The Sylvester & Tweety Show

Babbit and Catstello, take-offs on Bud Abbott and 'Lou Costello' try to catch the little Tweety bird, using everything from stilts to dynamite. Trouble is, the tiny bird has a vicious streak in him.

Tweety is set upon by a fat, jowly cat, who winds up with, among other things, a dozen eggs and a gallon of gasoline in his mouth instead of the little bird.

Sylvester, in his first cartoon, is repeatedly tricked by a suicidal lovebird. The bird wants the cat to eat him, (because a lovebird cannot live without love, and his wife is cruel to him. sad, huh?) Sylvester thinks the bird is trying to poison him. Sylvester's first words are: "Thufferin' Thuccotash!" A nice start for a great character, and a similar premise to Chuck Jones' later Hubie and Bertie cartoon, "Cheese Chasers".

Two cats (one a caricature of Jimmy Durante) battle violently for the affections of a pretty girl cat, who'll dispense her favors on the one who brings her a little bird. Unfortunately for the lovestruck felines, the bird in question is a vicious little thing named Tweety.

Freleng uses Sylvester again, in a non-speaking role. Sylvester, an alleycat like in his previous appearance, has three things to worry about: a bulldog, a huge tree, and his supper, a redheaded woodpecker. In order to get the woodpecker, he has to climb the tree. He finds that the little bird won't let him do that, so he tries chopping it down, but the bulldog threatens to pulverize him if he does. Funny stuff happens from there, including a classic gag: Sylvester finally decides to cheat and climb the air to get the the woodpecker's limb on the tree. He holds up a sign: "Anything is possible in a cartoon!"

At midnight, everyone puts out the cat for the night (at least in 1946, in cartoons, they did.) Porky Pig has four cats, Sylvester, 2 dopey big cats, and a little kitten. Sylvester is tired of being "sthkidded out and sthcooted out," particularly in the snow, and the others agree. "Are we men, or are we mice?!" asks Sylvester. "I like cheese!" says the kitten, recieving a slap in the face that sends him slipping accross the ice. What follows are unpredictable and extremely funny Bob Clampett-style gags, with highlights including the cats' dressup routines, (Sword-weilding Teddy Roosevelts-San Juan Hill style, and the clever 'War of the Worlds" alien invasion spoof.) PORKY ends up in the snow!

The first pairing of Tweety and Sylvester, and it got them an oscar. Once Bob Clampett had left the studio, Freleng redesigned Tweety and paired him with his own Sylvester. Apparently, the producer, Edward Selzer, hated the idea and wanted Friz to use the woodpecker from "Peck up Your Troubles". He changed his mind once the cartoon won the Academy Award. Here, Sylvester is given his first on-screen name, 'Thomas". Tweety, cold and frozen in the snow, is caught by the hungry Sylvester/Thomas, and he's about to be a frozen snack when Sylvester's female owner stops the cat and decides to keep Tweety as a pet. The rest of the cartoon has Sylvester trying (and failing) to catch and eat Tweety. Several of the gags would become pperennials in the series, inludiong the stacking-furniture-to-get-to-the-high cage routine. Great cartoon.

At the insistence of the Devil (who looks like a bulldog), Sylvester uses up his nine lives chasing Tweety.

Sylvester tells his son that real cats eat birds. Unfortunately, Junior's best friend is a bird.

Chained and on their way to the pound, Sylvester and a bulldog escape and must work together to find a way to separate from each other.

After seeing a TV commercial about fishing (featuring Mr. Treg Brown), Sylvester takes Junior to an aquarium on a fishing trip.

Tweety is given a $12.95 flying cage to replace the current stationary birdcage which leads him to bemoan his isolation from the outside world. Sylvester, meanwhile, looks forward to locking horns with the canary outdoors. But the cage comes with a trapdoor through which he is dropped like a bullet once on the inside. In addition, Tweety is able to trick him into throwing away his ping-pong-paddle-shaped wings ("How you gonna det me? You got yo' hands full!").

Sylvester sends a host of mice into the house when the landlady refuses to rent to him, but she takes Junior into her home.

Imagine me on Honolulu in a muumuu, says Granny, enjoying her vacation on a reclusive Hawaiian island. She goes to a luau, leaving Tweety alone with "Sharkey" the pet shark (who lives in a doghouse in the ocean). When Sylvester tries to get Tweety, the bird sends Sharkey to "sic 'em." The guard shark bites into Sylvester's rubber raft, inflating Sharkey and sinking the cat. Sylvester tries a wire-and-pulley lift to get himself over the island while dreaming of his delicious "broiled squab" meal. He fails to notice that he's heading in to Sharkey's house!