A Bird in a Guilty Cage (1952)

Sylvester Cat spots Tweety Bird in a display window of an after-hours department store and sneaks inside through a mail server chute. Tweety flees Sylvester by hiding in a hat pile and a ... See full summary »

Director:

Friz Freleng

Writer:

Warren Foster (story)

Stars:

Mel Blanc

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Mel Blanc	...	Sylvester / Tweety (voice)

Storyline

Sylvester Cat spots Tweety Bird in a display window of an after-hours department store and sneaks inside through a mail server chute. Tweety flees Sylvester by hiding in a hat pile and a doll house, evades the shots from a rifle Sylvester uses, and escapes in a vacuum tube. Tweety sends a dynamite stick through another tube, and Sylvester swallows it, thinking it is Tweety. The dynamite blows up inside Sylvester after the cat leaves the store and walks down the street.

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Plot Keywords:

cat | department store | sylvester and tweety | dollhouse | pneumatic tube | 

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Genres:

Animation | Family | Short | Comedy

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 August 1952 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros

Technical Specs

Runtime:

7 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The title is a parody of the 1900 song "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" composed by Arthur J. Lamb (lyrics) and Harry Von Tilzer (music) which became one of the most popular songs of the early 20th century, and frequently sung by Tweety Bird in other shorts.

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Connections

Referenced in A Star Is Bored (1956)

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Soundtracks

"Oh, You Beautiful Doll"
(uncredited)
Music by Nat Ayer

User Reviews

Same gags, new setting

Chuck Jones's Bugs Bunny short 'Hare Conditioned' showed what a rich source of gags a chase through a big department store could be. Friz Freleng's 'A Bird in a Guilty Cage' manages to squander all these opportunities, however, by succumbing to one of the major problems of the Sylvester and Tweety series: it simply replays a lot of old gags in a different setting. The script for 'A Bird in a Guilty Cage' is particularly weak, failing to punctuate any of the gags with a funny line or routine. Many of the gags are poorly executed, such as the muted response Sylvester has to the potentially funny scene in which he shoots off one of his fingers. By the time of 'A Bird in a Guilty Cage', the Tweety and Sylvester series was into double figures and running out of what little steam it had yet it would continue for dozens more episodes, many as weak as this tedious offering. Like Speedy Gonzalez in later cartoons, Tweety is a feeble character who manages to drain all the potential from the usually superb Sylvester.