I Taw a Putty Tat

← Back Alley Oproar

Sylvester Cartoons

Hop, Look and Listen →

← Tweetie Pie

Tweety Cartoons

Bad Ol' Putty Tat →

Deprecated

We have moved to portable infoboxes using the new Template:Shorts

Please do not use this template anymore. It is left here for reference purposes.

I Taw a Putty Tat

Directed By: Friz Freleng Produced By: Eddie Selzer (uncredited) Released: April 2, 1948 Series: Merrie Melodies Story: Michael Maltese Tedd Pierce Animation: Gerry Chiniquy Manuel Perez Ken Champin Virgil Ross Pete Burness (uncredited) Layouts: Hawley Pratt Backgrounds: Paul Julian Film Editor: Treg Brown (uncredited) Voiced By: Mel Blanc Bea Benaderet (uncredited) Music: Carl Stalling Starring: Sylvester Tweety Hector the Bulldog Woman Preceded By: Back Alley Oproar Succeeded By: Rabbit Punch

 I Taw a Puddy Tat is a 1947 Merrie Melodies short, released in 1948, directed by Friz Freleng. It stars Tweety and Sylvester, both voiced by Mel Blanc. The uncredited voice of the lady of the house was Bea Benaderet.

The bird's inability to enunciate certain letters (presumably due to having a beak instead of lips) is the reason for the pronunciation of his famous catch-phrase that forms part of this cartoon's title (as in "I Thought I Saw a Pussy Cat"). This is the first film whose title included Tweety's speech-impaired term for a cat. The "standard" spelling was eventually changed from "putty tat" to "puddy tat".

Plot

Sylvester awaits the arrival of a new canary, after the previous house bird has mysteriously disappeared (one of several such disappearances, according to stencils the cat keeps on a wall hidden by a curtain, confirmed by his "hiccup" of some yellow feathers). Upon the arrival of the bird, Sylvester pretends to play nice in order to abuse and eventually make a meal of the pretending-to-be-naïve canary.

A series of violent visual gags ensues in which Tweety physically subdues the threatening cat by smoking him up, hitting him on the foot with a mallet, feeding him some alum and using his uvula as a punching bag. (See illustration) Tweety developing his little muscles at the expense of Sylvester's uvula.

A couple of racial/ethnic gags are included. Sylvester imitates a Scandinavian-sounding maid, who feigns complaining about having to "clean out de bird cage." He reaches into the covered cage and grabs what he thinks is the bird. The canary whistles at him. The confused cat opens his fist to find a small bomb, which promptly explodes, covering the cat in "blackface" makeup. His voice pattern then changes to something sounding like "Rochester", and he says, "Uh-oh, back to the kitchen, ah smell somethin' burnin'!" just before passing out.

A more subtle gag with a racist legacy occurs when Tweety, inside the cat's mouth, yells down its gullet. The answer comes back, "There's nobody here but us mice!" This is a variant on an old joke in which a black man is hiding in a henhouse, and when the farmer yells who is there, the would-be chicken thief answers, "Dey's nobody here but us chickens!"

At the climax, Tweety has managed to trap Sylvester inside the birdcage, and has introduced a "wittle puddy dog" (rhymes with "puppy dog"; a not-so-little "pug dog", an angry bulldog - in his first appearance). Their deadly battle occurs under the wrap the bird has thrown over the cage.

The film ends with the lady of the house calling the pet shop again, this time ordering a new cat, while Tweety lounges in Sylvester's old bed. Overhearing the woman telling the pet shop that the cat will have a nice home here, Tweety reveals the silhouette of a cat now stencilled on the wall, and closes the cartoon with a comment to the camera, "Her don't know me vewy well, do her?" a variant on one of Red Skelton's catchphrases by his "Mean Widdle Kid" character from radio.

History

This cartoon is a color remake of a 1943 black and white short film titled Puss n' Booty which was directed by Frank Tashlin and written by Warren Foster. In this previous version, a generic cat and canary team called Rudolph and Petey were used but the plot along with some gags and story elements were re-used. Puss N' Booty was notable as it was the final black and white cartoon ever released by WB.

