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Sylvester and Tweety, in an all too typical scene.

"I tawt I taw a puddy tat."

Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird, created by Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett respectively, are two of the most well known characters in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies stable. They had dozens of cartoons together, with Tweety encountering Sylvester at least 48 times during their heyday.

Obviously, these shorts have achieved much popularity, second only to the big three stars of Looney Tunes. The final version of the classic series The Bugs Bunny Show even gave Tweety Bird top billing along with Bugs in "The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show". They were even popular enough to get their own TV Spin-Off, The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries. Tweety also received his own Direct to Video movie, Tweety's High Flying Adventure.

While Tweety was almost always seen opposite Sylvester, Sylvester sometimes had other opponents, like Hippety Hopper the kangaroo or Speedy Gonzales. He also has had a son on occasion, named Sylvester, Junior. Still other times, Sylvester was occasionally seen as the pet of Porky Pig.

Nowadays, the characters aren't quite as active, but are still a central part of the Looney Tunes cast, having made appearances in The Looney Tunes Show, New Looney Tunes, and Looney Tunes Cartoons.


    Filmogwaphy 

1942

  • A Tale of Two Kitties: Official debut of Tweety Bird (although he was named "Orson" on the original model sheet and no name was mentioned in the short itself).

1944

  • Birdy and the Beast: Second appearance of Tweety Bird, and the first one where he is given his name.

1945

  • A Gruesome Twosome: Third appearance of Tweety, and the last one where he is drawn pink.
  • Life with Feathers: Official debut of Sylvester (his prey is a suicidal love bird who wants Sylvester to eat him because his wife threw him out).
  • Peck Up Your Troubles: In this short, Sylvester does battle with a woodpecker and doesn't speak at all.

1946

  • Kitty Kornered: First time Sylvester and Porky appear in the same short. Runner-up on The 50 Greatest Cartoons list.

1947

  • Tweetie Pie: First time Sylvester and Tweety appear in the same cartoon. First time Tweety appears with his yellow feathered look. Sylvester is called "Thomas" throughout the short.
  • Crowing Pains: Only cartoon to co-star Sylvester and Foghorn Leghorn
  • Doggone Cats
  • Catch as Cats Can

1948

  • Back Alley Oproar: First cartoon to co-star Sylvester and Elmer. Semi-remake of an earlier short "Notes To You". Rare example of a cartoon in which Sylvester wins.
  • I Taw a Putty Tat
  • Hop, Look and Listen: First cartoon to have Sylvester and Hippety Hopper co-star.
  • Kit for Cat: With Elmer.
  • Scaredy Cat: First of three cartoons with Porky and Sylvester visiting strange places (the others are Claws for Alarm and Jumpin' Jupiter).

1949

  • Mouse Mazurka
  • Bad Ol' Putty Tat: Starring Tweety
  • Hippety Hopper: Starring the titular character.

1950

  • Home Tweet Home: Starring Tweety
  • The Scarlet Pumpernickel: With Porky and Daffy.
  • All a Bir-r-r-rd: Starring Tweety.
  • Canary Row: With Tweety. First appearance of Granny.
  • Stooge for a Mouse: Sylvester without Tweety.
  • Pop 'Im Pop!: Starring Hippety. First appearance of Sylvester Jr.

1951

1952

  • Who's Kitten Who?: Starring Hippety Hopper and Sylvester Jr.
  • Gift Wrapped: With Tweety.
  • Little Red Rodent Hood
  • Ain't Shenote  Tweet
  • Hoppy Go Lucky: Starring Hippety.
  • A Bird in a Guilty Cage
  • Tree for Two (Sylvester without Tweety)

1953

1954

1955

1956

1957

1958

1959

  • Trick or Tweet
  • Tweet and Lovely
  • The Cat's Paw: Starring Sylvester Jr.
  • Here Today, Gone Tamale
  • Tweet Dreams

1960

1961

1962

  • Fish and Slips: Starring Sylvester Jr.
  • Mexican Boarders
  • The Jet Cage

1963

  • Mexican Cat Dance
  • Chili Weather
  • Claws in the Lease: Starring Sylvester Jr.

