Gatos Congelados

Funny Tweety and Sylvester short, directed by Friz Freleng. It's a fairly routine story - Sylvester and another unnamed cat see Tweety in his nest and decide to grab him. Throughout the cartoon the two cats fight each other to get at Tweety, with hilarious results. Tweety is adorable as ever and has several great lines. My favorite part from the whole cartoon is when Tweety talks to a plastic drinking bird that keeps dipping its head into a bowl of water ("May I have a dwink with you?"). Sylvester (who doesn't speak) and the unnamed red/orange cat are both fun. Excellent voice work from Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet. Lively music from Carl Stalling. The animation is colorful and attractive. It's all beautifully-drawn and painted. Tweety shorts aren't for all tastes (as judged by the "must be fun at parties" types contributing some of these reviews), but if you like his cartoons you'll probably enjoy this one a lot.

Putty Tat Trouble (1951)

*** (out of 4)

It's Christmas time and Tweety is out shoveling the snow from his nest when Sylvester and another cat spot him. The two cats go full battle to try and get Tweety but he's much smarter than them. I'm not a huge fan of the Sylvester/Tweety cartoons but this one here is pretty good because for the most part the two cats are fighting each other while the bird stays pretty safe. The cuteness of Tweety is certainly on full display as is his other side, which is perfectly shown during a scene where the two cats are on a frozen pond. There are some nice laughs throughout as well as some good action so fans of the two will certainly be entertained.

In the large Looney Tunes canon of some of the greatest cartoons ever made, the Tweety and Sylvester entries give them even further solidity by being one of their most popular series and never letting the audience down with a below par effort. Most, including this one in particular, have an elegance enhanced by the music of Carl Stalling. Many of the gags are of the two putty tats competing against one another to be the one to catch Tweety, but when the action comes out of the cold outdoors to the scene in the basement of one of the apartment buildings, we have one of those transcendental moments of pure Looney Tunes genius when the little yellow bird meets another little yellow bird perched on a glass of water.

I'm not the biggest fan of Friz Freleng's generally quite repetitive Tweety and Sylvester series of cartoons but 'Putty Tat Trouble' is definitely an exception. This is partially due to the fact that this short was regularly shown at Christmas and is therefore linked to some warm and cosy memories of childhood but it's also because 'Putty Tat Trouble' is undoubtedly one of the best Tweety and Sylvester cartoons. It is the presence of a scraggy orange cat as a rival for Sylvester that really gives 'Putty Tat Trouble' a shot in the arm. Rather than just having a bulldog occasionally wander in and clobber him, Sylvester is pitted against an equal force in terms of brains and brawn. This sets in motion a high speed pursuit/tug of war that continues throughout the whole cartoon which makes for a pacier experience than the usual pattern of blackout gags. For the most part, Tweety is little more than a baton being passed from cat to cat, a motive to trigger off a brutal war between the two felines. With its attractive snowy scenery and speedy narrative, 'Putty Tat Trouble' is a lovely cartoon to look at and the furious pace (which only breaks for a cutesy conversation between Tweety and a toy drinking bird) means that any weak or predictable gags aren't so problematic because we move so quickly onto the next one. 'Putty Tat Trouble' improves upon a rapidly wearing formula simply by throwing in an extra antagonist, a decision which results in a fast-moving, exciting and funny cartoon

Tweety is outside, shoveling the snow out of his bird's nest, mumbling that he shouldn't have wished for a white Christmas. In one building, Sylvester cleans off the window and spots Tweety while in an adjacent building, another cat - an unnamed orange feline - does the same. They both pound on the doors to have their respective owners let them out.

They race from opposite directions and arrive at Tweety's nest at the same time. From that point on, it's a battle to see who gets the bird. A short time later, the orange tabby thinks he won, but swallows a mechanical dunking yellow bird by mistake. That scene might have been the funniest.

Tweety looks like a goner a few times but always seems to come out unscathed while the two cats beat the crap out of each other.

In all, nothing super but entertaining and a nice DVD transfer. The colors are bold and the picture sharp.