| Tweetie Pie | |
| Director: | I. Freleng |
| Story: | Tedd Pierce Michael Maltese[1] |
| Animator: | Gerry Chiniquy Manuel Perez Ken Champin Virgil Ross |
| Layout Artist: | Hawley Pratt |
| Background Artist: | Terry Lind |
| Starring: | Mel Blanc Bea Benaderet[2] |
| Music: | Carl Stalling |
| Studio: | Warner Bros. Cartoons |
| Distributor: | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Color Process: | Technicolor |
| Language: | English |
Tweetie Pie is a 1947 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng.[3] The short was released on May 3, 1947, and stars Tweety with Sylvester, who is called "Thomas" in this cartoon.[4]
Tweetie Pie marks the first pairing of the characters Sylvester and Tweety, and it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1947, breaking Tom and Jerrys streak of four consecutive wins in the category and winning Warner Bros. their first Academy Award.[5]
Thomas the Cat persistently endeavors to capture Tweety, a canary he discovers outside seeking warmth from a smoldering cigar stub amidst wintry conditions. Thomas's unseen owner intervenes just in time to prevent Tweety from becoming his prey, reprimanding Thomas for his predatory instinct. Despite explicit instructions to leave Tweety undisturbed, Thomas repeatedly attempts to seize him from his cage, each endeavor culminating in calamitous failures that attract his owner's admonishment and physical chastisement.
Employing cunning stratagems, Tweety manipulates Thomas, feigning distress to provoke a response and later resorting to self-defense by pricking Thomas's palm with a pin, inducing him to relinquish his hold. Subsequent efforts by Thomas to reenter the domicile through the chimney and a basement window are thwarted by Tweety's resourcefulness, resulting in comedic misadventures and Thomas's successive humiliations.
Undeterred by setbacks, Thomas devises an elaborate contraption to ensnare Tweety, yet his scheme precipitates his own injury instead. In a final, ill-fated endeavor to capture Tweety, Thomas inadvertently triggers a catastrophic collapse of the attic ceiling, prompting a frenzied response in which he destroys his owner's broom in a futile attempt to evade retribution. Ultimately, Thomas finds himself on the receiving end of punishment, administered not by his owner, but by the diminutive Tweety, who disparagingly dubs him a "bad ol' putty tat."
In 1946, Bob Clampett, the original creator of Tweety, conceived the idea for a fourth cartoon featuring the bird, intending to pair Tweety with Friz Freleng's Sylvester the Cat. This proposed cartoon, tentatively titled Fat Rat and the Stupid Cat, aimed to mark the first collaboration between Sylvester and Tweety, transitioning Tweety from a wild baby bird to a domestic canary.[6] However, Clampett's departure from Warner Bros. in May led to the cancellation of the project during pre-production. His final Tweety cartoon, A Gruesome Twosome, was released.
Meanwhile, Freleng was developing a sequel to his earlier Sylvester cartoon, Peck Up Your Troubles, featuring Sylvester in pursuit of a clever woodpecker,[7] [8] with production of that short started in June 1945. Freleng, however, took a liking to Clampett's character and eventually decided to replace the woodpecker with Tweety, despite initial objections from producer Edward Selzer, who deemed the pairing impractical.[9] Freleng's insistence on using Tweety led to a confrontation, in which he threatened to quit his job. Selzer eventually relented, allowing the collaboration.[10] The resulting film, which starred Sylvester and Tweety, earned Warner Bros. its first Oscar, an accolade initially accepted by Selzer and later inherited by Freleng after Selzer's passing in 1970.[11]
This successful pairing cemented Tweety and Sylvester as a popular duo, ensuring their continued partnership in subsequent appearances due to their substantial star power. However, Sylvester also featured in numerous shorts without Tweety, notably in the Hippety Hopper series alongside Sylvester Jr., directed by Robert McKimson. Additionally, Sylvester appeared alongside Speedy Gonzales in cartoons supervised by both Freleng and McKimson, earning another Oscar in 1955 for their collaboration.
Although the cartoon was re-released into the Blue Ribbon program in 1955, the cartoon's original titles are known to exist.[12] When re-released, like most Merrie Melodies at the time, the original ending bullet titles were kept. On the following sets, the Blue Ribbon re-release print is available. The original titles were found in 2011 and it is unknown if Warner Bros. is aware of their existence, since the Platinum Collection set released in 2012 still had the Blue Ribbon titles.