All Abir-r-r-d

“Bye-bye, mommy’s precious little darling!”

Some woman (definitely not Granny) is putting Tweety on a train. (He seems happy to get away from her.) I don’t know why he does it, but the conductor stupidly puts the cage down by a cat carrier. Well, the conductor is not such an idiot, as he was keeping his eye on Sylvester and puts Tweety up higher. Sylvester tries a tower of luggage, but Tweety pulls the emergency brake, and the force causes the puttytat to fly into the engine.

Also on the train is a bulldog, who Sylvester hits and tells to shut up. The train goes up a hill and Sylvester slides into the dogs fist. He thinks he’s safe once it starts to level out, but then it goes down the hill and the dog punches him again. Sylvester tries the luggage trick again, this time cutting the brake chord. Tweety pulls it anyway, and it still works.

Sylvester hides Tweety in a mail sack to keep him hidden from the conductor, but when he reaches to obtain his prize, he gets the dog. Finally the train pulls into a station and Sylvester eagerly awaits the bird disguised as a woman. He gets the cage and runs to a taxi so he can eat in peace. When he opens the cage however, he gets the dog again!

Personal Rating: 4

Bad ol’ Putty Tat

“I tawt I taw a *wolf whistle!*

The cartoon must have started without us, since we begin by seeing a hurt looking Sylvester starting at Tweety’s barbed wire covered tree house. For his next attempt he constructs a trampoline and bounces up. Every time he comes up however, Tweety hurts him in various ways.

Tweety escapes on a clothes line, but learns it’s connected to Sylvester’s tooth. Tweety attaches his end to a rocket, and the putty tat loses his teeth. Sylvester paints his finger to look like a female canary (See? Tweety IS a boy) and Tweety takes the bait. He only discovers what’s happening after he tries to pull her to safety and her hat flies off, revealing a claw. Tweety switches hats, and Sylvester chomps a delicious finger.

Now, Tweety runs to a badminton game, and accidentally ends up as the birdie. Sylvester joins the game, but only gets a firecracker in his belly. Finally, he disguises his head as Tweety’s house and Tweety falls for it. Yep, Sylvester got him. But the bird’s not in his stomach, he’s in his head. Playing train, Tweety makes the putty tat crash into a brick wall.

Personal Rating: 3

The Bugs Bunny Show

“On with the show, this is it!”

During the sixties, “Looney Tunes” was on its last legs. Also during this time, Looney Tunes got its TV show. (Why not? It was the latest fad!) The premise was simple: Bugs showing us cartoons with various bridging sequences in between, such as Bugs feeding Taz carrots or Slowpoke coming to visit Speedy. The show was black and white which may have been odd today since all the shorts in the theaters were color, but color TV was only starting to get started. Lack of pigment  was a small price to pay for the convenience of watching animated masterpieces in your own living room.

Now for the bad news. This show is gone and you’re not liable to find any full episodes. (At least, as I’m originally writing this.) If you ever have seen, or have any somehow, you are quite lucky. Maybe you’d like to make the rest of the world feel as lucky as you?

Personal Rating: (From what little I’ve seen) 3

Space Jam

“You guys are nuts.”

“Correction, we’re Looney Tunes”

I love this movie, but then again, I am a Looney Tunes fanboy. It’s sad most of the world seems to hate it. I think that is bull crap. This is a masterpiece if ever there was one. At least it did great at the box office.

The history is that people made commercials with Bugs and Michael Jordan advertising basketball shoes. So they figured making a movie was a good idea. (I think it was.) Our plot is that a theme park in outer space, (it is not specified which planet, but I think the whole park is its own planet) sucks. (How can people say that? Didn’t you ever want to ride an Astro-orbiter wannabe that shoots at you? Oh yeah, me neither) The owner decides they need new attractions and figures that the Looney Tunes are just the thing. I’d come.

However, Bugs tricks them into thinking they need to give the toons a chance to defend themselves. Since the aliens are short and have tiny limbs, basketball seems like a shoe in. However the aliens have the ability to steal the ability from five NBA players. Luckily, Jordan was retired at this time. So they don’t nab him. The toons get him for their side and we get the greatest game in all history!

