"Tweety and the Beanstalk" is a 1957 Merrie Melodies cartoon (albeit with the Looney Tunes theme, oddly enough) directed by Friz Freleng, and the third full Beanstalk Episode in their stable. It stars Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird.
A farm mother is overheard scolding Jack for trading their cow for a handful of beans she doesn’t believe are magic. The beans are thrown outside the house window and roll right underneath the litterbox Sylvester is sleeping in.
Almost immediately, the beans take effect, with Sylvester still in dreamland. He wakes up to find things looking considerably different — as in, bigger. As he takes in his new surroundings, he spots a gigantic cage which holds a Tweety bird that is roughly his size… and he is thrilled. (Tweety not so much.) Before he can take home his prize, he’ll be dealing with a massive bulldog, their massive owner… and a legit giant mouse (by his standards, anyway).
Sylvester is no Daffy Duck, however; he knows to cut his losses and run off. Once he’s slid all the way down the beanstalk, he chops away at the base of the trunk. Once it tips over, the pursuing giant loses his grip and gets a date with gravity. The landing – right on top of Sylvester – is so hard that the puddy tat finds himself knocked all the way to the other end of the earth. He bears witness to a slant-eyed variant of the regular-sized Tweety, in an Asian rice hat.
"Tweety and the Beanstalk" provides examples of:
- Beanstalk Parody: While Jack and his mother appear at the beginning of the short, Sylvester takes on the "Jack" role with Tweety as the golden goose.
- Borrowed Catch Phrase: The giant clearly must have heard Tweety’s a few times and encountered his share of cats trying to eat the bird (“fee-fi-fo-fat, I tawt I taw a puddy tat!”).
- Bowdlerise: The ending where the giant lands on Sylvester and Sylvester gets sent to China, where a Chinese Tweety wearing a coolie hat says, "Oh, I tawt I taw dishonorable pussycat!" was cut when this short aired on ABC's The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show starting in 1995 (it was uncut prior to that), ending with Sylvester arriving in China and looking around. This also occurs much earlier in Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales.
- Digging to China: Well, it wasn’t exactly digging when the giant landed rear-first on top of him, but that’s where Sylvester landed.Chinese Tweety: Ooh, I tawt I taw a dishonowable puddy tat!
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Really, master, once Sylvester started sliding down the trunk, you should have just left it at that. Sylvester himself plays this trope straight, since he is the one trying to escape.
- Never Trust a Title: Even though the title bears Tweety's name, it's actually Sylvester who goes up (and then down) the beanstalk. In the actual cartoon, Tweety is a pet of the giant.