1964

  • A Message to Gracias
  • Freudy Cat: Starring Hippety and Sylvester Jr.
  • Nuts and Volts
  • Hawaiian Aye Aye: Final team up of Syl and Tweet.
  • Road to Andalay

1965

1966

  • A Taste of Catnip

1979

  • Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol
  • The Yolk's On You

1988

  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Tweety in his original design appears in the Toontown skyline (nesting on a flagpole), and inexplicably reverts back to his original design and appears along with Sylvester in the ending.

1995

1996

  • Superior Duck: Only Tweety has a cameo.
  • Space Jam

1998

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

  • Museum Scream

2005

2006

2011

  • Big Bushy Mustace

2020

2021

2022


Ooo, wook, Twopes!:

  • Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Freleng's first few cartoons with Tweety have him wearing a sailor hat.
  • All Men Are Perverts: The plot of "A Gruesome Twosome" begins because the two cats are fighting over a female cat. Also, when she closes her eyes and gets ready to kiss one of them, the other pulls him away to fight. It's then that a dog suddenly appears.
    "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't actually belong in this picture, but I can't pass up a chance like this!" [kisses her]
  • Angry Guard Dog: Sylvester was constantly at the mercy of a large bulldog (collectively referred to as Hector in later media). In some cartoons he is directly intent on protecting Tweety.
  • Anti-Villain: Sylvester.
  • Art Evolution:
    • Tweety originally was a pink, featherless baby bird, but the Hays Office insisted that he don a yellow feather coat, due to objections of Tweety being "naked".
    • In his initial appearances Sylvester was intended to resemble a baggy-pants comedian with a round belly, a low sagging pair of hips and an overly large red nose. This was toned down later, as the early design was hard to animate. A lot of early cartoons his tail was completeley black, lacking the white tip that would only become a permenant part of his design towards the end of the golden age.
    • When Granny was recast from Bea Benaderet to June Foray in the mid-1950s, she got somewhat shorter and her face was redesigned a bit. Since The '90s she's gone back to her early design in most cases (albeit with more detailed eyes), with the most notable exception being Looney Tunes Cartoons.
  • Ascended to Carnivorism: One short in which Sylvester and Tweety are Snowed-In features a mouse who hasn't eaten in so long he "forgot what food looks like." He takes one look at Sylvester and decides to have him for dinner.
  • Ass in a Lion Skin: In attempts to catch Tweety, Sylvester has disguised as dogs, a goat, a chicken, a polar bear and a skunk, all with variable levels of realism and/or success.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: In "Greedy For Tweety", whenever Hector starts barking at him, Sylvester beams his bandaged foot with a Big "SHUT UP!". Later on when Sylvester tries this again, Hector beats him to the punch and whacks his bandaged foot.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Tweety. Space Jam even demonstrated that he can still slip into this time and time again.
  • The Big Bad Wolf: In Red Riding Hoodwinked, Sylvester the Cat teams up with the Big Bad Wolf so that he could get at Tweety Pie, whom Little Red Riding Hood brings to her grandmother. Of course, the Big Bad Wolf is constantly forgetful of Little Red Riding Hood's name and gets prompted by Sylvester from time to time. However, Little Red's grandmother is no pushover, as she knocks both the Big Bad Wolf and Sylvester off the bus she's driving at the end of the story, ultimately making good on her threat to punch them after the Wolf throws her out of her house.
    Granny: I told 'em, one of these days...
    Red and Tweety: (making a punching motion) POW! Right in the kisser!
  • Big "SHUT UP!": Sylvester was particularly fond of an obnoxious "AAHHHHH, SHADDUP!!!", most often to Hector barking furiously at him. For emphasis, he will violently strike the dog.
    • In "Fowl Weather," this is Sylvester's only line of dialogue, saying it to Hector when hitting him with one of the stilts he's wearing as part of his scarecrow disguise. Throughout the rest of the short he has no spoken lines.
  • Big, Thin, Short Trio: Of Granny's pets, Hector is the Big, Sylvester is the Thin, and Tweety is the Short.
  • Black Comedy: Used unabashedly in "Satan's Waitin'".
  • Breakout Character: Both Granny and the bulldog character (later coined as Hector) made occasional appearances in initial shorts, and gradually became as much mainstream as the main duo. They are near equally prominant in The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries.
