Review of Catch as Cats Can

A gentle voiced bird who sounds like Frank Sinatra is starting to grate on a less popular bird who sounds like Bing Crosby. So when Bing spies Sylvester the cat eating out of a bin in the yard, he hatches a plan to get rid of Frank in one go. He tells Sylvester that he needs vitamins for a healthy diet and that the easiest way to get it is to eat Frank.

The plot here is basically Sylvester doing his usual stuff to try and get the bird. The routines are pretty basic and there really isn't enough of it to be consistently funny. What it does instead is to concentrate on the characters and get laughs from them. This applies to both the birds who are very funny spoofs of Sinatra and Crosby. Both birds are spot on and are funny just because they are the famous characters.

This character work didn't extend to Sylvester sadly, and he is pretty poor and barely resembles his usual self in terms of both sound of his voice or his appearance. He does OK but he isn't as good as he is when he is himself as normal. The birds do reasonably well and are funny but the film would have benefited from them having more jokes and not just relying on the lampoon of famous singers.

Overall this is a funny short that lacks consistent laughs but will be enjoyed for the famous birds rather than an overwhelming flood of gags.