I Taw a Putty Tat

I Taw a Puddy Tat is a 1948 Merrie Melodies short directed by I. Freleng.
==Title==
The bird's inability to enunciate certain letters distorts his catch-phrase, part of which forms the title, as in "I Saw a Pussy Cat". This is the first film whose title included Tweety's speech-impaired term for a cat. The "standard" spelling was eventually changed from "putty tat" to "puddy tat".
==Plot==
Sylvester's owner orders a new canary, after the previous house bird has mysteriously disappeared. While she is occupied, Sylvester hiccups some yellow feathers and quickly swallows them again, opens a curtain by his bed, stamps a fifth bird silhouette on the wall, and draws the curtain closed again. Upon the arrival of the bird, Sylvester shoves him in his mouth. Tweety calls down his throat, looking for the cat. An answer comes back, "There's nobody here but us mice!"
Tweety lights a match to see in the dark, but when smoke begins to roll out of Sylvester's mouth, he spits out the bird. Tweety hits him on the foot with a mallet, and when he screams, Tweety flies back in to retrieve his hat. Tweety starts a game of "Tag" as an excuse to slap the cat, then hides in the kitchen cupboard. He places his sailor hat on a yellow can of alum, and Sylvester mistakes it for the bird and eats it, making his lips pucker so much that he cannot shove Tweety in his mouth. He sucks the bird up with a straw, but Tweety uses his uvula as a punching bag. The cat spits him out again, and Tweety returns to retrieve his hat again. 
Sylvester disguises himself as a Scandinavian maid who feigns complaining about having to "clean out de bird cage." He reaches into the covered cage and grabs what he thinks is the bird. The canary whistles at him. The confused cat opens his fist to find a large firecracker, which promptly explodes, covering the cat in "blackface" makeup. Sounding like "Rochester", he says, "Uh-oh, back to the kitchen, ah smell somethin' burnin'!" just before passing out.
Tweety challenges Sylvester to a game of "Hide-and-Seek", but brings in Hector to help him find the cat. Sylvester hides from the dog inside the birdcage, but Tweety think the cat is lonely and stuffs the dog in with him and covers the cage.
The lady of the house calls the pet shop again, this time ordering a new cat, while Tweety lounges in Sylvester's old bed. Overhearing the woman telling the pet shop that the cat will have a nice home here, Tweety reveals the silhouette of a cat now stenciled on the wall and says, "Her don't know me vewy well, do her?"
==Caricatures==
*Eddie "Rochester" Anderson
*Red Skelton's Mean Widdle Kid
==Music Cues==
* MK Jerome and Jack Scholl - "The Wish That I Wish Tonight" - plays during the opening titles, the opening scene, and the ending.https://www.patreon.com/posts/whats-score-81644429
* Michael Cleary - "Singin' in the Bathtub" - plays while Tweety is bathing.
* Harry Rub - "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter" - plays when Tweety is swinging back and forth in the bird cage.
* Richard A. Whiting, Raymond B. Egan, and Gus Kahn - "Ain't We Got Fun" - plays when Sylvester disguises himself as a maid.
* "Shortnin' Bread" - plays when Sylvester is in blackface.
==Availability==
PuttyTatAAP.png|8mm (Associated Artists Productions print)
Viddy-Oh! For Kids VHS 8.jpg|(1986) VHS Little Tweety and Little Inki Cartoon Festival Featuring "I Taw a Putty Tat"
Lt bbss ld.jpg|(1988) LaserDisc Bugs Bunny: Superstar
Lt bbs.jpg|(1988) VHS Bugs Bunny: Superstar
Cartoon Moviestars 12.jpg|(1989) VHS Tweety and Sylvester
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes Vol. 4.jpg|(1993) LaserDisc The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 4, Side 4
LTGC Vol.4.jpg|(2006) DVD Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, Disc 1 (through Bugs Bunny: Superstar; dubbed version, but uses opening and closing titles and blackface gag from the 90s scan of Bugs Bunny Superstar)
Lt roths dvd.jpg|(2007) DVD Romance on the High Seas (USA 1995 Turner print; censored)
BB SS DVD Warner Archive.jpg|(2012) DVD Bugs Bunny: Superstar (16mm print with original titles)
==Censorship== 
*The scene where Sylvester poses as a Swedish maid so he can get Tweety, only to grab a stick of dynamite and end up in blackface and sounding like Rochester from The Jack Benny Show, was cut when aired on almost all television networks worldwide, including on TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and the former WB network.
*This scene was not cut when it premiered on MeTV's Saturday Morning Cartoons block, even though the channel has edited out racially-insensitive content in other shorts. However, when the short aired on MeTV's weekday afternoon block Toon In with Me, the blackface scene after the explosion was edited.
*When Bugs Bunny: Superstar (which contains this cartoon in its entirety) aired on The Disney Channel in 1989, the sequence was surprisingly left unedited, despite the channel's history of heavily editing for content when it aired both the Looney Tunes compilation films Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie and Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales in the 1980s and 1990s. It is unknown whether this was a mistake or intentional.https://archive.org/details/1989-disney-channel-bugs-bunny-superstar-pluto-and-his-friends-1
==Notes==
*This cartoon is a color remake of "Puss n' Booty" using a cat and canary team called Rudolph and Petey. The plot, and one gag were re-used.
*Freleng himself said he could not imagine Tweety working with any partners besides Sylvester; in contrast, Sylvester still had his fair share of cartoons without Tweety.