  • Brown Bag Mask: Sylvester, Junior, is sometimes so ashamed of his father's behavior that he will put a brown bag over his head, saying he can never show his face in public again.
  • Buffoonish Tomcat: The titular Sylvester is a Chew Toy that is characterized by tons of slapstick humor or just humorous silliness itself when he's not trying to catching Tweety at the same time, and is a tomcat that can lack in tons of common-sense in his traps, decisions and plans that usually lead to his buffoonery or Epic Fails as a backfire.
  • Bully Bulldog: Hector Depending on the Writer. In some instances he just wants Sylvester to leave Tweety alone, or Sylvester makes the mistake of bullying him first. In other cases though, he just likes pounding on the cat.
  • Bullying the Dragon: Sylvester frequently tries to get cheap shots at Hector whenever he seems to get the upper hand. These nearly always end with a mauling. Perhaps the most glaring case happens in "Tweety’s Circus", where Sylvester is so unwilling to call a lion “King of the Cats” like a sign in front of the lion cage said that he chose to crown the lion by hitting the lion over the head with a club! Guess how secure that cage is....
  • Bumbling Dad: In some of the McKimson shorts, Sylvester tries unsuccessfully to raise his son, Sylvester, Junior, to be a real cat like himself. Junior possesses a degree of respect for his father, although often, when Sylvester does something embarrassing or humiliating, such as trying to go after Hippety Hopper, Junior often displays shamed and/or embarrassment of his father's behavior (sometimes donning a paper bag over his head).
  • Butt-Monkey: Unlike other variations of the chase formula such as Tom and Jerry (where the cat was frequently granted Laser-Guided Karma when the victim rather than the bully); Sylvester nearly always lost, whether his protagonist instigated the feud or not. Ironically the few times he was the victor of the short was when he was dishing out the Comedic Sociopathy (eg. heckling Porky or Elmer in cartoons such as "Kitty Kornered" or "Back Alley Oproar").
  • The Cameo:
    • Tweety has a cameo in the Claude Cat/Frisky Puppy short "No Barking" (his only appearance in a Chuck Jones cartoon), and two of them in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
    • Sylvester, or a cat looking just like him, appears as "Pussycat Puss" in "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery''.
    • Tweety also appeared in the end credits of a 1978 Japanese anime series, Majokko Tickle, as the series' producing broadcaster, TV Asahi, held the rights to the character in Japan at that time.
  • Cassandra Truth: In his few appearances in a series of horror-themed cartoons by Chuck Jones, Sylvester, who is the pet of Porky Pig, seems to be the only one aware of any danger that they appear to be getting into and continuously saves the oblivious Porky from said danger, which he tries to point out to his master, only for Porky to dismiss Sylvester as insane and/or cowardly.
  • Cats Are Mean: Again Sylvester, but is also an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain out of the bunch thanks to his usual, buffoonish, slapstick-prone demeanor.
  • Cats Have Nine Lives:
    • The ending gag in Tweet and Lovely, where Sylvester accidentally blows himself up off-screen, then ventures back on camera, transparent and sporting wings, to rip up his blueprints.
    Sylvester: Hmph! It's a good thing pussycats have got nine lives! (storms out)
    • Taken literally in Satan's Waitin' where Sylvester eventually uses up all nine of his lives and is consigned to Hell.
    • In The Rebel Without Claws, set during The American Civil War, Sylvester, allied with the Union, ultimately captures Tweety, allied with the Confederacy, and brings him before a firing squad for execution. As Tweety stands blindfolded, he says he only regrets he has one life to give to his country, to which Sylvester, standing off to the side, gloats about what a pity it is that Tweety doesn't have nine lives like he does. The firing squad all fire their guns — not at Tweety, but at Sylvester, who lies on the ground, seemingly dead, but comes to a moment later.
      Sylvester: It's a good thing I have got nine lives! With this kind of an army, I'll need them!
  • Chained Heat: The basic premise of "D'Fightin' Ones". Sylvester and a bulldog are chained together and on the run from the dog catcher in a direct parody of The Defiant Ones. They do manage to break the chain at the end, only to then get their legs jammed together in a pipe and go hopping off in frustration.
