A Street Cat Named Sylvester

A Street Cat Named Sylvester is a 1953 Looney Tunes short directed by I. Freleng.

Title[]

The title is a play on A Streetcar Named Desire, a play later made into a film. It is a misnomer, because Tweety is the homeless one here, and Sylvester is Granny's pet.

Plot[]

Tweety is stuck outside of Granny's house in the middle of a snowstorm. Hoping to find some warmth, Tweety heads to the door of the house, only to be greeted by Sylvester, who immediately claws the bird in and prepares to get a bite. However, when Granny calls Sylvester, he is forced to hide the bird in a vase, and pretend he is asleep. Granny tells Sylvester it's dinnertime and proceeds to provide cat food for the cat, which Sylvester rejects. Granny states that he will not get anything else to eat until he finishes the canned food, but Hector, bedridden with a leg cast, angrily growls at Sylvester. Granny scold Hector that if he hadn't been chasing Sylvester, he wouldn't have been injured.

Sylvester tries to head to the vase to eat Tweety, but Granny is quick to call Sylvester, forcing him to flee. Granny then attempts to check the vase herself, and Sylvester nervously forces Granny to redirect to Hector when Sylvester makes Hector's injured foot bounce on the floor. Hearing that Hector is hurt, she gives some medicine to the bulldog, making him nauseous. Meanwhile, Sylvester tries to get what's out of the vase, although Tweety has replaced himself with a stick of dynamite and is outside of the vase. Tweety runs from Sylvester, heading to the same room Hector is in. When the two chases around Hector, the bulldog manages to bite Sylvester's tail, making him scream. However, Granny now comes back, thinking Hector is still hurt, and Sylvester stuffs Tweety inside Hector's mouth just before Granny could give the dog more medicine, causing the canary to end up getting the taste.

Tweety storms off again, but while Sylvester tries to catch Tweety, he is pelted by plungers thrown by Hector, with one attached to a string to reel in Sylvester. The dog manages to pummel Sylvester again to make him scream once more, but Granny still confuses this for Hector's scream, giving the bulldog his second dose of medicine. Tweety hides inside a box of yarn balls, where Sylvester jumps inside, although Tweety escapes from the other side. When Granny tries to knit a sweater, Sylvester's fur winds up being knitted, so Sylvester tries to knit his fur back alongside the shirt Granny was trying to knit. Tweety ends up back with Hector, and stays with him so Sylvester can't get Tweety anymore. Willing to get rid of the bulldog once and for all, Sylvester tries to drop a refrigerator on the dog with a pulley, but he ends up getting smashed by it instead.

Sylvester is now brutally injured and is bedridden with Hector. Hector snickers at Sylvester's comeuppance, but the cat tells him to shut up. In response, Hector slams the cat's injured leg with a club, causing Sylvester to scream. Meanwhile, Tweety has spiked the medicine normally used for Hector with various other medications, and Granny feeds the disgusting mix to Sylvester. "That puddy tat's gonna be in an awful pwedicament when that medicine starts to work!"

Television[]

• The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour (1960s)
• The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show (1980s)
• Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon (1990s)
• That's Warner Bros.! and Bugs 'n' Daffy (Season 1, Episode 19)
• The Daffy Duck Show (Season 1, Episode 4)

Availability[]

(1993) VHS
Sylvester and Tweety's Tale Feathers

(1998) VHS
Looney Tunes Presents: Tweety: Home Tweet Home (European version)

(2000) VHS
Mil-Looney-Um 2000 - Bumper Collection

(2001) DVD
I Love Tweety: Volume 1 (restored with DVNR)

Streaming[]

HBO Max Latin America / Brazil (2021 - 2024) (newly restored without DVNR)

Max Latin America / Brazil (2024 - )

Censorship[]

• On ABC, the end where Sylvester is laid up with injuries had the scene of Hector bashing Sylvester's broken foot replaced with Tweety mixing additional medicines in Sylvester's bottle (and, despite claims to the contrary, the scene of Tweety lacing Sylvester's medicine with additional medicines wasn't edited).^[1][2]
• Unlike the version shown on ABC, the Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon version left in Hector bashing Sylvester's broken foot and Tweety mixing in the medicines in Sylvester's bottle was never edited on any channel, despite rumors to the contrary. However, the Nickelodeon version cut off Tweety's final line, "That puddy tat's gonna be in an awful pwedicament when that medicine starts to work" and ended the cartoon with Tweety laughing as Sylvester gags and spits out the medicine (possibly to avoid implications that Tweety may have poisoned Sylvester), though a March 1995 installment of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon showed this cartoon uncut. Whether this was a mistake or a sign that their censors were allowing objectionable content is unknown.^[2]

Notes[]

• The premise of this cartoon is very reminiscent to that of "Hiss and Make Up" which Friz Freleng directed ten years earlier, as both cartoons center on Granny dealing with a feuding cat and dog as her house pets, with a yellow canary caught in the middle, as well as both cartoons being set in a suburban home in a snowy winter as well.
  • The opening sense of this cartoon is similar to that from "Tweetie Pie", as it involves Tweety outside of house in snowy weather warming his hands in front of a cigar.
• Hector has yellow fur in this cartoon, in contrast to his other appearances where he has light grey fur, perhaps to distinguish him from Spike, another Friz Freleng bulldog who has a similar physical appearance to Hector. This would happen again in "Greedy for Tweety".
• Hector is referred to by his actual name in this cartoon, much like in his previous appearance in "Fowl Weather", though his name wouldn't officially be canonized until The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries. Coincidentally, both shorts were released in 1953.
• Granny remains completely unaware of Tweety's presence throughout this entire cartoon, unlike most Tweety and Sylvester cartoons. This would happen again in "A Bird in a Bonnet".
• Sylvester's scream of pain when Hector bashes his leg with a club for the first time would later be reused as a stock sound effect in some modern media, such as in Disney's 1996 live-action remake of 101 Dalmatians,^{[3][dead link]} the trailer to Disney's 1997 live-action adaptation of George of the Jungle,^[4] and the Super Mario 64 Beta 1995 video game.^{[5][dead link][6]} It was also used in the Pink Panther short "Pinto Pink" (which coincidentally director Friz Freleng also served as producer of the Pink Panther cartoon show alongside David H. DePatie)^[7] and in the Rat-A-Tat episode "Rest-O-War".^[8]
• Sylvester's scream of pain when Hector bites his tail was previously used in "Snow Business" and "Zipping Along" (both were also released in 1953).
• MeTV aired a previously unreleased restored print of this cartoon on Saturday Morning Cartoons. This was later released on 29 June 2021 on HBO Max in Latin America and Brazil.

Goofs[]

• When Granny returns to her knitting, there is a split second where her entire torso area disappears.
• Three scenes in this cartoon appear slightly out-of-focus compared to the rest of the cartoon, firstly is the scene where Sylvester knitting his fur back alongside the shirt Granny was trying to knit, and the two final scenes depicting both Hector and Sylvester bedridden with broken legs. Due to these scenes being captured on the camera negative and not a result of a faulty print, this error is present in all theatrical and television prints in circulation, including the unrestored prints, the 1998 "THIS VERSION" print, and both restored prints.

Gallery[]

Friz Feeling with Virgil Ross (left) going over the storyboard during the production c. 1952

A scene from the cartoon which is slightly out-of-focus compared to the rest of the cartoon.

TV Title Cards[]

The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show (Final Season)

Sylvester and Tweety

The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show

References[]

External links[]

• "A Street Cat Named Sylvester" at the SFX Resource