This also introduced us to Lola. She did not have much of a personality in this movie, save for being someone for Bugs to be attracted to. Seems she was popular though, as she appeared in “Baby Looney Tunes”, “Tweety’s High Flying Adventure”, and “The Looney Tunes Show.”

Bottom line if you hate this you have no taste and at the very least you have to watch it once. (There must be more who love this, I know it!) “Tune” in next time where I will name all the Looney Tunes who appear in the film as well as some interesting facts. Woo hoo hoo hoo! Woo hoo!

Personal Rating: 3. (Unless you’re one of those people who can’t stand anything Looney that came out after the Golden age. For you, it’s a 2.)

Tweety’s S.O.S.

“Hello, breakfast.”

 

This short begins with Sylvester digging through the trash. He can’t bring himself to eat what he finds, and he goes down by the pier to mope. As the title promises, he soon spies Tweety and, of course, he gives chase. However, Granny is also on the boat and she wont let the cat hurt her bird, BUT… she has a weakness. Without her glasses, she is blind. Sylvester kicks them under a couch and almost catches his meal, but Tweety gets the glasses just in time.

The ship begins its cruise and Sylvester paints a bad drawing of Tweety on Granny’s glasses so he can chase him round the ship. After a while he is found with his head over the side. Tweety asks if he lost something and he did… his lunch. Tweety tries to give him a snack, but it causes the cat to run to the sick room to down some antidote. The chase resumes, which ends up with Sylvester in the boiler.

He corners Tweety who holds up a picture of a boat and rocks it, causing the putty tat to get nauseous again. Tweety beats him to the sick room (Look, Hawley Pratt!) and switches the antidote with nitroglycerine. This gives Sylvester a new weapon and he would have caught the bird if Granny had not shown up. She hits him with her umbrella which causes him to sail into the sky. He lands on the captain ko-ing them both. Tweety and Granny then take over the ship.

Personal Rating: 3

Puddy Tat Twouble

“This is what I get for dweaming of a white Christmas.”

This short starts with Tweety singing his theme song. After the intro, we see it’s winter and Tweety has been spotted by Sylvester and an orange cat. They both grab the bird, but there is not enough for the both of them. They fight and eventually end up in a basement. Tweety sees a toy dunking bird and mistaking it for a real bird, tries to make friends, Orange makes the same mistake and eats the toy.

The two putty tats fight and they end up outside again. They see a hole near a sign that says “thin ice,” with Tweety’s hat beside it. In reality he is picking a circle around the cats and they fall in the water. (“thin ice,” my butt.) We end with the cats both suffering from colds. Probably dreaming of the cream of Tweety they don’t have.

Personal Rating: 3

Canary Row

“Dat putty’s gonna hurt himself if he’s not more careful.”

In a birdwatchers society, Sylvester is spying on Tweety. Seeing the cat through his own binoculars, Tweety is well aware of what’s to come. Sylvester runs into the opposite building, but is kicked out as dogs and cats are not allowed in. He tries climbing a drain pipe but Granny throws him down. (In this short, she is voiced by Bea Bennadaret.) He tries again climbing in the pipe, but Tweety throws a bowling ball down. He tries a monkey disguise that does not fool the old lady. Then he somehow sneaks in and hears Granny saying she is checking out. (But it’s an apartment.) He disguises himself as a bellboy to get her luggage but when he opens the cage, he finds Granny in there.

Apparently, she was not leaving, as Sylvester is still trying to break in. He uses a lever and tosses a weight on the other end. It bounces him up, and he grabs Tweety, but upon landing the weight lands on his head. Swinging over just makes him crash into the wall. Finally, he tries to get over by crawling over an electric wire. A trolley comes along, which repeatedly shocks him. As he runs off, we see it’s Granny and Tweety piloting the trolley.

Personal Rating: 3

Triple feature: Blooper Bunny, My Dream is Yours, Two Guys from Texas

“Gosh, I’m so unimportant.”

Everyone loves triple features right? The first one was for Bugs’ fifty first and a half birthday so its kinda after the time of the classic shorts. The other two both came out in 1949. Bugs made cameos in these movies. As for “Blooper Bunny” it’s possibly one of the funniest thing I ever saw. Sorry to leave you with so little info, but I really want you to experience it for yourself.

Personal Rating: (Blooper Bunny) 4

Personal Rating: (My dream is yours) 3

Personal Rating: (Two guys from Texas) 2