Birds Anonymous
- Studio
- Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc.
- Distributor
- Warner Bros.
Synopsis
Sylvester tries to go on the wagon with the help of Birds Anonymous, but the temptation of Tweety is too much. Sylvester pleads: "I gotta have a bird! I'm weak, but I don't care! I can't help it! After all, I am a pussy cat."
Characters
Sylvester, Tweety, Orange Cat, Cats
Credits
Directing
- Director
- Isadore Freleng (as Friz Freleng)
Producing
- Producer
- Edward Selzer
Writing
- Writer
- Warren Foster
Voices
- Voice
- Mel Blanc (Sylvester, Tweety, Orange Cat, Cats, Voice on Radio, Italian voice on TV)
Music
- Music
- Milt Franklyn
Animation
- Animator
- Art Davis, Virgil Ross, Gerry Chiniquy
Art Department
- Backgrounds
- Boris Gorelick
Editing
- Editor
- Treg Brown
Crew
- Layouts
- Hawley Pratt
Production notes
The first appearance of Sylvester's orange feline pal Sam.
Sam feeds alum (a Warner Bros. tradition) to Sylvester to close up his mouth, preventing him from eating Tweety.
Final line (by Tweety): "Once a bad ol' puddy tat, always a bad old' puddy tat."
At one point after this production, producer Ed Selzer was extremely sick and was admitted to a hospital. Selzer told Mel Blanc that if he died, Blanc could have one of the Oscars the studio had received over the years. Blanc selected the Oscar for this short, since it was his favorite. Selzer later recovered, but Blanc was finally given the gold statue when Ed Selzer did pass on in the 1970s.
In September of 1943, beginning with A Feud There Was, Warner Bros. began re-releasing select color cartoons in their "Blue Ribbon" program. Typically the Blue Ribbon reissues received new opening sequences with Blue Ribbon title cards and standardized music. Cartoon production credits were also removed. Between ten and fifteen cartoons were released in any given year, with cartoons coming from as far back as 1935. The reissues continued until the close of the studio in the 1960's.
All Blue Ribbon cartoons were released as "Merrie Melodie" cartoons regardless of the original series. The first "Looney Tunes" short to be included in the Blue Ribbon series was The Hep Cat, which was added in 1949. The only current prints of many of these cartoons are the Blue Ribbon releases, although restoration of these cartoons with original elements and titles is always ongoing.
Sam feeds alum (a Warner Bros. tradition) to Sylvester to close up his mouth, preventing him from eating Tweety.
Final line (by Tweety): "Once a bad ol' puddy tat, always a bad old' puddy tat."
At one point after this production, producer Ed Selzer was extremely sick and was admitted to a hospital. Selzer told Mel Blanc that if he died, Blanc could have one of the Oscars the studio had received over the years. Blanc selected the Oscar for this short, since it was his favorite. Selzer later recovered, but Blanc was finally given the gold statue when Ed Selzer did pass on in the 1970s.
In September of 1943, beginning with A Feud There Was, Warner Bros. began re-releasing select color cartoons in their "Blue Ribbon" program. Typically the Blue Ribbon reissues received new opening sequences with Blue Ribbon title cards and standardized music. Cartoon production credits were also removed. Between ten and fifteen cartoons were released in any given year, with cartoons coming from as far back as 1935. The reissues continued until the close of the studio in the 1960's.
All Blue Ribbon cartoons were released as "Merrie Melodie" cartoons regardless of the original series. The first "Looney Tunes" short to be included in the Blue Ribbon series was The Hep Cat, which was added in 1949. The only current prints of many of these cartoons are the Blue Ribbon releases, although restoration of these cartoons with original elements and titles is always ongoing.
Awards
Academy Award Winner, Best Short Subject (Cartoon), 1958
Pictures
Reviews
Birds Anonymous
This is probably the defining cartoon in Sylvester's career. At the B.A. rally, you could almost feel his pride as he gave up birds. You could almost feel his torment and exhaustion as he couldn't sleep. He stole the show in this performance, and is definately worthy of the oscar.
Birds Anonymous
I would just like to say that Sylvester is the Spencer Tracy of cartoon characters. He can play both a bully and a victim amiably, sometimes in the same cartoon. The Oscar winning film "Birds Anonymous" is proof positive of that."
There's a good reason for this cartoon to win an Oscar. It seems that all the Sylvester & Tweety cartoons were building up to this moment.
The toon starts of with a Hitchcock-inspired opening of Sylvester trying to catch Tweety in a dark room. However, right at the moment of payoff, and softspoken cat opens a window and tells Sylvester of the dangers of bird addiction. The next day, both cats are at a Birds Anonymous meeting in a back alley and with their help, Sylvester has given up birds forever. However, when he gets home, he finds that easier said than done. His emotional state as he tries to resist eating Tweety is nothing short of phenomenally good. Even Sir Anthony Hopkins could learn a thing or two from this performance. Near the end when Sylvester breaks down from the stress of it all and cries "...after all I am a pussy cat!" that pretty much solidified the Oscar nod in his direction. This performance was so good that he followed it up in another great Sylvester classic The Last Hungry Cat which features a Hitchcock figure tormenting Sylvester this time.
Thus, Sylvester became one of the most richest, fully-realised, complicated, sympathetic characters of all time with this cartoon. Truly, the greatest performance of his career. Will he or any other character be able to follow it? Only time will tell. (Although, I'm sure time is saying "Aint gonna happen.")
Birds Anonymous
Every person connected with this cartoon gave it his all (certainly Mel Blanc, whose improvisations during Sylvester's big outburst were wisely left in by director Freleng), but one man's effort perhaps stands out above all: animator Virgil Ross, who executed all the really memorable dialogue scenes (virtually the WHOLE film).