Hyde and Go Tweet
Hyde and Go Tweet is a 1960 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Friz Freleng. The voices were performed by Mel Blanc.[1] The short was released on May 14, 1960, and stars Tweety and Sylvester.[2]
| Hyde and Go Tweet | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Friz Freleng |
| Produced by | John Burton |
| Story by | Michael Maltese (uncredited) |
| Starring | Mel Blanc |
| Music by | Milt Franklyn |
| Animation by | Virgil Ross Gerry Chiniquy Art Davis |
| Layouts by | Hawley Pratt |
| Backgrounds by | Tom O'Loughlin |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date | May 14, 1960 |
Running time | 6 mins |
| Language | English |
The short is the third directed by Freleng based on Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The title is a play on the game hide and go seek. It was featured in Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, with new animation showing Sylvester in Daffy's office.
Plot
Sylvester is sleeping on the ledge of a tall building. He is just outside the window of the laboratory and office of mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll, who is shown entering the laboratory, drinking a Hyde Formula and briefly turning into a monstrous, evilly laughing alter-ego. Sylvester hears the laughter and awakens startled, but when he looks inside the window, he sees only the re-transformed Jekyll departing the laboratory. Sylvester laughs it off and resumes his sleep.
Suddenly waking up, Sylvester tries to catch some pigeons, but to no avail. He then pursues his prey, Tweety, along the building's ledge. Tweety escapes inside the laboratory and jumps into the Hyde Formula bottle. Sylvester demands that Tweety show himself, which he does, thanks to the Hyde formula, now as a crazy, giant evil bird that begins chasing Sylvester.
For most of the rest of the cartoon, Tweety frequently switches between his usual, innocent self (which Sylvester chases) and the evil bird-monster (from which Sylvester runs away). After several back-and-forth chases (which includes Sylvester being tricked by the normal Tweety into running into an out of order chute for an elevator, as well as jumping out a window to escape the bird-monster form), Sylvester nabs a normal-sized Tweety. The cat locks himself in a small kitchen, throws the key out the window to make sure that Tweety "don't get out and that 'goon' don't get in," and begins to make Tweety into a sandwich. But while Sylvester is searching for some ketchup, Tweety changes back into his menacing, Hyde-like self and devours his adversary whole in a single gulp ("What? No ketchup? Well, I guess I'll just have to eat you without KETCH...!"). Sylvester frees himself and tries to escape the room.
Just then, Sylvester awakens...to realize that this whole experience was only a nightmare and to see a normal-sized Tweety struggling to fly to the ledge of the building. Fearing the events of his nightmare are about to come true, Sylvester cries out and runs through a brick wall to escape ("Help! Save me! Ah, ah, ah! Save me! He's a killer! HELP!!!"). Two cats (variants of the cats in Birds Anonymous) observe his action and each remark "Most outrageous exhibition of wanton cowardice" and "Tsk, tsk, tsk... Shameful". Tweety agrees on that, closing the cartoon by telling the audience, "Yeah, shameful!" and breaking the fourth wall.
See also
References
- Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 324. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
- Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 151–152. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.