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[[Category:Merrie Melodies Shorts]] |
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[[Category:Cartoons animated by Don Williams]] |
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[[Category:Cartoons animated by Bill Melendez]] |
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Revision as of 13:43, 1 February 2020
| ← Doggone Cats | Sylvester Cartoons | Back Alley Oproar → |
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Catch as Cats Can is a 1947 Merrie Melodies short directed by Arthur Davis.
Plot
An emaciated canary, singing like Frank Sinatra, is getting on the nerves of a pipe-puffing parrot, who speaks like Bing Crosby. The parrot spots Sylvester, foraging through the trash. Telling Sylvester he needs more vitamins (which the canary has been swallowing in bulk), he lures Sylvester inside to snare the canary.
The straightforward approach fails (the canary bops him in the nose instantly). After Sylvester gives up instantly, the Crosby parrot stops him and forces him to continue "to get the vitamins he needs". Sylvester employs the following tricks to eat Frankie, all of them ending in failure;
- He carves a female canary from soap, lures Frankie there; the birds slide down a greased counter, into the sink, and down the drain, but only the soap bird goes through the pipe and down Sylvester's throat.
- Sylvester creates a trail of birdseed into the garage. This technique seems to work, but Frankie jacks Sylvester's mouth open.
- Sylvester laces the vitamins with buckshot; like all cartoon magnets, his attracts everything metal in sight except his prey.
- Sylvester uses the vacuum cleaner to suck up Frankie. After opening the vacuum bag, the canary turns Sylvester's vacuum cleaner against him, with a crash in the fireplace giving Sylvester a hot-stomach; as he buries his head in the sink, the bird adds Foamo-Seltzer to the water; Sylvester rockets off, crashing into a wall.
Just as the Crosby parrot is about to give an injured Sylvester a new plan to eat Frankie, the cat finally realizes the portly parrot is a better meal. The canary sees Sylvester sitting on the parrot's perch, imitating his mannerisms.
Availability
- (1992) LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes Volume 2, Side 6: McKimson and Davis
- (1999) VHS - Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition Volume 13: Comic Cat-Tastrophies (1995 Turner dubbed version)
Possible Censorship
The ending in which the Sinatra canary discovers that Sylvester ate the Crosby parrot and begins acting like him may have had a scene cut before its theatrical release (and as of 2019, it's the version that has played on television) as the cartoon immediately ends after Sylvester says, "There's nothing like vitamins".[1]
Notes
- This was only one of three non-Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1947 not to be reissued. The others were "Mexican Joyride" and "A Pest in the House".
- Songs sung by "Frank" include: "As Time Goes By", "It Can't Be Wrong" and "A Little On The Lonely Side".
- This one of the only two shorts featuring Sylvester to be directed by Arthur Davis. The other is "Doggone Cats". Unlike the said short, where Sylvester didn't talk and had a yellow unnamed feline partner, "Catch as Cats Can" has Sylvester speaking, albeit with a dopey voice and no lisp.
- Coincidentally, they were both released in 1947.
- This is the only Sylvester short made in 1947 to not be reissued.