Tel est pris

In 1942, the Schlesinger studio started producing the Looney Tunes series in color. That same year, Frank Tashlin returned after a four year long absence. Since he had the least seniority of the four directors, he directed the last few black and white cartoons at the studio. One may see that a unworthy distinction, but no other director at the studio handled black and white like Tashlin did.

The last released b/w LT features a cat/bird scenario that would serve as a forerunner to what the Tweety and Sylvester cartoons would be just a few years later. Tashlins use of camera movements and dramatic camera angles give an almost suspenseful buildup in every gag. It's almost as if Tashlin collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock. The nighttime scenes could only have been executed effectively in black and white and would not have had the same dramatic effect had it been produced in Technicolor.

The Tweety and Sylvester setup is probably not a coincidence. Freleng did a semi-remake of this short in 1947 titled I TAW A PUTTY TAT. While it was one of their better shorts, it pales in comparison to the classy, cinematic original.

Frank Tashlin's 'Puss 'n' Booty' is perhaps the great underrated director's most perfect cartoon. The last black and white Looney Tune, 'Puss 'n' Booty' opens with a fairly standard setup that you might expect to see in a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon. What separates it from that repetitive series is this cartoon's refusal to just cut straight to the easy gags. Instead, 'Puss 'n' Booty' is very much a character piece and dedicates a good portion of its running time to sequences which would have been summarised in a couple of shots in a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon. After Rudolf the cat has hiccupped feathers, thereby letting the audience know what has happened, Tashlin refuses to leave it at that and cut to the main story, instead initiating a tremendous bit of character comedy as Rudolf pretends to be devastated and searches everywhere for his missing "friend". The following sequence is even more masterful as Rudolf anxiously awaits the delivery of a new canary, pacing backwards and forwards on the garden wall and frantically waving down every passing vehicle.

This long build up to the arrival of the cartoon's second main character would have been reason enough to hail 'Puss 'n' Booty' as a masterpiece but Tashlin sustains the brilliance. Instead of resorting to a series of spot gags as Rudolf tries to eat the canary, Tashlin keeps the emphasis on character and the jokes themselves are conspicuously kept low-key so that we can continue to focus on the character's priceless reactions. There's an air of real threat that is absent in the Tweety and Sylvester cartoons, as the canary battles for his life. These scenes are also spectacular, particularly the beautifully directed night-time shots. It all culminates in one of the best and strangest final gags in cartoon history. Despite initially appearing to be just another cat and bird cartoon, 'Puss 'n' Booty' quickly establishes itself as something very different. It's a genuine triumph, an unsung classic that I still consider one of the most perfect films of animation's golden age.

The final black and white cartoon from Warner Bros. features a plot line that we've seen many times: cat tries to eat bird, bird turns out to be nasty little dude. Believe it or not, "Puss n' Booty" came before the Sylvester-Tweety pairings (Sylvester hadn't even yet debuted when this one came out), so if anything, those copied this one; in fact, they remade it as "I Taw a Putty Tat" and cast Sylvester and Tweety.

Some of the shots - such as looking down from inside the birdcage - reminded me a little bit of POV shots from movies like "Rear Window", but maybe that's just me. While I do prefer the Sylvester-Tweety pairings for cat-canary rivalries, I do have to give this one credit for starting the genre, and for giving Bea Benaderet her debut. Worth seeing.

Yikes! Where has "Dickie" gone? He's not in his cage and the cat ("Rudolph") has a very smug look on his face. He knows he's for it if she finds out so he needs to convince her that this fifth canary of the month has also flown the coup? Luckily, 1605 Maple Drive has an account with the pet shop so another lunch is soon on it's way! This time, though, the cage is relocated somewhere less accessible and the canary - well he's a little more clued up than any of his predecessors and so a battle royal ensues - and we just know who the winner is going to be. The humour here has more of the slapstick "Tom and Jerry" style to it - it's quite enjoyably action-packed and finishes with quite a fun twist!

A woman orders her sixth canary from the pet shop. She is clueless when it comes to her little darling kitty, who is a master of duplicity and bird hungry. This ultimately leads to a confrontation between bird number six and the Sylvester prototype. There are some great scenes as the cat schemes to get the bird, but like our friend Tweety, the bird is his worst nightmare.