A Dog Eat Cat World

The cartoon Sylvester and Tweety cartoon “Gift Wrapped” aired constantly when I was a kid, and I could never figure out why a dog would eat a cat. But after a while, you don’t worry about it.

These are nine consecutive drawings. From this post, you don’t get a sense of Friz Freleng’s great timing as Sylvester slowly lifts up the lid on the huge box and then, out of nowhere, is gulped by the bulldog, but the artwork is interesting nonetheless.



Friz had a great unit of Manny Perez, Ken Champin, Virgil Ross and Art Davis at this time; I think Warren Batchelder and Sam Nicholson were among his assistant animators then.

This 1952 Christmas classic features opening narration by an almost unrecognisable Daws Butler, with Bea Benaderet as Granny and Mel Blanc as the animal combatants.

And in case you’re wondering...



The little snippet of music that plays when Sylvester is an Indian stalking Tweety (and when the shot cuts to Granny at the end of the sequence) is “The Sun Dance,” a 1903 tune by Leo Friedman, who co-wrote “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”