Muzzle Tough

Muzzle Tough is a 1954 Merrie Melodies short directed by I. Freleng.
== Title ==
The title is a pun on the Yiddish expression "mazel tov", which roughly translates to "good luck", though the title is used sarcastically in Sylvester's case.
== Plot ==
Granny and two moving men in their truck (which reads "Checker Movers, It's Your Move") are searching for her new house, which they soon find. The movers walk Granny's things past Sylvester as he is napping on top of the wall surrounding the house. Sylvester suddenly wakes up when the movers parade Tweety in his cage past him, and Tweety says, "I tawt I taw a puddytat!" Immediately, Sylvester starts to pursue Tweety atop the wall, but then crashes into a lamp post and falls off the wall. Sylvester climbs back up as Tweety is carried into the house, while another mover sets Hector's doghouse down on the ground. Sylvester steps down upon the roof of the doghouse as he comes down from the wall, and when Hector sees him, he likewise says, "I tawt I taw a puddytat!" Hector then bites Sylvester's tail and chases him back out to the street.
Plotting to get past Hector and finagle his way into the house, Sylvester disguises himself as a lamp, putting a shade on his head. After a mover carries him in and sets him on the table next to Tweety's cage, Tweety plugs Sylvester's tail into the outlet, giving Sylvester a massive electric jolt. Hector bites Sylvester and also gets zapped, then chases him out of the house and back to the street again.
Sylvester then tries posing as one of the movers...and gets Granny's piano loaded into his arms! Tweety guides Sylvester all the way up the stairs to the top floor and through a doorway, which sends Sylvester plummeting with the piano to the street below, prompting Tweety to remark, "Ooooh, dat wast step was a wuwu!"
Making another attempt, Sylvester hides under a bear rug to sneak up on Tweety and climbs up to his cage. Granny, frightened at the sight, thinks the bear had been portraying possum and fires several pistol shots at Sylvester before Hector chases him out again. Though this time afterwards, Hector barks ferociously when Sylvester looks back at the house, frightening Sylvester in the process.
Finally, Sylvester goes to the costume shop and dresses up in a very convincing and voluptuous female dog suit to lure Hector away from the front steps. As the instantly lovestruck Hector approaches, Sylvester is preparing to knock him out with a mallet, but before he does, a dog catcher captures him in his net and locks him in his truck. Outraged, Sylvester furiously pounds on the window, demanding the dog catcher to let him out. He then removes the head mask from his costume and reveals that he is a cat, not a dog, which turns out to be a fatal error, as all the dogs in the truck notice immediately and begin to attack him as the truck disappears down the street. 
Tweety then thinks nothing will ever chase him before he sees two other cats in the room with lamp shades on their heads much to his horror, which he then remarks "Of tourse I tould be wrong!".
== Availability ==
lt vs7 uk.jpg|(1982) VHS The Looney Tunes Video Show Volume 7
SYLVESTER AND TWEETY'S TALE FEATHERS.jpg|(1993) VHS Sylvester and Tweety's Tale Feathers
Bumper01.jpg|(1994) VHS Special Bumper Collection (Vol. 1)
TweetAndLovelyVHS.jpg|(1998) VHS Looney Tunes Presents Tweety: Tweet and Lovely (European version)
LTCE VOL 10 CANINE CORPS.jpg|(2000) VHS Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition Volume 10: Canine Corps (1998 THIS VERSION, without notice)
I Love Tweety - Volume 1.jpg|(2001) DVD I Love Tweety: Volume 1 (restored with DVNR)
=== Streaming ===
Lt boomerang.jpg|Boomerang App (2017 - ) (1998 "THIS VERSION", without notice)
== Censorship ==
* The following violent scenes were cut when this cartoon was shown in ABC's The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show:http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-m.aspx
** Granny with a pistol shooting Sylvester, who is hiding underneath a bearskin rug.
** Sylvester disguising himself as a lamp, and Tweety plugging the cat's tail into an electrical socket.
** Hector the Bulldog biting the electrically charged Sylvester and getting electric-shocked as well.
== Notes ==
* Several clips of this cartoon are seen in the beginning of Space Jam, particularly the scene where Sylvester gets electrically charged by Tweety.
* The scene where Granny fires several pistol shots at Sylvester is a partial reference to "The Fair Haired Hare".
* At the beginning of the cartoon, Hector the Bulldog quotes Tweety's catchphrase, "I tawt I taw a putty tat", which is also Hector's only line of dialogue in the cartoon.
*Sylvester would once again disguise as a female dog in The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries episode "Yelp", though the female dog disguise is colored pink instead of yellow. In addition, Sylvester's reaction after unmasking and seeing the real dogs glaring at him is also the same in both: turning white and melting into a puddle.
*This is the only cartoon where both Sylvester and Tweety lose in the end. A similar cartoon where the two both win in the end would also be made in 1960, titled "Trip for Tat".
**It is also the only cartoon where Tweety loses in the end.
*The music that plays when the movers are bringing everything into the house is played again in Daffy Duck's Quackbusters when the IRS confiscates Daffy's belongings.
*When Granny's piano crashes, it makes the same pressing all keys at once sound from "Canned Feud", just like in that short, Sylvester gets piano key teeth even though the dangling key plays the D note instead of E.
*The lobby cards of the cartoon (pictured in the gallery below) seem to depict Tweety using Hector the Bulldog as a shield against Sylvester when roaming free outside his cage in the house. This scene, however, does not exist in the actual cartoon short itself.
**In a colorized version of one of the lobby cards, Hector appears to be miscolored brown like Marc Anthony, instead of light grey like in the actual cartoon short itself.
*MeTV aired this short 29 January 2021 on Toon In with Me; however, this airing uses the 1998 "THIS VERSION" print without the dubbed notice, as seen on both Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition: Volume 10: Canine Corps VHS release as well as Boomerang Streaming Service.
== Gallery ==
MuzzleToughCredits1.png
MuzzleToughCredits2.png
Muzzle Tough Lobby Card B&W.jpg|Lobby card (black and white)
Muzzle Tough Lobby Card Colorized.png|Lobby card (colorized). Notice that Hector is miscolored brown instead of grey here.
51fvpXswhgL.jpg|Lobby card
===TV Title Cards===
Screenshot 2020-12-28 at 9.23.18 PM.png|Sylvester and Tweety
lt muzzle tough tbbrrs fs.jpg|The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show (Final Season)
==References ==
==External links==
*"Muzzle Tough" on the SFX Resource
Category:Cartoons directed by Friz Freleng
Category:Sylvester Cartoons
Category:Tweety Cartoons
Category:1954
Category:Shorts
Category:Granny Cartoons
Category:Merrie Melodies Shorts
Category:Cartoons written by Warren Foster
Category:Cartoons with layouts by Hawley Pratt
Category:Cartoons with backgrounds by Irv Wyner
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