Regarding the Sylvester and Hippety Hopper cartoons, a few are great (Cats A-weigh, Who's Kitten Who, Hoppy-Go-Lucky and and Pop 'im Pop) some are very enjoyable providing that you don't expect the best cartoons ever made, but after Bell Hoppy the cartoons didn't feel as inspired and the concept started to wear thin, though the cartoons remained watchable. Hoppy Daze for me it one of the weakest and least inspired of their cartoons.
Starting with the good things, the animation does contain some nice colours and Sylvester and the tough cat are well drawn. Milt Franklyn does a typically great job scoring the cartoon, it's lively and dynamic music and it's beautifully orchestrated and some of the use of instruments is clever. It also fits wonderfully and adds to the action, the music accompanying Sylvester and Hippety hopping up the crates in the final gag was particularly well done. Hoppy Daze is a very amusing cartoon, if not exactly hilarious due to Hippety's antics being much fresher and more varied in the previous cartoons but the witty dialogue and the interaction between Sylvester and the tough cat brings some good laughs, as do the dynamite and final gags. Sylvester is ruthless, very funny and easy to root for, while the tough cat is amusing support. Mel Blanc is terrific as always.
Hippety however has been better drawn before, he still looks okay but a little rougher than usual, and while cute his material is more of the same stuff with not the same amount of spark as before. Likewise his interaction with Sylvester is fun, but not with the amount of spark and freshness as before. The animation is never terrible here, especially compared to that for some of the cartoons later on like the later Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons and pretty much all the Daffy and Speedy cartoons, but as said already Hippety has been better drawn, the backgrounds have been more detailed and more vibrant and one does miss those wonderful big expressions or visual invention of the earlier cartoons in the Sylvester and Hippety Hopper series, Sylvester's expressions are pretty ordinary here. The story also seemed rather tired here, the Sylvester and Hippety cartoons do all revolve around the same concept but the first six or seven cartoons handled the concept much more inventively and with crisper pacing, whereas after Bell Hoppy the concept started to wear thin and like the series was running out of ideas, of which Hoppy Daze was one of the worst cases.
Overall, a very watchable pairing of Sylvester and Hippety but one of their weaker cartoons, from memory I remember Freudy Cat being their weakest. 6/10 Bethany Cox
Starting with the good things, the animation does contain some nice colours and Sylvester and the tough cat are well drawn. Milt Franklyn does a typically great job scoring the cartoon, it's lively and dynamic music and it's beautifully orchestrated and some of the use of instruments is clever. It also fits wonderfully and adds to the action, the music accompanying Sylvester and Hippety hopping up the crates in the final gag was particularly well done. Hoppy Daze is a very amusing cartoon, if not exactly hilarious due to Hippety's antics being much fresher and more varied in the previous cartoons but the witty dialogue and the interaction between Sylvester and the tough cat brings some good laughs, as do the dynamite and final gags. Sylvester is ruthless, very funny and easy to root for, while the tough cat is amusing support. Mel Blanc is terrific as always.
Hippety however has been better drawn before, he still looks okay but a little rougher than usual, and while cute his material is more of the same stuff with not the same amount of spark as before. Likewise his interaction with Sylvester is fun, but not with the amount of spark and freshness as before. The animation is never terrible here, especially compared to that for some of the cartoons later on like the later Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons and pretty much all the Daffy and Speedy cartoons, but as said already Hippety has been better drawn, the backgrounds have been more detailed and more vibrant and one does miss those wonderful big expressions or visual invention of the earlier cartoons in the Sylvester and Hippety Hopper series, Sylvester's expressions are pretty ordinary here. The story also seemed rather tired here, the Sylvester and Hippety cartoons do all revolve around the same concept but the first six or seven cartoons handled the concept much more inventively and with crisper pacing, whereas after Bell Hoppy the concept started to wear thin and like the series was running out of ideas, of which Hoppy Daze was one of the worst cases.
Overall, a very watchable pairing of Sylvester and Hippety but one of their weaker cartoons, from memory I remember Freudy Cat being their weakest. 6/10 Bethany Cox
