Tweetie Pie

Before I review TWEETIE PIE, I am going to rant a bit. So, hold on tight and I'll get this over with as quickly as I can. In the history of animated shorts, few would argue that there were any better than those of Warner Brothers in the 1940s and 50s. While some of the MGM and Disney cartoons may have looked better (though all three had wonderful animation), none were as consistently funny and entertaining as the Looney Tunes shorts from Warner. However, oddly, this group of amazing artists won very few Oscars. Tom and Jerry (which I love), although highly repetitive, did great at the Oscars. And, amazingly, crap like the UPA shorts (with characters like Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mr. Magoo) cleaned up at the Oscars in the 1950s even though the animation quality was light-years behind Warners. Somehow, the Oscar folks did Looney Tunes dirty again and again...and I have no idea why. Perhaps they just thought that their cartoons weren't artsy enough or hated that they were intended for the common person out there.

Now, despite my rant, on occasion the Academy got it right--such as in the case of TWEETIE PIE. This is exactly the type of short that usually didn't win, as it was funny and extremely sadistic--two things necessary for a great short!! While some even better shorts by Looney Tunes have been ignored (such as the amazing FEED THE KITTY and CANNED FEUD), at least here they got it right.

This is the first pairing of Sylvester and Tweetie, though the cat is called 'Thomas' in this short. Still, it worked well and the combination seemed like a natural--with this first pairing actually being one of their best, if not the best. Great animation, great humor and a generous sprinkling of violence--this is one wonderful Oscar-winning cartoon.

I didn't like "Tweety Pie". He was a nasty and manipulative little critter who used all his butter-wouldn't-melt tactics to thwart the perfectly reasonable efforts of "Thomas" to do what cats do. Eat him! This time, it's a very snowy garden that finds these two "playing", but as ever it's their owner who saves the feathers! She's determined that her two favourite pets are going to learn to play nice - but what chance, eh? Tom constructs ever elaborate plans to get the bird from it's cage but is consistently outwitted, usually quite painfully, but his scrawny nemesis. Why did he bother though? There's no meat on the thing, anyway! This is good fun with loads of action, a few quite fun contraptions used and by the end of this, I hated that bird even more!

If you watch a number of these Tweety and Sylvester cartoons you'll notice the two stars with different owners. "Granny" is the usual owner of Tweetie, but not always. Here, in this cartoon we see a woman who already owns Sylvester, taking in Tweetie whom she thinks is an abandoned bird. She calls our cat here "Thomas," too, and she's a nasty woman. She would be reported for animal abuse, in this day and age, as she constantly beats Sylvester with a broom.

This gets off to a good start as Tweetie is outside freezing in the show. Sylvester is hidden inside a snow man waiting for the right time. That comes along quickly and Sylvester jumps out, puts on his snow shoes and starts stalking the little bird. When he pounces, he grabs the little heater that Tweety was using to get warm, instead of the bird. A second try succeeds, but the cat's owner comes out and demands to know what he's hiding inside his paws. She winds up taking in the bird.

The rest of the cartoon is the standard material of the cat trying to catch the bird who is in his cage way up in the ceiling.

This was passable but I didn't care for the beatings "Thomas" took from the owner. I understand this was the first pairing of the two main characters, so it explains why we see different names and different owners. I'm glad "Granny" took over from this woman and Sylvester didn't have to hang around this house for too long.

Move over, Gallagher and Sheen, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott ans Costello, Lunt and Fontaine: it's Sylvester and Tweety! In a pairing so obvious as to be almost automatic, Tweety and Sylvester meet up for the first time and take the prize-Oscar, of course. One of the better ones, this pairing is perfect. Highly Recommended.

Coy film studio Warner Brothers decided to stir the pot by mixing Sylvester the cat with a vivacious bird, creating the Oscar winning cartoon May 1947's "Tweetie Pie," the first for the company's animation department. Cartoon director Bob Clampett, the originator of Tweety, proposed to match his bird with Sylvester as an adversary. Clampett soon departed Warner Brothers for more freedom, however, forming his own independent animation studio.

"Tweetie Pie's" gestation took hold when animator/director Friz Freleng, who created Sylvester, agreed with the departing Clampett that Tweety was the perfect foil to his hungry cat. The head of Warner Brothers Cartoons, Edward Selzer, saw the battling combination differently, claiming the pairing wouldn't work. Instead, Selzer felt the unnamed woodpecker (not Woody) which had crossed Sylvester's path before, and was seen in Freleng's 1945 "'Peck Up Your Trouble,' worked well, and should be the ornery cat's adversary. But Freleng had a soft spot for Tweetie. The artist made him look cuter by drawing long eyelashes bordering its blue eyes, and covering his naked body with yellow feathers. He also shrunk his rather large feet to a more normal size.

Selzer, however, was adamant on the woodpecker, prompting the usually mild-mannered Freleng to place his treasured pencil, the one he used to sketch many of his famous characters, on Selzer's desk. He told his boss if he knew so much about cartoons, he could draw the short film himself. Selzer thought long and hard about the confrontation that evening, and called Freleng to apologize. The producer added he looked forward to seeing how Tweetie would mesh with Sylvester.

"Tweetie Pie" was Tweety's fourth cartoon. The little yellow bird seeks warmth from the winter cold by trying to get inside a nearby home. But the bird discovers the house cat is prowling around, ready to pounce on him. "I taut I taw a puddy tat!" said Tweety directly to the viewers, breaking the so-called fourth wall. "I did taw a puddy tat!" The cat's owner saves the cute canary, and takes him inside as a pet, setting up a series of hilarious attempts by the cat to eat it.

During its 20th annual ceremony, the Academy Awards gave "Tweetie Pie" the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, breaking a four-year winning streak for MGM's Tom and Jerry cartoons. Accepting the Oscar from presenter Shirley Temple, Selzer exclaimed in his speech at the podium, "It might interest you to know that in production of this 'Tweetie Pie,' 85 percent of our personnel were directly connected with its construction. However, the one man who really should be up here getting this award and not me, is the director of the picture, Friz Freleng, who is in the audience. I can't pay him too great a tribute. Thank you." After Selzer died in 1970, the Oscar was given to Freleng. The artist also gained a near exclusive right to use Tweety for his Warner Brothers cartoons, a bonus richly deserved.