Gift Wrapped is a 1952 Looney Tunes short directed by I. Freleng.
Plot[]
Sylvester awakes on Christmas morning to find a present for him. To his disappointment, it is merely a rubber mouse. He hears a canary, namely Tweety, singing "Jingle Bells" in his cage, which has been gift wrapped and addressed to Granny. As Tweety abruptly stops singing, he sees Sylvester peeking into his cage and says his "I tawt I taw a putty tat!" line. Just before she enters the room, he switches the cage's tag so that it's addressed "To Kitty" instead. Granny innocently gives the cage to Sylvester and opens the box with the rubber mouse.
Believing there has been an innocent mix-up, she goes to give Sylvester the mouse and correct the mistake. Upon seeing a satisfied Sylvester hiccup Tweety's feathers, Granny immediately catches on to Sylvester's evil scheme and angrily forces him to regurgitate Tweety. After giving the wayward cat a scolding, Granny insists that Sylvester kiss Tweety under a sprig of mistletoe. Sylvester eats Tweety Bird again instead, and he is once again scolded and forced to spit him out.
Granny places Tweety's cage up high, where Sylvester shouldn't be able to reach him. Undaunted, the ever-resourceful feline retrieves a ladder, climbs up to Tweety's cage, and opens it with the intent to eat him. Tweety Bird manages to convince Sylvester that a huge present waiting under the Christmas tree is for Sylvester. Sylvester abandons Tweety in his greed and opens the present with relish. It turns out to be Hector the Bulldog, who promptly eats Sylvester. Granny arrives and forces the dog to spit out Sylvester, and then throws the dog out of her house.
Sylvester tries to get Tweety by using a toy steam crane. Instead, he accidentally catches an angry Granny, who bashes Sylvester with a broom.
The feline retreats to the second floor of the house and attempts to saw a hole in the floor to be able to descend upon Tweety from above. Tweety replaces himself in the cage with a stick of lit dynamite, which goes off just as Sylvester pulls the cage up to his level. Sylvester then puts the wrecked cage back and stumbles down the stairs, blackened and torn up from the explosion.
His next attempt is a Western-style showdown with Tweety, with himself playing Geronimo and Tweety playing Hopalong Cassidy. Sylvester wins, but before he can consume his prize, Granny shoots a plunger over his mouth and declares, "You didn't count on Pocahontas, did you, Geronimo?"
While Tweety rides on his new train set, Sylvester tries one last time to catch him. He takes some spare train tracks, sets them up to point towards his open mouth, and then puts the train in reverse. The train goes over the new tracks and towards Sylvester, who then devours Tweety, only to be devoured himself by Hector the Bulldog, who has somehow come back into the house. Granny whacks the dog until he coughs up Sylvester, and then whacks Sylvester until he coughs up Tweety. Outraged, Granny announces she's had enough and that she'll show Sylvester and Hector that there will be peace in the house once and for all.
Granny and Tweety sing a variation of the Christmas carol "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". On Tweety's right and left are Sylvester and Hector, with stamps sealing their mouths and muffling their "singing."
Availability[]
Streaming[]
Censorship[]
- The ABC airing of this cartoon edited three scenes: Granny bashing Sylvester with her broom was shortened, the shot of Sylvester staggering down the stairs after getting blown up by the dynamite stick that Tweety substituted for himself in the cage was cut, and the part during the "Hopalong Cassidy" sequence where Sylvester gets shot by Tweety's toy gun and falls down the Christmas tree (with an abrupt cut from traveling up the tree to Tweety being chased by Sylvester).
- Both The WB and, for a time, Cartoon Network and Boomerang USA left the "dynamite in the cage" sequence intact but edited out the entire Hopalong Cassidy sequence from fade in to fade out (because of both the American Indian stereotyping and gunfire), fading out into the train sequence instead. It should be noted that, despite being cut from the cartoon proper, the clip show cartoon "Tweet Dreams" was shown on Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and The WB with the offending sequence uncensored.
Notes[]
- This short is the first Friz Freleng cartoon to have Irv Wyner as a background artist. Wyner's background art style differs slightly from Paul Julian's, appearing slightly less detailed than Julian's but with a richer use of colors.
- This short, along with the Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon "Ballot Box Bunny" and the Pepé Le Pew cartoon "Little Beau Pepé", were submitted for an Academy Award in 1952 but were not nominated.[5]
- The animation of Sylvester running while getting hit with the broom by Granny was recycled from "Tweetie Pie".
- Sylvester getting a rubber mouse for Christmas would later be referenced in The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries episode "Feather Christmas".
- This is the final cartoon that was reissued twice in the Blue Ribbon program. However, since the second reissue was done after the closure of the Termite Terrace, the second reissue used the titles from the first reissue.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ https://archive.org/details/boxofficebarometer1962-03-26-61-62/page/n155/mode/2up
- ↑ https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/27605102/boxoffice-june201966
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dOeQ_SNYG0
- ↑ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lP9k6agdQ7WPi8q3rrCIhWOuZDjndv7X/view
- ↑ https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/cartoons-considered-for-an-academy-award-1951/
External Links[]
- "Gift Wrapped" on the SFX Resource
← Who's Kitten Who? | Sylvester Cartoons | Little Red Rodent Hood → |
← Tweet Tweet Tweety | Tweety Cartoons | Ain't She Tweet → |
Tweety Cartoons | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
1942 | A Tale of Two Kitties | |||
1944 | Birdy and the Beast | |||
1945 | A Gruesome Twosome | |||
1947 | Tweetie Pie | |||
1948 | I Taw a Putty Tat | |||
1949 | Bad Ol' Putty Tat | |||
1950 | Home, Tweet Home • All a Bir-r-r-d • Canary Row | |||
1951 | Putty Tat Trouble • Room and Bird • Tweety's S.O.S. • Tweet Tweet Tweety | |||
1952 | Gift Wrapped • Ain't She Tweet • A Bird in a Guilty Cage | |||
1953 | Snow Business • Fowl Weather • Tom Tom Tomcat • A Street Cat Named Sylvester • Catty Cornered | |||
1954 | Dog Pounded • Muzzle Tough • Satan's Waitin' | |||
1955 | Sandy Claws • Tweety's Circus • Red Riding Hoodwinked • Heir-Conditioned | |||
1956 | Tweet and Sour • Tree Cornered Tweety • Tugboat Granny | |||
1957 | Tweet Zoo • Tweety and the Beanstalk • Birds Anonymous • Greedy for Tweety | |||
1958 | A Pizza Tweety-Pie • A Bird in a Bonnet | |||
1959 | Trick or Tweet • Tweet and Lovely • Tweet Dreams | |||
1960 | Hyde and Go Tweet • Trip for Tat | |||
1961 | The Rebel Without Claws • The Last Hungry Cat | |||
1962 | The Jet Cage | |||
1964 | Hawaiian Aye Aye | |||
2011 | I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat |