Ain't She Tweet (1952) Online

Tweety and a little mouse are in cages at a pet shop, right in the front window. Sylvester is just outside the window and is licking his chops. Obviously, he has to figure out how to get these "meals."

Right from the first gag, in which the cat throws a brick at the window, is spotted by a cop and races to stop the brick before it hits the glass, this has a lot of the usual hilarious scenes.

Tweety is "sold" and delivered to Granny's house where the real fun now occurs, as Sylvester follows the truck and is in for the shock of his life.

In this Tweety episode, instead of Granny owning one big bulldog, she has an entire backyard full of them! What a shock when Sylvester discovers this! There are some fantastic scenes involving Sylvester and all those dogs as he has to get by all of them to get to Tweety. The bit with Sylvester on stilts was extremely clever.

The title "Ain't She Tweet" is a take-off of a popular song titled "Ain't She Sweet," which Tweety happily sings in the cartoon "A Bird in a Guilty Cage," also from 1952. As for "Ain't She Tweet," it is simply a delightful Tweety/Sylvester/Granny cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. What is so great about this short, as filmmaker Greg Ford noted in his audio commentary for the DVD, is Freleng's wise decision to incorporate humor into what the audience DOES NOT see or hear. At the beginning of this cartoon, for example, Sylvester looks through a pet shop window and is annoyed at the sight of Tweety and a mouse inaudibly wisecracking about him. But the main thrust of this picture is that Sylvester must enter Granny's front yard, where about a million bulldogs await to take care of any strangers, if he wants to capture Tweety. After each failed attempt, the mere sounds of the barking bulldogs are all that is needed to capture the humor of Sylvester getting his carcass badly beaten. Perhaps the funniest gag is that of Sylvester entering the yard on stilts and Tweety dropping a box of tools down to the dogs.

I do not recall ever seeing "Ain't She Tweet" until I obtained the DVD (Disc 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2). But now that I've seen it, I highly recommend it for all Tweety/Sylvester fans.

Ain't She Tweet is a delightful cartoon and among the best of the Sylvester/Tweety series(which I do enjoy on the most part). Those who likes the series will find plenty to love, and Ain't She Tweet is also a Sylvester/Tweety cartoons that even non-Tweety fans will enjoy. The animation is bright and colourful with lots of fluid movement and you do have to love how Sylvester's facial expressions are animated. All the characters look fine though. The music with the lush and characterful orchestration and very driven rhythms is great and enhances the action wonderfully. The dialogue is nearly always witty and amusing but it's in the visual gags where the funniest stuff is, the entire stuff with the rocket and Sylvester-on-stilts are hilarious as is all the parts and interactions between Sylvester and the funny and very brutal bull-dogs. But I do completely agree about Sylvester making his way to the front door, thinking his plan working, and finding the bull-dogs inside. That is a masterclass in how to make something potentially predictable actually unexpected, okay you kind of know the outcome but the build-up and the execution of this scene, with some great suspense and some fun animation for Sylvester, ensures that the scene manages to surprise us. The story is crisply paced and is not repetitive, sure it is basically Sylvester thinking of ways to get to Tweety without getting attacked by bull-dogs but the ways he uses are actually very clever and don't repeat themselves. The characters are great, Tweety doesn't have much to do but he is not an annoyance and while not as anarchic as Bob Clampett made him he's not too cutesy. Granny has even less to do but she's hardly pointless. But the stars of the show are the bull-dogs and especially Sylvester. The dogs are funny and brutal, while Sylvester is one of those characters who provides the laughs brilliantly when the material is strong(like it is here) yet you do feel a fair amount of pity for him. Mel Blanc is spot-on as usual as well as remarkably consistent and Bea Benaderet is good despite having little. The only thing that isn't so good is Tweety's lame and unfunny final line, Ain't She Tweet on the whole though is delightful, not just for Sylvester and Tweety but generally as well. 9/10 Bethany Cox

The best scenes in this short are where Sylvester spends a minute inside a garage reading a blueprint on how to build a rocket in which he will fly over the dogs in order to reach Tweety, then he builds it (albeit low-budget looking!). When Sylvester lights the fuse, the rocket blows up on him and he ends up on fire and he frantically runs around trying to extinguish the flames.

