Father of the Bird

Father of the Bird is a 1997 Looney Tunes short directed by Stephen A. Fossati and Chuck Jones.
== Title ==
The title is a play on the 1950 film Father of the Bride and its 1991 remake.
== Plot ==
A hungry Sylvester tries to find breakfast. He sees a feather, and realizes when there's feathers and birds, there's breakfast. He walks up and snatches a sparrow egg in a nest. He thinks about what he can make with the egg, but before he can eat it for breakfast however, a little bird hatches out and calls him "Mama." He realizes that his breakfast is talking but still eats the bird. However, the bird talks inside of Sylvester's mouth and keeps calling Sylvester his mama. Despite his attempts to make the bird leave, the bird just keeps following him. At one point, Sylvester tells the bird to not to call him "Mama", but the bird calls him "Papa." However, Sylvester suddenly warms to the idea of being a father and instead of eating it again, he protects the bird throughout a series of near-disasters.
He first sees the bird dangling on a telephone line and walks up to it. The telephone line pulls down, and the bird walks off, launching Sylvester to a construction site to be slammed into an I-beam and nearly get threatened to be smashed by an anvil. The bird walks into the construction site and it crawls into a bulldog's mouth. Sylvester fishes out the bird, but the bulldog manages to reel in Sylvester and attack him. The bird walks into a railroad track and walks up into a train. Sylvester follows, and is slammed into a train tunnel. The anvil from earlier smashes onto Sylvester's head and then another train runs down on him.
Sylvester is extremely upset, and tries to threaten to eat the bird. The bird calls Sylvester "Papa" and Sylvester kisses the bird, causing him to nearly eat it. At the end, Sylvester is now the father to a series of similar birds, who keep calling Sylvester "Papa," much to his dismay.
== Availability ==
51LA0AzTVqL. SL500 AA300 .jpg|(2011) Blu-ray Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1, Disc Three
== Notes ==
* The short is somewhat similar to "A Mouse Divided" (1953), directed by Friz Freleng 44 years prior. Both cartoons feature Sylvester resisting his natural feline instincts to raise a newborn infant animal, which the cat initially attempts to eat, that calls him father; in this case, a baby bird instead of a baby mouse. Coincidentally, both cartoons end with Sylvester getting the short end of the stick.
* The little bird is never explicitly given a name, but in one scene, Sylvester derisively calls it Cornbread.
** The Chuck Jones website refers to the bird as Cornbread.https://web.archive.org/web/19981207052226/http://www.chuckjones.com/film.html 
* This is the last short to be entirely animated on cels, the last produced and directed by Chuck Jones, ending a career that began in 1938, and also the first and only Sylvester cartoon Jones worked on in any way since "Jumpin' Jupiter" (1955), 42 years prior.
** This is also the last Sylvester cartoon made in the 20th century.
* This cartoon was originally intended to be released theatrically with The Man Who Knew Too Little. However, for unknown reasons, it remained unreleased until 2011, when it was included in the Blu-ray version of Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1.http://www.dohtem.com/bugs/history/history4.htm
== Gallery ==
Father bird.jpg|Theatrical release poster
FatheroftheBirdCel.png|Production cel
== References ==
Category:Sylvester Cartoons
Category:Shorts
Category:1997
Category:Looney Tunes Shorts
Category:Cartoons directed by Chuck Jones
Category:Chuck Jones Film Production Looney Tunes
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by June Foray