  • Character Catchphrase:
    Tweety: I tawt I taw a putty tat. I did! I did taw a putty tat!
    Sylvester: Sufferin' succotash!note 
    Tweety: Bad ol' putty tat!
    • Tweety had two others during the Clampett era.
    Tweety: Aww, the poor putty tat. He *describes said cat's injury*
    Tweety: You know, I lose mooore putty tats that way.
  • Characterization Marches On:
    • Tweety in his earliest appearances was a sadistic trickster who actively fought back against his aggressors. Although Friz Freleng initially went with this characterization in his own Tweety cartoons, Tweety became a genuinely innocent, very passive character later on.
    • Played with for Sylvester. His character was pretty much fully developed in his first appearance in "Life With Feathers" however as other directors took shots at the character he went through several different directions before returning to his original characterization. Bob Clampett portrayed him as an extroverted Screwball Squirrel-type in "Kitty Kornered", while Art Davis used a dopier, more deadpan variant. Chuck Jones meanwhile depicted Sylvester as rather cowardly and not speaking and the only one aware of any danger that he and his master Porky Pig findnote .
  • Chimney Entry: Sylvester does this twice trying to protect an animal cats love to eat, and while doing so, another cat tries to enter the house through the chimney, so Sylvester sends a balloon up the chimney flue with a stick of dynamite tied to it and blows the cat up through the flue and away from the house.
    • The first time Sylvester does this is in "A Mouse Divided", where Sylvester is the protective father of a baby mouse that was mistakenly delivered to his residence instead of a baby cat, and a cat tries to enter into the house through the chimney, pretending to be Santa Claus, only it's the wrong time of the year.
    • The second time is in "Tweet And Sour", only this time, Sylvester has to protect Tweety from Sam the Cat, sporting an eyepatch. After Sylvester tried to eat Tweety one too many times, Granny threatens to send him to the violin string factory to be made into the instrument, and Sam is uncaring that Sylvester will be deemed responsible for the canary's disappearance. Near the end of the cartoon, Sam tries to get in the house through the chimney, but Sylvester manages to oust him before Granny returns home. However, as he tries to put Tweety back in his cage after the fact, you can guess what happens next.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: When Sylvester appeared without Tweety, he sometimes was made a helpless victim of an evil Villain Protagonist. In "Tree for Two", two dogs decide to beat up Sylvester for no reason, although the big one at least gets his comeuppance when he encounters a wild panther instead of Sylvester. Even more disturbing as far as victimization of Sylvester goes is the unpleasant "Canned Feud". In this one, Sylvester's owners go on vacation and forget to put him out. Sylvester finds a cupboard full of canned cat food—but the only can opener is in the possession of an evil mouse, who denies Sylvester the can opener for no damn reason, presumably to starve him to death.
  • Comically Missing the Point: In "Muzzle Tough", Sylvester tries to catch Tweety by hiding underneath a bearskin rug. Tweety calls for help, and Granny chases Sylvester out the door with her umbrella, the latter still wearing the rug. Granny then snarls, "Infernal bear! Played possum for thirty years!"
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Granny is seemlingly harmless, but is much smarter and stronger than she looks.
  • Demoted to Extra: Tweety became less active in later shorts, the main bulk of which revolved more around a bodyguard or alternate adversary guarding him from Sylvester (usually Granny or Hector).
  • Deranged Animation: Especially in "Kitty Kornered", which is no surprise since it's a Bob Clampett cartoon.
  • Determinator: In his pursuit of Tweety, Sylvester takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
  • Died Happily Ever After: Sylvester, who gets the last laugh on his foes in the afterlife in "Back Alley Oproar" and "Mouse Mazurka".
  • Down on the Farm: Granny owns a farm in "Fowl Weather" that the cartoon takes place on.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Given Tweety's falsetto voice, many are the people who still don't know he's a boy. Despite that he's been seen swooning over women.
    • It doesn't help in almost every foreign-language dubbed version, Tweety is voiced by women who sometimes don't bother to make him sound remotely male.