This is similar to a gag in another WB Cartoon "Peck O'Trouble" where Dodsworth the Cat ended up on fire after a bottle of Nitroglycerine exploded on him while he lit up a cigarette)

Of course, there are a few other cartoons where Sylvester ends up with his backside on fire

"All A-Bird" "Tugboat Granny" "Tweety Pie" "Tweety's Circus" "Fowl Weather" "Tweety's S.O.S." "Snow Business"

Funny Sylvester and Tweety short, directed by Friz Freleng, that has Sylvester trying to get at Tweety in the pet store and later at Granny's house. It's fairly routine plotwise but the gags of Sylvester failing in multiple ways to reach his prey are pretty funny. Great voice work from Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet. Carl Stalling's music is, as always, excellent. The animation is wonderful, with lovely colors and some well-done action sequences. A couple of the better gags are Sylvester using stilts to try and cross a yard full of bulldogs and Sylvester hiding in a package meant to be meat for the dogs. It's a fun cartoon that most fans of the series will love. I think it works well as a companion piece to 1954's Dog Pounded.

Friz Freleng's 'Ain't She Tweet' is a very good Sylvester and Tweety cartoon. I'm not usually a fan of this series of cartoons because of its repetitive nature and my hatred of Freleng's cutesy version of Tweety. 'Ain't She Tweet' comes at the cat-and-bird battle from a different angle by placing constant obstacles between Sylvester and Tweety, first a pet shop window then a garden full of bulldogs. Not only does this provide some much needed variety to the series but it also effectively removes Tweety from the action at a very early stage! Once Tweety disappears for an extended period, 'Ain't She Tweet' really comes to life, closing the gap between each of Sylvester's attempts to get across the garden and his inevitable savaging. Crucially, there are some genuinely unexpected moments which is rare in the bulk of Sylvester and Tweety cartoons. My favourite is a beautifully directed moment in which Sylvester finds the garden empty and victoriously makes his way carefully to the front door only to find the dozens of vicious dogs inside the house. We know there's a savaging coming but Freleng still somehow manages to draw out some genuine suspense alongside the laughs. As a big fan of Sylvester without Tweety, 'Ain't She Tweet' offers plenty to enjoy. When Tweety does finally reappear at the cartoons end, his final bit to camera is the low point of the cartoon and an unfortunate way to end a genuinely funny short. 'Ain't She Tweet' is one of the best Sylvester and Tweety cartoons for one simple reason: it's virtually a Sylvester solo outing.

While most of the Sylvester/Tweety pairings would feature just one bulldog (I seem to recall that his name is Hector) to counter Sylvester's actions, "Ain't She Tweet" features a whole garden of dogs. When Granny brings Tweety home from the pet store* - where Sylvester had already tried to go after him but had to abort his plan - Sylvester can't seem to get past the canine ocean. Why must he always suffer so?! Obviously, his mishaps form part of the cartoon's plot line, sort of like what befalls Wile E. Coyote when he tries to trap Road Runner. But no matter how you look at it, this is still a funny cartoon. Little more than a way to pass time, but worth your while.

*I noticed that the shop next to the pet store said I. Wyner. No doubt that was an in-joke referring to background artist Irv Wyner.

Sylvester never gets a break in this cartoon. The repeated attempts are so clever, and they should work if not for Tweety's quick thinking and unforgiving nature.

Another winner from Fritz Freleng.

. . . works to break up a coven of sadistic animal abusers in a classic Warner Bros. animated short, AIN'T SHE TWEET. In Wales, they have a saying that, "The only good place for a canary is in a coal mine." That's because a canary will croak from insufficient oxygen before a human being is done in by bad air, so when a yellow Tweety Bird goes bottoms up down there the miners know that it's time to high-tail it to the fresh air of the surface. Otherwise, these birds are so annoying that Welsh authorities can charge you with manslaughter if you "gift" one to somebody who is subsequently driven to suicide by all the back-stabbing ridicule for which Tweety Birds are infamous, as shown in the first pet store scene of AIN'T SHE TWEET. Crime Queen-pin "Granny," following in Ma Barker's footsteps, makes a Straw Woman Tweety Bird purchase to ride herd as an evil overseer of her pack of vicious attack dogs. Though Sylvester risks life and limb to get the goods on the Granny & Tweety Gang, he's not entirely successful by the time this episode of their story ends. Hopefully, Justice will prevail in THE GODMOTHER: PART TWO.

Sylvester cat is adamant about catching and eating Tweety Bird, but there's a catch Tweety has been bought by Granny who has countless vicious bulldogs in her fenced yard. The usual hijinx ensue. This is good only because of Sylevester as I detest that everything about that damned speech impediment singing Tweety bird and the Granny. This animated short can be seen on Disc 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 and also features an optional commentary by Greg Ford that is infinitely better than the actual cartoon that it comments on. I'm really getting tired of having to review Tweety cartoons.

My Grade: C