Tweety and the Beanstalk

Maybe I am in the minority here, but I thought this Tweety-Sylvester cartoon was terrific. It was very inventive and reminded of a good Roadrunner cartoon. Here, Sylvester uses his wits to come up with some really good plans to get Tweety but - like the coyote who never could get the Roadrunner - always comes up short.

That's the angle of the story, too: "short." Sylvester climbs Jack's giant beanstalk and winds up somewhere way up in the clouds in a magic kingdom and more specifically, in a huge castle where everything is gigantic compared to him. Tweety is there and it is he who incorporates some of the words in the subject head here when he says, "I tawt I saw a little itty, bitty puddytat!" The rest of the cartoon is Sylvester coming up with ingenious plans to get the giant (to him) bird and then, at the end, battling the human "Giant."

Good stuff and very clever material.

For the most part this is fairly typical Sylvester and Tweety material except that there's "acres and acres of giant tweetybird". While not as clever as Bugs and Daffy in "Beanstalk Bunny", when Sylvester's attempts to get Tweety finally arouse the giant, he enters with one of my all-time favorite lines: "fee fi fo fat, I tought I taw a puddy tat".

As far as I'm concerned, any Sylvester-Tweety pairing is a good one. So, I still like "Tweety and the Beanstalk", even though it's far from the best Sylvester-Tweety pairing. It portrays Jack's mother throwing the beans under Sylvester's box, after which a beanstalk grows under it and takes Sylvester up to the giant's kingdom; this was I assume the only time that Tweety was twice Sylvester's size.

If this cartoon has any real weakness, it's that we don't get to see any of Tweety's usual nasty tricks to fend off Sylvester. Then again, since Tweety is bigger than Sylvester here, they didn't really need to do that. "TATB" actually gets really neat once we meet the giant. But Sylvester and Tweety's best pairing in 1957 was "Birds Anonymous", and the best Looney Tunes spin on "Jack and the Beanstalk" was "Beanstalk Bunny", in which Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck climb the beanstalk up to a land where Elmer Fudd is the giant.

When Jack grows his beanstalk, his cat accidentally gets caught up in it as it grows upwards and Sylvester wakes up in the giant's kingdom. When he discovers that everything is bigger in this world he immediately makes it his goal to get his hands on a Tweety Pie bird that is as big as he is!

After Jack-Rabbit and the Beanstalk, Sylvester also gets caught up in the fairy tale. The film is really just the usual jokes but with the size difference making a slight change to the gags and routines. The size difference isn't used that well - Sylvester still tries to get into Tweety's cage and is still chased by a dog - it doesn't really matter that they are bigger than usual.

Tweety has very little to do apart from be a little bigger than usual (and put on a funny accent at the end). Sylvester is pretty good but neither the dog nor the giant really have anything in the way of character.

Overall this is an enjoyable enough cartoon but it is just a shame that the fact that everything is bigger than usual isn't used very well or make much difference. Also, Tweety is not a strong enough presence here to justify his name being in the title.

Personally I like the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, though if I were honest I prefer those of Bugs and Daffy. Tweety and the Beanstalk is for me one of their better cartoons, along with Hyde and Go Tweet. It is basically a fun little twist on the timeless Jack and the Beanstalk tale, with a size reversal between Sylvester and Tweety. The animation is crisp and colourful, while the music is bright and lively. Both Tweety and the Giant have some great dialogue, my favourite was the one in the title of this review, while some of the cartoon revolves around Sylvester's ingenious(or not so ingenious) traps to capture Tweety. Tweety is good here, while Sylvester and the Giant are even better, and Mel Blanc is excellent once again. Overall, simply great. 10/10 Bethany Cox