice work, from legends like Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, and Arthur Q. Bryan, is terrific. The only major problem with it is that it's kind of dull outside of the curiosity factor. See it if you like Sylvester and Elmer. Also there's a Tweety cameo that might make you crack a smile.

When Sylvester inherits £3million dollars from his deceased owner, word quickly goes round the old neighbourhood bringing all his old alley cat friends out of the woodwork. However Sylvester's financial advisor, Elmer Fudd, is adamant that Sylvester not squander it and instead invest it for the future.

I started watching this and confused it with `Hare Conditioned' which is slightly better than this. The film starts out with a reasonable promise but it does nothing with it. The film spends much of the second half playing a film about the importance of investment to the American economy. None of this section is funny at all and it's use as a punchline is a suitably poor finish to a poor cartoon.

Sylvester and Fudd are both good characters - but not here they aren't. The support cast of alley cats have a touch of attitude but only as support - they really did need the two leads to step up, but neither does. It never really gets any good at all and it manages to be nothing memorable that, even minutes after it has finished, I am struggling to really remember it.

Overall, this is a very poor film that seems to be more about promoting responsible finance than it is about delivering laughs. A pointless little short that barely raises a smile.

After being pleasantly surprised by the first of Looney Tunes' three 'propaganda' cartoons from this period, By Word of Mouse, seeing as it was featuring familiar characters (and favourites) and covering a subject more familiar to me I was expecting more than what Heir Conditioned managed to deliver. It's not that bad, but it does feel very bland.

The animation, in distinctive Fritz Freleng style, is very bright and colourful with some nice background detail and nicely drawn characters. Even better is the vibrant and character music score from Milt Franklyn, it fits wonderfully and does add a lot to the action, it's rousing in energy, orchestration is rich and beautiful and rhythmically it's very lively yet dynamic. Mel Blanc, Arthur Q. Bryan and Daws Butler do reliably strong jobs with the voices, all three have had stronger material but they were still able to deliver some good energy. The comic relief almost all comes from the alley cats, and they are amusing.

Heir Conditioned does fall short however, starting with that it doesn't do enough with a good premise and only does marginally better at informing than it does entertaining, a balance that By Word of Mouse achieved better and that cartoon also did a better job entertaining and informing despite this cartoon having a subject more accessible and easier to understand to younger viewers. In terms of humour, Heir Conditioned's best moments are only amusing, the humour isn't sharp enough and like it was trying too hard to get its point across. The informing fares a little better, because there are some good points about economics and investments made and are easier to understand, but it did come at the sacrifice of any laughs and By Word of Mouse avoided being preachy whereas Heir Conditioned did come close to being towards the end. Speaking of the ending, it is very weak and borderline stupidity, the worst part of the cartoon by no doubt.

Sylvester is a very funny and interesting character, and it was nice to see him play it straight (a characteristic he's adopted before and he's good at it) but that the material is not that strong that even when played straight the character feels downplayed and stripped of what makes him so famous and endearing as a character. And while it was nice to not have Elmer as an idiot for a change, it's pretty much the same with him. Tweety makes a rather pointless and not very funny cameo.

In conclusion, watchable enough but underwhelming considering its potential. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Having seen the three Warner Bros. cartoons that the Alfred P. Sloane Foundation bankrolled extolling American economics, I think that the foundation should have had Disney make the cartoons. It might just be that the years since the cartoons' release have shown a different kind of economy (the factories moved overseas and laid millions of people off). "Heir-Conditioned" focuses on inheritance and being careful spending one's money. Now, with massive credit card debt a major problem in the country, the cartoon barely applies.

Anyway, we shouldn't remember Friz Freleng for this. In 1955 he directed "Roman Legion-Hare" (featuring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam in the Eternal City in ancient times), and within a few years directed "Birds Anonymous" (widely considered the best Tweety/Sylvester cartoon). This one is an aberration at best.