A Bird in a Bonnet is a long way from among the best Sylvester and Tweety cartoons(not the weakest though, that'll be the still watchable Tom Tom Tomcat), like Birds Anonymous, Tweety's Circus, Gift Wrapped, Snow Business and Hyde and Go Tweet, but while uneven it's still entertaining.
Anybody who loves Fritz Freleng and his animation style will not be disappointed, it's still simply but elegantly drawn(if not quite so much as his earlier work) and the colours have a good amount of warmth. Granny doesn't have much to do but is as sassy in personality as ever and the support characters amuse but of the characters as always Sylvester steals the show, he's hilarious and cunning(even when he doesn't speak) but also easy to root for, one has to feel sorry for him when his heart beats fast and his fur goes white. The voice acting is terrific, Mel Blanc gets the lion's share and voices with immense energetic verve, also excelling in giving each character an individual identity, June Foray is a little more subtle than Bea Benaderet's interpretation of Granny but voices with sassy charm and while he only has a couple of lines Daws Butler is a nice surprise. Not all the humour works but most of it while like the story somewhat standard works very well indeed, all the funniest moments coming from Sylvester. Especially the ones with Sylvester hiding in a man's hat and both getting clobbered by Granny, Sylvester using a bellows to blow the hat into the street and personal my favourite the elongated length of Sylvester's tail when he gets it stuck in the elevator.
On the other hand, the ending and the Tweety popping the balloon that Sylvester uses as his escape gags were predictable to begin with and the outcomes had an over-familiar and tired feel to them. Tweety's final line came over to me as lame and unfunny, it's not the first time it's been used either, it was used also in Bad Ol' Putty Tat and it was much funnier then. Tweety is cute but is more like a plot device with not an awful lot to do, he has had far stronger material before, here it's bland and does not tickle the funny-bone. And I wasn't crazy about the music either, sure it is pleasant and it fits the cartoon well but it also at times sounds very stock and the music of Carl Stalling or Milt Franklin, which is livelier rhythmically, richer in orchestration and with a better ability to enhance the action from both, would have fitted much better. The story always follows a standard formula in the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, mostly that doesn't hurt the cartoons in any way but the pacing did need more oomph in places and the humour has been more consistent before and since so it wasn't quite so forgivable here.
To conclude, A Bird in a Bonnet is an uneven Sylvester and Tweety cartoon and one of the weaker ones for my tastes but is not bad at all, in fact it still entertains which is the main and most important thing. 6/10 Bethany Cox
Anybody who loves Fritz Freleng and his animation style will not be disappointed, it's still simply but elegantly drawn(if not quite so much as his earlier work) and the colours have a good amount of warmth. Granny doesn't have much to do but is as sassy in personality as ever and the support characters amuse but of the characters as always Sylvester steals the show, he's hilarious and cunning(even when he doesn't speak) but also easy to root for, one has to feel sorry for him when his heart beats fast and his fur goes white. The voice acting is terrific, Mel Blanc gets the lion's share and voices with immense energetic verve, also excelling in giving each character an individual identity, June Foray is a little more subtle than Bea Benaderet's interpretation of Granny but voices with sassy charm and while he only has a couple of lines Daws Butler is a nice surprise. Not all the humour works but most of it while like the story somewhat standard works very well indeed, all the funniest moments coming from Sylvester. Especially the ones with Sylvester hiding in a man's hat and both getting clobbered by Granny, Sylvester using a bellows to blow the hat into the street and personal my favourite the elongated length of Sylvester's tail when he gets it stuck in the elevator.
On the other hand, the ending and the Tweety popping the balloon that Sylvester uses as his escape gags were predictable to begin with and the outcomes had an over-familiar and tired feel to them. Tweety's final line came over to me as lame and unfunny, it's not the first time it's been used either, it was used also in Bad Ol' Putty Tat and it was much funnier then. Tweety is cute but is more like a plot device with not an awful lot to do, he has had far stronger material before, here it's bland and does not tickle the funny-bone. And I wasn't crazy about the music either, sure it is pleasant and it fits the cartoon well but it also at times sounds very stock and the music of Carl Stalling or Milt Franklin, which is livelier rhythmically, richer in orchestration and with a better ability to enhance the action from both, would have fitted much better. The story always follows a standard formula in the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, mostly that doesn't hurt the cartoons in any way but the pacing did need more oomph in places and the humour has been more consistent before and since so it wasn't quite so forgivable here.
To conclude, A Bird in a Bonnet is an uneven Sylvester and Tweety cartoon and one of the weaker ones for my tastes but is not bad at all, in fact it still entertains which is the main and most important thing. 6/10 Bethany Cox
