Die Anonymen Vogelfresser

Poor old "Tweety" is happily sitting in it's cage, when in comes "Sylvester" who prepares for a small yellow snack! Then a benign orange cat arrives, just in the nick of time, and points out the error of his ways to our hungry antagonist. Then he suggests he visit him and his colleagues at "Birds Anonymous". This first meeting sees him regaled by of all sorts of reformed characters ruing their days of chasing their feather friends! Might "Sylvester" return home a changed cat? If so, can it last? What temptations might lie in his path? I enjoyed this tale of feline cold turkey and the animation of the increasingly frantic eyes and the bird-through-a-straw are really quite funny. Personally, I hated that bird too!

Never quite able to get the better of Tweety, Sylvester is starting to get increasingly desperate - a fact spotted by his friend Sam who helps him by taking him to a BA (Birds Anonymous) meeting where cats try to kick their addictions and live side by side with birds. However, when he tries to go cold turkey (or cold Tweety) he finds that his temptations are almost too much to bare.

Generally I find the short films involving Sylvester and Tweety to be rather difficult to totally enjoy. Part of the problem is that I find Tweety quite annoying and, on top of that, often too much time is spent on him and not enough on the physical work of Sylvester. However the better cartoons of theirs are the ones where they have a twist to them that makes them stand out. Such is the case here where the twist is the framework of Sylvester's addiction and his attempts to kick it. The material uses this really well and includes a clever spoof of AA meetings and several other nice touches as well as a bit of the usual stuff between Tweety and Sylvester. The punchline is funny and a good close to a good short.

Winning an Oscar for the pair, this is one of the most fun Tweety cartoons I've seen and the characters play their part really well. Sylvester is great fun and delivers a really good performance where he hams it up as a junkie undergoing withdrawal symptoms. Tweety is mercifully underused and lets Sylvester do all the work - a wise decision considering just how good he is here. The addition of Sam is funny and contributes to the big finish.

Overall a worthy Oscar winner for the pair as it is better than most of their other shorts and, as with all their best stuff, has less Tweety, good material and a strong performance from Sylvester. Great fun!

"Birds Anonymous" is a very good Looney Tunes cartoon. However, I really can't see why it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short--especially since the studio clearly has made much better cartoons that never received this recognition. The animation was decent but very late 1950s style--with minimalistic backgrounds and familiar characters.

The short begins with Sylvester doing what he always does in these cartoons--he's trying to eat Tweety. However, just before he does the deed, he's stopped by another cat--a cat who is a member of Bird-eaters Anonymous. Inexplicably, Sylvester joins as well and thinks he's finally conquered his addiction. Naturally, however, things don't go all that smoothly and his BA buddy comes to his aid.

While this is a good but not great cartoon, I am actually amazed at how timely it was, as AA had only just begun the same year this cartoon debuted. In an odd way, the cartoon brought a lot of positive publicity to the program--so in that sense it's a fascinating film.

"Birds Anonymous" is one of the many classic Looney Tunes cartoons that comes across funnier when you're an adult than when you're a kid, as you understand what it's spoofing. In this case, the target is Alcoholics Anonymous, as Sylvester enters an organization that helps cats break their bird addiction. But it's not that easy for him to think about anything other than Tweety (it's hard to deny that felines really develop dependencies on avians).

They hit it right on the nail with this cartoon. The meeting early on shows cats talking about how their bird addictions were running their lives into the ground until the organization saved them. And when the organization's rep Sam catches Sylvester trying to eat Tweety, Sam goes off on a speech about how this one snack will open Sylvester's addiction back up! I actually think that it's really good that they spoofed Alcholics Anonymous. Once, I was watching Penn & Teller's show, and they said that AA is basically a religion. Aside from the fact that a "12-step program" is a rather dogmatic idea, AA apparently hasn't changed it's modus operandi since its creation in 1935. But if AA helps people break their addiction, then it probably balances everything out.

Anyway, this is a really funny cartoon. Like I said, it becomes funnier once you're old enough to understand it (as do many if not most of the classic Looney Tunes cartoons). It certainly deserved its Oscar.

Perhaps, since there are hundreds of these featuring Bosco, Goofy Gophers, H. Hawk, Col. Shuffle, Buddy, Foghorn Leghorn, Gabby Goat, Pete Puma, Nasty Canasta, Sniffles, Speedy Gonzales, Hector the Bulldog, Pepe Le Pew, Melissa Duck, Slowpoke Rodriguez, Hubie & Bertie, Black Jack Shellac, Beaky Buzzard, Angus Mac Roary, Foxy, Granny, Witch Hazel, Rocky & Mugsy, Penelope Cat, Miss Priscilla Hen, Spike the Bulldog and Chester the Terrier. However, it is quite important to remember that though BIRDS ANONYMOUS was far worthier of a gelded statuette award than any of the umpteen Tom & Jerry's so honored, it pales in comparison to hundreds of OTHER Looney Tunes, including the universally acclaimed Best Animated Short of All-Time, Bugs Bunny and Elmer's classic WHAT'S OPERA, DOC?