    • Nor does it help that one of the cartoons is titled "Ain't She Tweet".
    • Thanks to Tweety's notorious history of this, The Looney Tunes Show decided to make a gag out of giving him an Ambiguous Gender. Sylvester doesn't even know what gender Tweety is until he's told in a whisper, at which point he exclaims, "I was wrong!"
    • In an episode of The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries Tweety flies into a bird house restroom labeled, "Men". Tweety sticks his head out briefly to explain, "See, folks! I am a boy!"
  • Early-Bird Cameo: A bird identical to Clampett's Tweety in all but voice appears in "Wacky Blackout". There are also several early shorts which are considered to have prototypical versions of Sylvester.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The duo’s second outing “I Taw a Puddy Tat” arguably has it more than “Tweetie Pie”. While Tweety still retains some of his Clampett-era characterization (outright fighting back against Sylvester), shockingly for viewers more familiar with later shorts, Sylvester is all but stated to have successfully eaten five previous canaries (as well as several mice) before Tweety’s arrival, as Sylvester would never have such luck eating live prey again. Perhaps not so shockingly (and unfortunately) for a late-1940s cartoon, Sylvester is also the victim of a dual Ash Face and Blackface gag (which unsurprisingly is now cut on television).
  • Enemy Mine:
    • In "Room and Bird", Hector, Tweety, and Sylvester have to work together in order to evade the hotel manager, since the building has a strict "No Pets" policy.
    • "Tweet and Sour" varies the formula by having Sylvester protect Tweety from being eaten by a rival cat, as Granny threatened to turn Sylvester into violin strings if anything happened to Tweety while she was out.
      Tweety: Say! You'we weawwy a nice putty tat!
      Sylvester: Listen, buster, I'm not a nice pussycat. I just don't relish the idea of having p-p-pizzicatos played on me in some string section.
    • The Looney Tunes Show features two instances where Sylvester and Tweety have to team up with each other. The first is in "Devil Dog", where they work together to escape from Taz the Tasmanian Devil when he runs loose in Granny's house and tries to eat them. The second is in "Ridiculous Journey" where they have to team up with Taz to get back home after they get lost in the wilderness.
  • Escaped Animal Rampage:
    • Many cartoons have Hippety Hopper, a kangaroo, escaping from the zoo, causing Sylvester and his son to think that he is actually a large mouse.
    • One of these cartoons had a panther escape from the zoo, just as a Bully Bulldog is chasing Sylvester. Hilarity Ensues when he mistakes the panther for Sylvester.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: Hector's imagine spot in "Fowl Weather" of Granny shooting him to death, which is cut from certain TV airings. Granny even warns this to Hector before she leaves at the start of the cartoon...
    Granny: Hector, don't let anything happen to Tweety or (imitating machine gun) AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
  • Fire and Brimstone Hell: As seen in "Satan's Waitin'".
  • Flanderization: Tweety started out as a character that was cute but violent and hilarious at the same time in Bob Clampett Tweety cartoons. Although Friz Freleng's first few Tweety cartoons, like "I Taw a Putty Tat" (1948), retain that same flavor, the little yellow bird gradually became a character that played cute only for the sake of being cute.
  • Gone Horribly Right: In one story, Sylvester paints a white stripe on his back so the dogs guarding Tweety will mistake him for a skunk and flee. He does scare the dogs away, but now has to put up with Pepé Le Pew.
  • Harmless Villain: Sylvester, at least in the shorts with Tweety.
  • Hidden Depths: Despite Tweety becoming softer, fans still speculate that he's still a sadistic being on the inside who takes pleasure in seeing Sylvester get hurt.
  • Invincible Hero: Tweety. Though he had a slightly more vulnerable streak than most other Looney Tunes protagonists thanks to being diminutive, physically weak and with no special powers, he was one of very few to come out the victor in every appearance he made along with Roadrunner and Cecil Turtle.
  • Latex Perfection: Sylvester has done this a few times, such as his female dog suit in "Muzzle Tough" (so convincing that it fooled a dog catcher!) and goat mask in "Fowl Weather" (but Tweety wasn't fooled by it).
  • Leitmotif: Tweety Pie gets his own theme song whenever he swings in his bird cage:
    I'm a tweet wittow biwd in a dilded tage
