Tugboat Granny
Tugboat Granny is a 1956 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon animated short directed by Friz Freleng.[2] The short was released on June 23, 1956, and stars Tweety and Sylvester the Cat.[3]
| Tugboat Granny | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Friz Freleng |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer |
| Story by | Warren Foster |
| Starring | Mel Blanc June Foray |
| Music by | Milt Franklyn |
| Animation by | Gerry Chiniquy Virgil Ross Arthur Davis[1] |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date | June 23, 1956 |
Running time | 7 minutes |
| Language | English |
The voices were performed by Mel Blanc and June Foray.
The cartoon's title is a play on Tugboat Annie, and is the only cartoon in the Warner Bros. series to bear Granny's name.
It joined Guided Muscle and The Grey Hounded Hare as the cartoons featured on the final episode of ABC's The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show on September 2, 2000.
Plot
In the opening scene, Granny and Tweety are happily piloting a rented tugboat in a harbor, singing a kiddie-song duet about the carefree joys of their activity. It is the only scene in which Granny appears, as the rest of the cartoon is devoted to Sylvester's latest attempts to catch and eat Tweety, which begins when, after failing to grab a fish by hiding in a fisherman's basket (he gets attacked by a crab the fisherman caught), he sees the boat carrying the canary chug past.
Sylvester's attempts, all unsuccessful, include the following:
- Using a rowboat to get to the tug. Tweety drops anchor in the boat's hull, sinking Sylvester (though he comes out onto the beach still rowing with the oars).
- Using an inflatable raft, which is deflated by a dart thrown be Tweety ("Hey, puddy tat! Wook what I found! Here, you can have it!").
- Two attempts at jumping off the bridge. The first jump is mistimed, as Sylvester lands in the smokestack, leaving him with his rear end on fire. A follow-up attempt from another bridge to parachute onto the boat's deck ("Oh, that bad ol' puddy tat! He never give up!") results in a jammed pack, which only opens after Sylvester sinks to the bottom of the canal ("Aww, the poor puddy tat. Got himself all soaking wet.").
- Using a section of pipe as a snorkel to swim to the boat. A seagull finds Sylvester's pipe the perfect resting place (blocking the airway); gasping for air, the cat rushes back to shore, where he finds the seagull laid an egg in his mouth. The frightened gull flees as Sylvester angrily throws the egg at it; he misses and the egg hits him in the face.
- Driving a motorboat, but Sylvester drives instead into the rapids and over a waterfall. All the time, the motor fails to start, and when it does, Sylvester pounds it to submission.
- A lasso ("That puddy tat think he a cowboy!"), which instead grabs the antenna of a speedboat. Sylvester decides to show off several waterskiing tricks ... until the inattentive puddy smashes into a pole. As he floats upside-down, a fish gurgles Tweety's signature line: "I tawt I taw a puddy tat." The cartoon ends just after Sylvester fails to grab the fish.
References
- Beck, Jerry (1991). I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat: Fifty Years of Sylvester and Tweety. New York: Henry Holt and Co. p. 134. ISBN 0-8050-1644-9.
- Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 287. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
- Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 151–152. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
External links
- Tugboat Granny at IMDb
- Nuance and Suggestion in the Tweety and Sylvester Series - Written by Kevin McCorry
| Preceded by Tree Cornered Tweety |
Sylvester and Tweety cartoons
years= 1956 |
Succeeded by Tweet Zoo |