Sylvester Junior

Sylvester is aghast when he sees that his son is fraternizing with (of all possible creatures) a blue jay by the name of Spike. Through his natural feline instincts, he does everything in his power to not only destroy this relationship, but destroy Spike as well.

I always found the earlier Sylvester/Sylvester Jr. cartoons to be more enjoyable than the later ones. In the earlier cartoons, Sylvester Jr. was quite sassy and straight-up compared to his more innocent persona of the late 50s and early 60s shorts. As such, they had quite a bit more spark. Unfortunately, this cartoon falls victim to being one of the latter shorts. Essentially, it is a Sylvester/Tweety cartoon with Tweety being replaced by the similar but less interesting Spike (who not only talks in whistles but also has that same "cute/innocent on the outside but sly and crafty on the inside" personality - albeit to less funny effect) and Sylvester Jr. simply standing there and watching. Save for may be the final gag, none of the jokes here are too terribly imaginative or funny, and the ending is too vague to really work as a punchline.

Overall, this is by no means a bad cartoon. It is, however, a clear example of the WB cartoon studio running out of creative steam, which of course lead to the closing of the studio just three years later.

Sylvester is not pleased to learn his son Junior has befriended a little bird named Spike. Cats and birds are natural enemies, after all. So Sylvester sets out to teach Junior "the facts of life." Some hilarious dialogue follows, particularly from Sylvester Jr. The gags are good, too, but it's the dialogue that really drives this cartoon. Nice animation with lovely bright colors. The music is cheerful and fun. The incomparable Mel Blanc was in rare form in this one, doing an excellent job with the voice work for Sylvester and son. A lot of shorts Mel would only have a few lines here and there but he always made the most of it. This is one of those shorts where he had lots of dialogue to work with and really gets to have fun.

The Plot may seem fairly simple and typical of Sylvester Jr and Sylvester cartoons, but this one does that better than others. I can really feel the energy that was put into this cartoon, and of course, the voice acting is superb. A cartoon such as Cat's paw from two years earlier is much worse than this cartoon, and I can't really find anything too wrong with this cartoon. The gags are Hilarious, and the animation isn't that bad actually, in fact it could have passed as a mid-fifties cartoon if it could.

Final thoughts: Very nice!

Something about the Sylvester Jr cartoons make me smile, and I can thoroughly enjoy most of them.

9/10.

For the most part, "Birds of a Father" tries too hard to be cute, as Sylvester gets incensed when he learns that his son has an avian friend, and tries to get him to be a real cat. Maybe this is an allusion to fathers getting up in arms if they learn that their sons are gay, and try to teach them to be "real men" by shooting animals. Still, they could have played it to better effect here. As usual, they had a TNT gag - which I considered the highlight - but most of the cartoon seemed like stuff lifted from better cartoons. Not terrible, but not the best; maybe they didn't have many new ideas by this point.

So they were allowed to mention nudist colonies in a cartoon...

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

'Birds of a Father' is not one of Robert McKimson's best overall and there are better Sylvester and Junior characters. To me though, it is one of his better later efforts. His late period saw a fair share of pretty weak cartoons (though nowhere near as bad-faring as the worst of Alex Lovy and Rudy Larriva), in what was in all fairness a patchy decade, particularly the latter part, generally for Looney Tunes, so seeing a cartoon that fared very well was nice to see.

Do agree that the bird character Spike is not as interesting as Sylvester and Junior and the ending could have had more clarity.

There is a lot to enjoy though. The plot is fairly standard but has tremendous energy and enough freshness and amusement to keep one interested and stop things from being too predictable.

Gags are great fun and often hilarious, while the dialogue has a good amount of sharpness and wit. Have always liked Sylvester and Junior together, they are a funny pair and there is also heart to their relationship. That can be seen in 'Birds of a Father' even if it has been stronger in their earlier cartoons.

Junior is amusing and avoids being too cutesy. The most interesting and funniest character is Sylvester, he takes the laughs to very funny effect and is suitably cunning but one roots for him too.

Animation for a 1960s Looney Tunes cartoons, where budgets were generally lower and deadlines were tighter, is surprisingly very good. Fluid in movement, vibrant in colour and very meticulous in detail, Sylvester's expressions are especially well done. Am more of a Carl Stalling person myself, but Milt Franklyn's music is full of energy and lush and clever orchestration, while not quite enhancing the action that Stalling did so consistently brilliantly Franklyn's music always added a lot.

Mel Blanc very rarely put a foot wrong, he was an unequalled master at giving individuality to more than one (often multiple) character, always sounded like he was having fun and never phoned it in when his material was weak. As ever he is outstanding and clearly was enjoying himself a lot, helped by that his dialogue allowed him to do so.

Overall, very good late effort for McKimson and Looney Tunes in general. 8/10 Bethany Cox