    Tweety's my name, but I don't know my age
    I don't have to wowwy an' dat is dat
    I'm tafe in hewe fwom dat ol' puddy tat!
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: Surprisingly enough, despite his Chew Toy status, Sylvester got himself a moment of utter badassitude in "Scaredy Cat". After barely escaping the killer mice inhabiting the diaplidated old mansion Porky Pig has bought, and more or less deciding "Screw This, I'm Outta Here", his conscience appears to him and reminds him of how Porky raised him from a kitten, and then of "the difference in size between a cat and a mouse", prompting Sylvester to grab an entire tree and run off to take on all the mice despite their murderous nature. And he wins.
  • Light-Flicker Teleportation: "Greedy For Tweety" did this: Sylvester is in a hospital bed and can't move, having been given sleeping pills. Every time he opens and closes his eyes, the dog appears closer and closer, wielding a club. It's prime Nightmare Fuel.
  • Long Runner
  • Mama Bear: Granny is VERY protective about Tweety. She's even threatened to hurt or kill Sylvester and/or Hector if Tweety is harmed in some way.
  • Mistaken for Bad Vision: In one cartoon, Sylvester is hiding in Granny's knitting basket, and his fur gets caught up in her knitting. Sylvester knits his fur back in place, along with Granny's scarf, and he ends up with multicolored checks on his bottom half. Upon seeing this, Granny cleans her glasses and blames her astigmatism.
  • Motive Decay: Later cartoons put more spotlight on a protective bulldog (later named Hector in Sylvester And Tweety Mysteries) who guarded over Tweety. As such more emphasis was put on Sylvester trying to dispose of the dog to reach Tweety. Some cases evolve more into a vengeful Escalating War for his constant beatings that he seems to forget about going after Tweety (eg. "Greedy For Tweety").
  • Mugged for Disguise: Sylvester was fond of doing this to achieve a Paper-Thin Disguise.
  • Musical Episode: "I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat", a modern CGI short that essentially acts a music video for one of Mel Blanc's old Capitol records.
  • Never Mess with Granny: Might very well be the Trope Codifier.
  • Nice Mice: Usually played straight against Sylvester with characters such as Speedy. Exceptions occur in cartoons such as "Canned Feud", "Claws for Alarm", and "Scaredy Cat", where Sylvester is tormented by sociopathic vermin for no established reason.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Babbit and Catsello from "A Tale of Two Kitties" are shameless parodies of Abbott and Costello. One cat in "A Gruesome Twosome" is a caricature of Jimmy Durante.
  • Not What It Looks Like: In "Tweet And Sour," to avoid being blamed when another cat captures Tweety, Sylvester spent most of the episode trying to rescue Tweety from the other cat. In the end, while Sylvester was placing Tweety back in the cage, Granny reappeared and wrongly concluded Sylvester was capturing Tweety again. Quickly accepting she'd never believe the events prior, he prepares for his trip to the violin factory.
  • Oh, Crap!: In "Muzzle Tough," after Sylvester is driven off by the dog catcher, Tweety remarks that "dere won't be no more putty tats to chase me now." Cut to two cats wearing lampshades hungrily peaking at himnote . Tweety responds with, "Of course, I could be wong" and the cartoon ends. This makes "Muzzle Tough" probably the only cartoon that doesn't end with Tweety being completely free from danger.
  • Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: In "Greedy For Tweety" when the both of them are strapped to hospital beds, Sylvester drills a hole in Hector's foot cast and drop a stick of dynamite inside, with shots of Hector perspiring increasingly as the process continues.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Sylvester does this from time to time; a very pitiful example is his attempt at disguising as a chicken in "Fowl Weather," using a red rubber glove and a plunger with feathers over his tail. A tough rooster in the coop wasn't fooled by it one bit.
  • Pet Heir: Sylvester is left a fortune (and all of its attendant problems) in "Heir-Conditioned".
    Sylvester: (contemptibly addressing a portrait of his deceased mistress) Sakes! You'd've saved a lot of headaches if you figured out a way to take it [the fortune] with ya! Sakes!
  • Ping Pong Naïveté: Just how innocent Tweety is in his dealings with Sylvester is part of the gag. Granny's awareness of Sylvester antagonizing Tweety also varies from short to short.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Tweety in his earlier appearances, particularly the Clampett films.
