| I Taw a Putty Tat | |
|---|---|
 The original title card of the cartoon | |
| Directed by | I. Freleng |
| Story by | Tedd Pierce[1] |
| Starring | Mel Blanc |
| Music by | Carl Stalling |
| Animation by | Virgil Ross Gerry Chiniquy Manuel Perez Ken Champin Pete Burness (uncredited) |
| Layouts by | Hawley Pratt |
| Backgrounds by | Paul Julian |
| Color process | In: Cinecolor (two-strip, original release) Print by: Technicolor (production, three-strip, reissue) |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 7 minutes (one reel) |
| Language | English |
I Taw a Putty Tat is a 1948Warner Bros.Merrie Melodiesanimated cartoon directed byFriz Freleng.[3] The short was released on April 1, 1948, and starsTweety andSylvester.[4]
Both Tweety and Sylvester are voiced byMel Blanc. The uncredited voice of the lady of the house (seen only from the neck down, as she talks on the phone) isBea Benaderet.[5]
This is the first film whose title included Tweety's speech-impaired term for a cat.
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 sadistic 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 somealum and using hisuvula as a punching bag.
A couple of racial or ethnic gags are included. Sylvester imitates a Swedish-sounding maid, in an imitation of radio comedianEl Brendel, 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 finda small bomb, which promptly explodes, charred the cat in "blackface" makeup. His voice pattern then changes to something sounding like "Rochester", when he utters, "Uh-oh, back to the kitchen, ah smell somethin' burnin'!" just before passing out in the doorway.
A more subtle gag occurs when Tweety, inside the cat's mouth, yells down its gullet. The answer comes back, "There's nobody here but us mice!", which is a reference to theLouis Jordan hit "Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens" (1946).
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 very well, do her?" a variant on one ofRed Skelton's catchphrases by his "Mean Widdle Kid" character from radio.
This cartoon is a colorremake of theblack and whiteLooney Tunes short film titledPuss n' Booty (1943), which was directed byFrank Tashlin and written byWarren Foster (who would later be the main writer for most Tweety/Sylvester cartoons in the 1950s, such asTweety's S.O.S.,Snow Business and the Oscar-winningBirds Anonymous). 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 theAcademy Award for Animated Short Film in 1947 forTweetie Pie, a film which combined for the first time two of the studio's latest animated stars,Tweety andSylvester, there was a demand for more short films using the characters.Friz 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 and laterSpeedy Gonzales).
I Taw a Putty Tat was Freleng's second film teaming the characters and was released less than a year afterTweetie Pie. It is noticeable that while this cartoon was directed by Freleng, the Tweety we see in it is by far closer to the aggressive little bird used in his first few cartoons directed byBob Clampett than the more subdued and naive character he would become a few years later as the series progressed.
The short is also the first time in a Sylvester/Tweety short where Sylvester speaks.
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 themusical quotations in theCarl Stallingfilm score (with or without lyrics accompanying them) are extracts fromSingin' in the Bathtub,She Was an Acrobat's Daughter andAin't We Got Fun.
The animators for the cartoon were Ken Champin,Gerry Chiniquy,Manuel Perez,Virgil Ross, and an uncreditedPete Burness.Paul Julian was the background artist, whileHawley Pratt was the layout artist.
