Silvestro il Moralista

Sylvester is about to eat Tweety when he is confronted by another cat. That other cat tells Sylvester that he should join Birds Anonymous to work out his compulsion. Sylvester joins the group and it even seems to work.

This won an Oscar. I don't know why. Maybe the jury pool are all AA members. This is fine. The story is fine except for one issue. For somebody to be addicted, they have to have some of their addictions. You can't be addicted to drugs if you've never taken any. As far as I can tell, Sylvester has never eaten a bird. Maybe he should get treatment for stalking. That would make more sense.

I do like the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons in general, Tweety I do like when he is active and not nothing more than a plot device, but I love Sylvester who always excels at providing the laughs. Birds Anonymous is a contender for their best cartoon. Tweety is underused and is more a plot device here, but this is one instance where this works, because Sylvester is so good and delightful to watch. The story is reminiscent of a spoof while also stepping away from the usual formula in this set of cartoons, and it is fast-paced and energetic, helped by the witty writing, infectious music and delightful gags, while the animation is of fluid and colourful quality and the opening sequence is wonderful and almost Hitchcockian. Mel Blanc does a brilliant job with the voices and it shows perfectly that it was apparently his favourite WB cartoon. Overall, wonderful and probably the best of this cartoon duo. 10/10 Bethany Cox

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," like "Alcoholics Anonymous" is trying to cure an addiction. In this case, it's cats curing their addiction to eating birds. As one bird says in a testimony, "It cost me five houses," however the analogy of "BA" to "AA" really doesn't fit since cats are inbred to go after birds while choosing to drink is just that: a choice.

Nevertheless, it's just a cartoon and a spoof and shows poor Sylvester trying to do the right thing but everywhere he looks and turns, it makes things worse. For instance, he turns on the TV and the first thing he sees is an ad for a tasty bird - a turkey. The announcer says, "Every succulent morsel will simply melt in your mouth...." Listening to this, the poor cat is sweating like Niagara Falls and is tongue is about on the floor. The radio brings more (albeit sadistic) laughs as the music is nothing but songs about birds.

I felt sorry for Sylvester in here. Addiction is brutal and really no laughing matter, whether it's drugs, alcohol or whatever. As some insincere political bigwig once said: "I feel your pain." In here, I felt Sylvester's pain. I've always been in the minority here and rooted for Tweety, but not in this episode. Give the cat a break!

Friz Freleng's 'Birds Anonymous' is one of the cleverest and best of the Sylvester and Tweety series of cartoons. I'm not a great fan of this series since I feel it is largely repetitive and predictable and I can't stand the cutesy version of Tweety who usurped the wonderful original version of the character invented by Bob Clampett. 'Birds Anonymous' caters to both my requirements for a great Sylvester and Tweety short.

1. It breaks from the usual chase formula which often resorted to simply replaying the same gags in a different setting.

2. It throws the spotlight firmly on Sylvester, with Tweety being merely a device to move the story on.

Add to these elements a very clever concept which satirises the then fairly new institution Alcoholics Anonymous. In a wonderful, Hitchcockian opening sequence, Sylvester is stopped midway through an attempt to catch Tweety by an oddball orange cat who introduces him to a group for cats with bird addictions. From hereon in, the cartoon focuses not on Sylvester's battle with Tweety but with his battle with himself as he tries to fight his fraying will power. The animation of Sylvester's jittery breakdown is great but the most effective moment comes with a highly unusual sequence in which we see Sylvester endure a sleepless night through a series of completely static shots, a hauntingly effective choice. The minimalist, stylised backgrounds and bright colours also heighten the sense of growing hysteria. I'm usually not a great fan of these cheaper looking layouts but often they were used very effectively and 'Birds Anonymous' is one of the key examples of this. A far cry from the tiresome, samey chase films that dominate the Sylvester and Tweety series, 'Birds Anonymous' is a real classic of invention and technique and deservedly won an Academy Award for animated short subject.