''Bad Ol' Putty Tat'' is a 1949

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

'' Merrie Melodies'' animated cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on July 23, 1949, and stars

Tweety Tweety is a yellow canary in the Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series of animated cartoons. The name "Tweety" is a play on words, as it originally meant "sweetie", along with "tweet" being an English onomatopoeia for t ...

and Sylvester. Tweety must evade the titular "puddy tat," Sylvester, who is once again in hot pursuit of Tweety, just so that he can eat him for his own personal snack. It provides an anomaly in the Sylvester & Tweety pairings: In this one, Tweety provides almost all the dialogue, and then mainly to the audience. Tweety's voice is performed by Mel Blanc, who also screams out Sylvester's pain in mid-film. The story was written by

Tedd Pierce Edward Stacey "Tedd" Pierce III (August 12, 1906 – February 19, 1972) was an American screenwriter and voice actor of animated cartoons, principally from the mid-1930s to the late 1950s. Biography Pierce was the son of a stockbroker, Samue ...

; he and fellow Warner Bros. cartoon writer Michael Maltese appear in caricature form as a pair of badminton players.

Plot

The film begins with a shot of Tweety's house, at the top of a tall wooden pole, with a sign reading "DO NOT DISTURB." There is barbed wire wound around the pole and, on the ground at the bottom, a barbed wire damaged Sylvester. Sylvester builds a trampoline and launches himself to the entrance of the birdhouse; Tweety fights back with various weapons and, ultimately, a stick of dynamite. Next, Sylvester begins sawing the pole. To escape, Tweety pins himself to a clothesline and begins sliding down it; at the last minute, he sees the cat with the end of the line tied to his tooth and his mouth open, awaiting Tweety. When the line collapses, Sylvester sees the bird has attached the other end to a firework, which he lights and launches, taking Sylvester's teeth with it. Sylvester paints his finger to look like a female Tweety. At first, this works, but Tweety discovers the ploy and switches hats with "her". This results in Sylvester chomping down on his finger. Tweety accidentally becomes the badminton birdie in a spontaneous match. The cat manages to take one player's place and, again, awaits the bird with his mouth open. Tweety drops a stick of dynamite, which travels right into Sylvester's stomach. He rushes to a water cooler and, as he's drinking in order to put out the fire, the explosion pilots him into the cooler. Finally, he builds a new birdhouse, puts it over his head (the entrance being located at mouth-level) and climbs to the top of a pole, hoping to attract Tweety inside. Tweety, having frightened himself with thoughts of Sylvester, does fly into the cat's mouth. Instead of being digested, he takes manual control of Sylvester, turning him into a train which crashes into a brick wall. Tweety then says to the audience, "You know, I wose mo puddy tats dat way?" and smiles.

Home media

''Bad Ol' Putty Tat'' is available on the

Looney Tunes Golden Collection The ''Looney Tunes Golden Collection'' is a series of six four-disc DVD box sets from Warner Home Video, each containing about 60 ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' animated shorts. The series began on October 28, 2003, and ended on Octo ...

Volume Two.

References

External links

* 1949 short films 1949 animated films American comedy short films Merrie Melodies short films 1940s English-language films Sylvester the Cat films Tweety films Animated films about birds Short films directed by Friz Freleng Films scored by Carl Stalling Warner Bros. Cartoons animated short films 1940s Warner Bros. animated short films American animated short films Animated films about cats {{MerrieMelodies-stub