* The items in the kitchen reference members of the production team:
** Grandma Champin's Oatmeal Cookies: animator Ken Champin.
** Ross Raisins: animator Virgil Ross.
** Hadley, Pert and Co. Soda: layout artist Hawley Pratt. This variation of his name can also be seen in "Bugs Bunny Rides Again".
** A canister labeled "Friz": director Friz Freleng.
*In two scenes, Tweety is inside Sylvester's mouth. In one scene, he punches the uvula like a punching bag by using his own muscles. This was used again in another short.
*This was Freleng's second film teaming the characters and was released less than a year after "Tweetie Pie". Tweety is closer to the aggressive little bird directed by Bob Clampett than the more subdued and naïve character he would become as the series progressed. This is also the first cartoon in the Sylvester and Tweety series where Sylvester has a speaking role.
*This and "Tweetie Pie" were the only two Tweety and Sylvester pairings whose copyrights were sold to Associated Artists Productions, as they were the only such cartoons released before August 1948.
*The Cartoon Festivals print is a damaged a.a.p. print where the a.a.p. logo plays first, then the 1947-49 Blue Ribbon Color Rings from "Inki and the Lion" open. The print also uses light blue borders, with the 1939-40 version of "Merrily We Roll Along" playing instead of the 1941-45 version before the print changes to "I Taw a Putty Tat". This is an MGM/UA print that was probably hacked off by United Artists in the 1980s. 
**This MGM/UA print airs in Cartoon Network and Boomerang Latin America and Tooncast, alternately with the 1995 Turner dubbed version print of the cartoon. Like the 1995 dubbed version print of the cartoon airing on all three channels, this print airs censored on all three channels to remove a blackface gag. MeTV uses this print, albeit with the aforementioned gag uncut.
**The Cartoon Moviestars VHS release uses an a.a.p. print (minus the a.a.p. opening) which preserves the original opening and closing titles, and has red borders in the credit sequences.
**MeTV aired this short 3 April 2021 on Saturday Morning Cartoons; however, this airing appears unrestored, using the Cartoon Festivals a.a.p. print.https://youtu.be/MZCyJVPumtw
* This is the only Tweety and Sylvester pairing that was released in Cinecolor.
**The Blue Ribbon titles open with a "PRINT BY TECHNICOLOR", for this reason
* Two separate prints with the original titles are known to exist.
**The first one surfaced on the Bugs Bunny Superstar DVD released by Warner Archive. However, the titles are using the Blue Ribbon audio and only the main title is shown until it fades to black and the cartoon starts, the credits are not shown.
**The second print, courtesy of Thad Komorowski, surfaced shortly after the release of the Bugs Bunny Superstar DVD, however it was taken down in 2012, as of 2024 only screenshots of the upload survive.
**Thad K's print was given a new transfer by Thunderbean and released on a special Blu-ray set. Courtesy of Matt Skwarek and Ender, it was finally uploaded to YouTube on 9 Jan, 2024.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTGm7CzQOjo
*The original opening titles for this cartoon are similar to the original opening titles for Tweetie Pie, they both feature Tweety in the spotlight.
**However, in this instance Tweety is smiling at a silhouette of Sylvester.
==Gallery==
I taw a putty tat-card.png|Lobby card
File:80ABA222-3D90-429C-8E1A-6F6A409C5CBF.jpg|Original WB shield
File:83A5C802-3C77-4ED6-BBF9-F0A7ADF55821.jpg|Original Merrie Melodies title
File:17A121F6-1BFE-43DF-82D0-97279314F389.jpg|Main title, curiously the text on this print is yellow unlike the Bugs Bunny Superstar version
File:B9C6966D-A1B8-4C18-9F7C-B3D49F4C673A.jpg|Original credits
File:CDD32B2E-EADB-4468-B361-059B066BC947.jpg|Original director credit
File:Color guice for I Taw a Putty Tat.jpg|Color guide for title card
File:I Taw a Putty Tat.mpg 20230816 130742.893.png|Reissue titles seen on "Golden Age of Looney Tunes Volume 4"
File:(1948-4-3) I Taw a Putty Tat (SD).mkv 20230816 130748.523.png|Reissue titles seen on "Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4" and "Romance on the High Seas" DVD bonuses
File:I Taw a Putty Tat.mpg 20230816 130630.288.png|Version used on "Golden Age of Looney Tunes Volume 4"
File:(1948-4-3) I Taw a Putty Tat (SD).mkv 20230816 130650.616.png|Version used on "Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4" and "Romance on the High Seas" DVD bonuses
File:(1975) Bugs Bunny Superstar (WAC).mkv 20230816 130706.711.png|Original Cinecolor print seen on "Bugs Bunny Superstar" DVD
ITawAPuttyTat1.JPG|Tweety developing his little muscles at the expense of Sylvester's uvula
"I Taw A Putty Tat" (1948) Uncensored Scene on MeTV -A.A.P Print-
I Taw A Putty Tat original title sequences
==References==
Category:Cartoons originally produced in Cinecolor
Category:Cartoons directed by Friz Freleng
Category:Sylvester Cartoons
Category:Tweety Cartoons
Category:Shorts
Category:1948
Category:Blue Ribbon reissues
Category:Merrie Melodies Shorts
Category:Looney Tunes Shorts
Category:Bugs Bunny: Superstar Cartoons
Category:Cartoons written by Tedd Pierce
Category:Cartoons with layouts by Hawley Pratt
Category:Cartoons with backgrounds by Paul Julian
Category:Cartoons with music by Carl W. Stalling
Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons with orchestrations by Milt Franklyn
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Bea Benaderet
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc
Category:Cartoons produced by Eddie Selzer
Category:Cartoons in a.a.p. package
Category:Re-released cartoons whose original titles are known to exist