Catch as Cats Can (1947) User Reviews

Sylvester isn't really Sylvester, but this is still a Decent cartoon.

[lukeneedssand · 6/10 · 28 June 2021]

This Arthur Davis Cartoon is a little strange, but I actually think it is a pretty fine cartoon, and I wish people would talk about this one a little more. For some reason this Cartoon's animation style (at least through the quality that it unfortunately only has at this moment) Looks very 70's Tv special quality. I like the design of all the Characters, and this Sylvester off-model I actually like a little bit Then the normal Sylvester. I liked this cartoon, and some moments nail, and some moments don't nail, and thats ok. I like the Bing Crawsby Parrot, (he had potential to be a recurring character) and The Drastically underfed caged Frank Sinatra Bird is sometimes a little pitiful to look at but thankfully isn't given too much Screentime.

Cons are definitely the weak story and slower pace than other cartoons in this era, but The Pros definitely outweigh the cons.

6.5/10.

A couple of crooning birds give Sylvester Cat fits . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 15 October 2017]

. . . in another clairvoyant parable aimed at We Americans of (The Then) Far Future by Warner Bros.' Animated Shorts Seers division (aka, The Looney Tuners) during CATCH AS CATS CAN. There are three characters in CATCH AS CATS CAN: a thin canary referred to by a briefly-seen swooning chorus as "Frankie" (that is, a Frank Sinatra stand-in for this brief cartoon's contemporary audience), a pipe-smoking parrot voiced along the lines of Bing Crosby, and Sylvester Cat. Throughout this cartoon a jealous Bing tries to convince Sylvester to do his own dirty work by eating Frank, but Bing ends up the bird getting Et in the End. Many if not most Americans of Today's Troubled Times will immediately recognize the Bing Parrot as America's Modern-Day Iago, Red Commie KGB Chief Vlad "The Mad Russian" Putin. Bing Putin puts Sylvester Cat up to back-firing attack after attack upon Frankie. Sylvester Cat primarily is serving here to symbolize Putin's White House Sock-Puppet-in-Chief Don Juan Rump, all of whose Putin-inspired follies (the Great Wall of Rump, the Genocidal Elimination of ObamaCare, the Rampant Oil-Fracking Earthquakes, allowing Big Coal to snuff out the U.S. Asthmatic Population, military assault rifle-toting millionaires machine-gunning the Common Man, Putin's stolen SCOTUS seat for Justice SnoreMuch, a modern Handmaid's Tale of Forced-Birthing, and so forth) is aptly acted out by Sylvester Rump's disastrous interactions with Frankie, the Canary in America's current benighted Coal Mine. When Sylvester finally eats Bing Putin, Warner Bros.' cartoon prognosticators are warning us of the inevitable nuclear exchange when China's "Little Rocket Man" stalking horse Kim serves as Sylvester Rump's Tar Baby, drawing return fire from Hench Nations as Russia AND China. Stay tuned for any Apocalyptic Post-Armageddon developments.

Amusing action with funny spoof characters

[bob the moo · 11 January 2004]

A gentle voiced bird who sounds like Frank Sinatra is starting to grate on a less popular bird who sounds like Bing Crosby. So when Bing spies Sylvester the cat eating out of a bin in the yard, he hatches a plan to get rid of Frank in one go. He tells Sylvester that he needs vitamins for a healthy diet and that the easiest way to get it is to eat Frank.

The plot here is basically Sylvester doing his usual stuff to try and get the bird. The routines are pretty basic and there really isn't enough of it to be consistently funny. What it does instead is to concentrate on the characters and get laughs from them. This applies to both the birds who are very funny spoofs of Sinatra and Crosby. Both birds are spot on and are funny just because they are the famous characters.

This character work didn't extend to Sylvester sadly, and he is pretty poor and barely resembles his usual self in terms of both sound of his voice or his appearance. He does OK but he isn't as good as he is when he is himself as normal. The birds do reasonably well and are funny but the film would have benefited from them having more jokes and not just relying on the lampoon of famous singers.

Overall this is a funny short that lacks consistent laughs but will be enjoyed for the famous birds rather than an overwhelming flood of gags.