After winning the Academy Award for Animated Short Film in 1947 for Tweetie Pie, a film which combined for the first time two of the studio's latest animated stars, Tweety Bird and Sylvester, there was a demand for more short films using the characters. Freleng himself said he could not imagine Tweety working with any other partners than Sylvester (in contrast, Sylvester still had his fair share of cartoons without Tweety).

was Freleng's second film teaming the characters and was released less than a year after Tweetie Pie. It is noticeable that while this cartoon was directed by Friz Freleng, the Tweety we see in it is by far closer to the aggressive little bird used in his first few cartoons directed by Bob Clampett than the more subdued and naïve character he would become a few years later as the series progressed. This is also the first cartoon in the Sylvester and Tweety series where Sylvester has a speaking role (in the first entry Tweetie Pie Sylvester doesn't speak).

This and Tweetie Pie were the only 2 Tweety and Sylvester pairings sold to Associated Artists Productions. This is the only Tweety/Sylvester pairing in Cinecolor as well. The cartoon says PRINT BY TECHNICOLOR, which means it was reissued in TECHNICOLOR. This and Tweetie Pie are the only 2 Tweety/Sylvester pairings that do not survive with original titles. Bad Ol' Putty Tat was released in 1949 but had the 1956-64 rules which reissued but kept original credits.

Production

Bea Benaderet provided the voice of the housemistress but she did not get credit as with most voice actors at the studio, Mel Blanc being the exception. Amongst the musical quotations in the Carl Stalling film score (with or without lyrics accompanying them) are extracts from "Singin' in the Bathtub", "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter" and "Ain't We Got Fun".

The animators for the cartoon were Ken Champin, Gerry Chiniquy, Manuel Perez, Virgil Ross, and an uncredited Pete Burness. Paul Julian was the background artist, while Hawley Pratt was the layout artist.

Censorship

The scene where Sylvester poses as a Swedish maid so he can get Tweety, only to grab a stick of dynamite and end up in blackface and sounding like Rochester from The Jack Benny Show is always cut when aired on TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and the former WB network.

Availability

• After its original release and its mid-1950s Blue Ribbon re-release in theaters, was re-released as part of the compilation film, Bugs Bunny: Superstar (1975), along with other animated short films from the 1940s. This feature was later made available on VHS and Laserdisc before it was discontinued in 1999 due to the waning popularity of laserdisc and VHS formats and due to MGM/UA Home Video losing the home video rights of the pre-1950 Warner Bros. library to Warner Home Video, but could be found on eBay or a selling site for people getting rid of/collecting these types of formats.

• The short film has also been made available on VHS through two compilations released by MGM/UA and Turner Entertainment in the 1980s : Little Tweety and Little Inki Cartoon Festival featuring and Tweety and Sylvester.
  • The Cartoon Festivals print is a damaged a.a.p. print where the a.a.p. logo plays first, then the 1947-49 Blue Ribbon Color Rings from Farm Frolics open, also notice the light blue borders, with the 1939-40 version of Merrily We Roll Along plays over instead of the 1941-45 version before the print finally changes to another print that says "". This is a MGM/UA print and probably was hacked off by United Artists in the 1980s.
    • This MGM/UA print airs in Cartoon Network and Boomerang Latin America and Tooncast, alternately with the 1995 Turner dubbed version print of the cartoon, and like the 1995 dubbed version print of the cartoon airing on all three channels, this print airs censored on all three channels to remove a blackface gag.
  • The latter VHS release uses an a.a.p. print (minus the a.a.p. opening) which preserves the original opening and closing titles, and has red borders in the credit sequences.

• The short was part of The Golden Age of Looney Tunes Volume 4 Laserdisc set, using the same print as on the Cartoon Moviestars VHS tape.

• It also occurs in its entirety in the documentary Bugs Bunny: Superstar Part 1, which is available as a special feature on Discs 1 and 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, although it has not been refurbished or released independently in that DVD series.

• The Turner dubbed version (which also has the same edit seen on TV to remove the blackface gag) has been made available as a bonus feature on the DVD release of Romance on the High Seas.

Notes

This cartoon would be used in the documentary, Bugs Bunny: Superstar.

Gallery

Blue Ribbon Re-Issue Titles

Original Titles From A Thad K. Film Print.

Lobby Card

Tweety developing his little muscles at the expense of Sylvester's uvula