Tweet and Sour is a "Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...

" cartoon animated short starring Tweety and Sylvester

Sylvester (Looney Tunes)

Sylvester J. Pussycat, Sr., Sylvester the Cat or simply Sylvester, is a fictional character, a three-time Academy Award-winning anthropomorphic Tuxedo cat in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies repertory, often chasing Tweety Bird, Speedy Gonzales, or Hippety Hopper...

. Released March 24, 1956, the cartoon is directed by Friz Freleng

Friz Freleng

Isadore "Friz" Freleng was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros....

. The voices were performed by Mel Blanc

Mel Blanc

Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...

 and June Foray

June Foray

June Foray is an American voice actress, best known as the voice of many animated characters...

.

The cartoon's title is a play on the phrase "sweet and sour"

Plot

Granny leaves the house for an outing, but as she drives by the house and waves goodbye to Tweety, she sees Sylvester has gotten into the house and is about to eat the bird. Granny stops the cat in time and, fed up with his constant chasing after Tweety, gives him an ultimatum: "If there's so much as one little feather harmed on the canary, it's off to the violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

 string factory!" (punctuating the warning by mimicking Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

's "The Funeral March

Funeral march

A funeral march is a march, usually in a minor key, in a slow "simple duple" metre, imitating the solemn pace of a funeral procession. Some such marches are often considered appropriate for use during funerals and other sombre occasions, the most well-known being that of Chopin...

").

As Sylvester sulks in the corner, Tweety is about to face a new threat — a rough-looking orange cat wearing an eyepatch. The unnamed orange cat is after a meal of his own and is uncaring that Sylvester will be deemed responsible if Tweety is noticed missing. As such, the chase now casts Sylvester not as the predator but as the (not-so-altrustic) protagonist who plans to save Tweety from a predatory cat before Granny returns — more to save his own skin. After several exchanges, with both Sylvester and the orange cat clobbering each other, Sylvester finally gets rid of the predatory cat by blowing him up in Granny's chimney (by way of a lighted TNT candle tied to a balloon).

However, Sylvester's efforts are in vain. As he is putting Tweety back in the cage, Granny enters and, assuming he was after Tweety, promises to make good on her earlier threat. Sylvester tried to explain what really happened before declaring: "Aw, what's the use! She'll never believe me!", then he plays Chopin on his violin and falls into the violin case as a coffin to his doom.

Censorship

• The 1970s/1980s CBS airing of this cartoon cuts out the part where the orange cat grabs Sylvester by his tail and bashes him several times into the ground.

Succession