Catty Cornered

There doesn't seem to be any life in this one. The gags are predictable. The characters are flat. One might actually call it boring. Despite these criticisms though, I'll say that this, like most of Freleng's work of this era, is visually gorgeous. The backgrounds are stunning and the animation is flawless. Had this toon had a better story and more inspired gags it would have been something great.

Tweety Bird has been kidnapped by mobster Rocky, who intends to hold the bird for a ransom of a million dollars. However none of this matters to Sylvester, who hears Tweety's cries for help from the street. He sets out to rescue Tweety from the mobsters - but only so that he can eat him for his lunch. However the mobsters prove to be tougher to get past than he expected.

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 fact that Tweety is kidnapped so that Sylvester has to overcome not only him but also the mobsters.

The material is pretty funny - the usual gags also spiced up with the crime element. It made me laugh a few times and had a pretty good finish. The characters really help and their delivery is pretty good. Tweety is only used as a plot device and the film is better for it. Rocky and Nick are tough and funny but both are fairly limited by just being spoof characters who are one dimensional jokes rather than well developed ones. However Sylvester is great and he makes the material a lot funnier than it was on paper - a sign of a good character.

Overall, even those who usually see the limitations and repetition within the Tweety cartoons should fins this to be an enjoyable outing - the spice added by the plot twist makes it more interesting and less prone to being spoilt by an annoying little yellow bird!

This time, gangster Rocky kidnaps Tweety. When the derelict Sylvester sees the famous canary in a cage, he decides to have a little snack. But getting past the gangsters won't be so easy.

"Catty Cornered" appears to be a midpoint for Rocky. In his early appearances, he was a tall caricature of Edward G. Robinson. Then, they made him smaller (or is vertically challenged the PC description?) and gave him more of a generic gangster look. Here he has a a competent assistant named Nick, but in later cartoons he had a dimwitted assistant named Mugsy.

And that phrase "get the bird"? It's the reverse of "give the bird". Both phrases got used in the Looney Tunes cartoons.

Anyway, an OK cartoon.

I personally sort of like the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons. Catty Cornered I admit isn't a favourite, the pace here is rather dull, the story is predictable despite a decent twist and some of the jokes are disappointingly flat. That said, there is some funny dialogue and the ending I loved too. The animation as you would expect in any Looney Tunes cartoon is great, very vibrant and colourful, and the music has its fair share of energy. When it comes to the characters, the best is Sylvester who takes the laughs very well. Rocky is also entertaining, however Nick is a little bland and Tweety while decent enough is I agree serves his purpose as a plot device. I will say though, I cannot fault Mel Blanc's voice work at all, he is wonderful as he always is. All in all, decent enough but not among the best. 6.5/10 for particularly Sylvester and the animation. Bethany Cox