  • Plot Armor: No matter how implausible the circumstances, Tweety will straight up bend the rules of reality and the cartoon to avoid getting eaten. From a Hyperspace Arsenal of whatever he needs whenever he needs it, to being bailed out by Granny or Hector no matter how far away they were previously, to characters from other shorts inexplicably appearing to foil Sylvester. When it seems like he's finally been eaten or defeated, It Was All Just A Dream and Sylvester is no closer than when he really started, or something happens to undo his victory as Laser-Guided Karma.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: In the Tweety and the Magic Gems video game, Sylvester is one of six playable characters who participates in the quest to find the five Magic Gems that reverse the curse that turns Tweety to stone. If Sylvester achieves a goal at the end of the game, he explains his reason for participating in the quest; he can't eat Tweety if he turns into a rock.
  • Punny Name: Tweety is sometimes referred to fully as "Tweety Pie" due to the cartoon of that title (a play on his speech impediment).
  • Road Runner vs. Coyote: Sylvester serves as the Coyote to both Tweety and Speedy Gonzales' Road Runners, given that his franchise also features the trope namers themselves. In "The Wild Chase", he even teams up with Wile E. so they can catch both Speedy and the Road Runner during a race the two are having. Naturally, they both fail epically.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: At least as far as Sylvester is concerned, as there are times when he tangles with what he thinks is a giant mouse, not realizing that the "mouse", Hippety Hopper, is actually a baby kangaroo.
  • Satan: A bulldog version of him appears in "Satan's Waitin".
  • Speech Impediment: Sylvester's lisp and Tweety's Baby Talk.
  • Suddenly Shouting: Tweety in "Birdy and the Beast".
    Tweety: Aw, da poor putty tat. He faw down an' go BOOM!
  • Team Rocket Wins: Sylvester never won against Tweety, though he got the last laugh in a handful of alternate appearances. He succeeded in eating an Asshole Victim parrot in "Catch As Cats Can" and outwitted Porky in throwing him out for the night in "Kitty Kornered".
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Sylvester does this in "Muzzle Tough" after trying to show a dog catcher, whom caught him in a realistic female dog suit and mask (to try and trick Hector so he can gain access to Tweety), that he's really a cat, he notices a bunch of dogs angrily staring at him in the dog catcher's wagon, turns white and melts down...
  • Threatening Shark: Towards Sylvester, that is, in the latter-day short "Hawaiian Aye Aye", who tries all he can to keep Tweety safe.
  • Trampled Underfoot: Happens to the hotel manager in "Room and Bird" after he orders all pets removed from the premises, resulting in an Animal Stampede in the lobby.
    Manager: I tawt I taw a puddy tat!
    Tweety: You did, you did! You taw a puddy tat, and a moo-moo tow [cow], and a big dowiwwa [gorilla], and a diddyap-hortey [giddyap horsey], and a wittle monkey!
  • Too Dumb to Live: In "Satan's Waitin'", Mugsy mishandles the dynamite and blows himself, his accomplice, and Sylvester's final regeneration to smithereens.
  • Totem Pole Trench: Hector, Sylvester and Tweety form one in "Room And Bird" with Granny's clothes.
  • Uvula Escape Route: The short I Taw a Puddy Tat features a scene where Tweety is trapped in Sylvester's mouth. Tweety starts punching Sylvester's uvula like a boxing speed-bag in order to escape.
  • Villain Protagonist: Sylvester, in his shorts with Tweety and Hippity Hopper.
  • Villainous Underdog: While Sylvester certainly isn't weaker than Tweety, he's no match for Granny or Hector and has to find ways to sneak past them in order to get at the bird. That's without getting into his fights with Speedy Gonzales or Hippity Hopper.
  • Wartime Cartoon: "A Tale of Two Kitties" has a Victory Garden appear, Tweety sics Anti-Aircraft cannons on Catsello in the ending, and tells the duo to TURN OUT THOSE LIGHTS.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Well, Sylvester DOES want to eat Tweety, who's implied to still be a child...

Alternative Title(s): Tweety And Sylvester, Sylvester Cat And Tweety Bird, Sylvester And Tweety

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Sylvester's "This Is Gonna Suck" reaction

He should've stayed in character as a female dog...

How well does it match the trope?

4.97 (33 votes)

Example of:

Main / ThisIsGonnaSuck

Media sources:

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