Catch as Cats Can is a 1947 Merrie Melodies short directed by Arthur Davis.
Plot[]
An emaciated canary, singing like Frank Sinatra, is getting on the nerves of a pipe-puffing parrot, who speaks like Bing Crosby. The parrot spots Sylvester, foraging through the trash. Telling Sylvester he needs more vitamins, which the canary has been swallowing in bulk, he lures Sylvester inside to snare the canary.
The straightforward approach fails (the canary bops him in the eye instantly). After Sylvester gives up instantly, the Crosby parrot stops him and forces him to continue "to get the vitamins he needs". Sylvester employs the following tricks to eat Frankie, all of them ending in failure;
- He carves a female canary from soap, lures Frankie there; the birds slide down a greased counter, into the sink, and down the drain, but only the soap bird goes through the pipe and down Sylvester's throat.
- Sylvester creates a trail of birdseed into the garage. This technique seems to work, but Frankie jacks Sylvester's mouth open.
- Sylvester laces the vitamins with buckshot; like all cartoon magnets, his attracts everything metal in sight except his prey.
- Sylvester uses the vacuum cleaner to suck up Frankie. After opening the vacuum bag, the canary turns Sylvester's vacuum cleaner against him, with a crash in the fireplace giving Sylvester a hot-stomach; as he buries his head in the sink, the bird adds Foamo-Seltzer to the water; Sylvester rockets off, crashing into a wall.
Just as the Crosby parrot is about to give an injured Sylvester a new plan to eat Frankie, the cat finally realizes the portly parrot is a better meal. The canary sees Sylvester sitting on the parrot's perch, imitating his mannerisms.
Caricatures[]
Availability[]
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes Volume 2, Side 6: McKimson and Davis
Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition Volume 13: Comic Cat-Tastrophies (USA 1995 Turner dubbed version)
Streaming[]
Censorship[]
According to the podcast Cartoon Logic, the ending in which the Sinatra canary discovers that Sylvester ate the Crosby parrot and begins acting like him had a scene cut before its theatrical release where the camera was to pan to the backyard showing a tombstone reading "came in before his horse," a joke about Crosby's lucklessness at betting on horses. Versions of this short shown today on American and international television, as well as home media and streaming, end just as Sylvester, as the Bing Crosby parrot, says, "Ah, there's nothing like vitamins..."[1]
Gallery[]
References[]
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