Back Alley Oproar

Elmer is "weally sleepy" and quickly heads to bed. Seconds later, Sylvester is climbing the fence, sets up a music stand, works on his pitch with a harmonica....and then starts his opera singing in front of a beautiful, full moon.

Elmer is quickly at the window, telling the cat to scram. Sylvester continues to literally spit out "Figaro," while dodging objects thrown at him. Each time the cat's singing is interrupted, he comes back with a different kind of song (he has a full repertoire) and torments Elmer from outside and later inside the house. I never realized Sylvester had such a good singing voice! (Mel Blanc, the voice of all these Looney Tunes characters, was unbelievably talented.)

This was terrific; much funnier than I expected.

Best cartoon ever. Has my children in stitches every time they see it, and they've seen it hundreds of times. Who hasn't been interrupted when they want to sleep by someone being very annoying?

Great line up of old songs. That's partly why I love these vintage Looney Tunes cartoons, it keeps these great old songs like "You're Just An Angel In Disquise" and "Some Sunday Morning" alive for new generations to discover.

As usual the voices are great. Mel Blanc was a phenomena. Too bad they don't have the intelligence to make cartoons like this anymore. The cartoons today are so vapid and devoid of real charm and humor. This one delivers in droves.

Elmer Fudd is settling in for the night when he's constantly disrupted by Sylvester cat's singing. Fudd will go to any lengths to get a good night sleep, which makes the ending all the more funny. This is just simply a cute cartoon with all the singing and commotion and what not. It's a remake though which I can't help but hold against this short, but it's still good for what it is. That being a musical centric cartoon. This animated short can be seen on Disc 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 and also features an optional commentary by Greg Ford.

My Grade: B-

It's a classic, but is actually a remake of an earlier (pre-War) cartoon with Porky Pig in Elmer Fudd's role, and an anonymous cat. I wish I could recall the name of the original, but it is seen far less than this remake. Michael Maltese also wrote the original. The book gag is in the original, only Porky throws "The Falcon" and gets clobbered with "The Falcon Returns." I believe (not 100% certain), that Sylvester's 9 lives singing the "Sextet from Lucia" at the end of "Back Alley Op-roar" is a straight dub from the original's closing gag.

There are some great gags here, and tho' maybe overused, I've always enjoyed where a singer takes in a little alum, tries to sing, and then we watch his head shrink to the size of a pin while his key goes up several octaves!

In what seems to have been the only pairing of Elmer Fudd and Sylvester the Cat, the former tries to get some sleep, but the latter keeps singing and keeping him awake. While Elmer keeps trying to go after Sylvester - often pretty violently - Sylvester is always ahead of him. "Back Alley Oproar" is, if nothing else, an example of the great results when certain characters co-star. Those guys behind the Looney Tunes cartoons were never afraid to come up with any wacky thing that they wanted. I'll admit that I figured out what was going to happen at the very end before it came, but the rest of the cartoon more than made up for that. Really funny.

Grease and nails...what a combo.