The Jet Cage

Lackluster entry in the Tweety-Sylvester series has Tweety given flight by using a jet-propelled bird cage that Granny has bought for him. The jokes don't seem to work very well here, as Sylvester's largely silent performance makes this more of a Road-Runner movie. Mel Blanc's voicing seems off here, more of a high-pitched cross between Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny than Tweety's usual innocent malignity, and Sylvester sounds a lot drier than usual.

The Looney Tunes are one of those great series that from a child you will like until your death, The Merrie Melodies and the Looney Tunes are a great series, more than 1000 animated shorts and all of them are enjoyable, well, actually not all of them, but here the main criticism is the Music.

Milt Franklin died of a Heart Attack in the Production of the short, so obviously his musical score was left unfinished, Bill Lava who would later work on the Pink Panther cartoons, makes a pretty bad replacement If you ask me, after the scene where Sylvester climbs a tree is when the music changes to Bill Lava's, Milt Franklin had given it a mildly amusing aura with his fantastic music, but Bill Lava throws all that away. Including Bizarre music that more than being funny, it's scary.

The Cartoon was Produced in the last year of the good Looney Tunes cartoons, after 1962 the quality fell downhill and everything is due to several bad decisions that I will explain in another review, here the first drop in quality occurs, the Music of Bill Lava is an Unforgivable Degradation of Franklin's Music, Lava composes music with a more tense and somber aura that ends up giving chills, but it's not as bad as some say.

Animation is mediocre, although Slightly better at best than in later years, Backgrounds don't draw too much attention, Character Designs are decent and resemble the Originals but Colors are Simple and look somewhat forced, although in general, the Animation is not so bad.

Voice Acting is unaffected, Mel Blanc and June Foray as always offer Decent performances in the best case, although in reality the voice acting does not affect too much in the short.

This is a mediocre short in General, not as bad as those that would follow in the following years but it shows how the quality was going lower and lower, the animation looks out of place with monotone colors and simple backgrounds, the Music leaves a lot to be desired, it has a gloomy and out of place atmosphere, Lava really was not for this type of cartoons, in that case he would have preferred Dean Elliot, or at least Eugene Poddany as Composer, but what can be done.

In itself, a rather weak Cartoon of one of the Best duos of all time, the Music and the Animation are too badly synchronized that makes the Cartoon shiver, I do not like the slow start that the short has, it lasts 6 minutes, but the first 3 are from Tweety Using his Flying Cage, Sylvester is not interesting and he is only as a villain, basically this short is not among the best but not among the worst either, I would dare to say that this is not the short that started the Fall of Quality of the Looney Tunes, but if one of the First to show drops in quality.

For everything I said before, this short gets a 6.

This Is One Of My Favorite Tweety Cartoon where Granny Is Ordering a Flying Bird Cage For Tweety Bird To Fly Around In His Backyard without Leaving His Cage after Sylvester Sees Tweety Bird from a Window. Then Tweety Bird Gets His Crash Helmet On And Despite Braking the Chandelier But Tweety Asking The Bad Ol Putty Tat How Do You Like My New Cage Then Takes Off Sylvester Climbs up the Tree With a Butterfly Net Trying To Catch That Canary Then Sylvester Bumps into The Phone Pole. When Tweety Goes Back Down and Gets The Instructions Sylvester Sneaks In To The Flying Bird Cage To Catch Tweety Then The Flying Bird Cage Drops Sylvester.

Sensing her little Tweety Pie longs to fly with the other birds, Granny buys a jet cage that allows Tweety to fly inside his new cage. Seeing his prey out of the house for the first time in ages, Sylvester plots to capture the bird for his supper –even if it means taking to the sky to get him.

From director Freleng I had reasonable hopes for this film and it did well to take the time honoured battle between Tweety and Sylvester and make it still feel quite fresh and funny. Tweety Pie is not my favourite character but I still enjoyed this short. It had touches of imagination and the basic jokes were delivered in such a way that I still was amused by them.

Minor characters deliver the odd line and the end result is the same old material, altered slightly by the plot device of the flying cage. If you like the material then you'll like this short. I'm not a big fan but still found enough to laugh about and enjoy.

Overall, yet another amusing entry in the series, this time altered by another different plot device. Fun but not anything you haven't seen before.

...Not so much because of anything going on in the short itself, but because of what was going on behind the scenes. As you may know, composer Milt Franklyn died while scoring this short, and an uncredited Bill Lava had to step in to finish the remaining three and a half minutes. Franklyn is one of my favorite cartoon composers, so it's a shame that we never got to hear how he might have filled out the rest of the short. Instead, we have to listen to the unpleasant dings and dissonant "melodies" of Lava's work, which sharply contrasts with Franklyn's pleasing compositions in the first couple minutes. It's like he didn't even try to imitate Franklyn.

That trivia aside, it's kinda mediocre anyway, with few standout gags (only exception being Tweety tricking Sylvester into letting go of his flying handles). But a good score might have elevated the proceedings, which Franklyn had a great talent for. Unfortunately, Lava just made an OK cartoon worse.