From LOONEY TUNES # 36 (Whitman Comics, Cover Date: February, 1981) comes a little hidden gem!
Tweety and Sylvester "The Teeny Genie" 4 pages. Written by Vic Lockman and penciled by Pete Alvarado.
As you might imagine from the opening splash panel, Tweety pulls a "genie hoax" on Sylvester. Check out this sequence where:
A: Tweety writes a note just as he speaks! ("wub", "wish-gwanting", "yours twuly")
B: The unknown colorist uses the same shade of green for Sylvester's eyes - AND the panel background, giving the puddy-tat's skull a "see-through look"!
Aw, heck... This story is so short - and there's absolutely no chance of it ever being reprinted anywhere - that I might as well give you the whole thing!
Honestly, as things stand, couldn't we ALL use a little more Tweety and Sylvester in our days?
CLICK TO ENLARGE!
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4 comments:
A fun little story. Thanks for sharing, Joe. I'm struck by the fact that Sylvester didn't address the "genie" as Guv'nor. Didn't he have a penchant for calling people "Guv'nor" in the comics? Or was this practice abandoned by the time this story was published? I wonder why and how Sylvester ever used that word in the first place. I can't imagine that the writers of the comic books hadn't seen at least a few Sylvester cartoons...
Sergio
That “elegant and eccentric vagabond” persona of Sylvester’s (which I very much enjoyed and was on full display in some great stories like THIS) had been phased out in the Dell Comics by the mid-late 1950s, in favor of a more prosaic scheming and fall-guy character in better line with his screen character.
Oddly, as I distinctly recall because, at the time, I was cutting them out and saving them (and, alas, don’t still have them today) that unusual characterization lasted into the late 1960s-early 1970s in the syndicated Bugs Bunny newspaper comic strip. This version of the strip was never even reprinted as spot filler gags in the Dell/Gold Key/Whitman comics – and the later DC version would (as expected) only run more contemporary examples of the strip that better reflected the characters as done by Freleng, Jones, and McKimson.
Another semi-oddity of that older version of the strip is that it was SIGNED by its writer and artist – the first time I ever saw NAMES of anyone associated with any comics version of Bugs Bunny! The artist was Ralph Heimdahl who did many, many covers for the BUGS BUNNY, PORKY PIG, and DELL LOONEY TUNES titles (and occasional interior art as well). The writer was a man named Al Stofffel (1909-2002 – and amazing that I still remember that!)
It is possible that Stofffel may have written some (or most) of the Dell/Western comic stories where Sylvester was an (…all together now) “elegant and eccentric vagabond” and perpetuated that persona through his long run on writing the Bugs Bunny newspaper strip.
Just one more thing we’ll never know for certain…
What? No Christmas? Oh, well, I suppose by a stretch of the imagination since Scrooge as a boy read the Arabian Nights while he was stuck at school for the holidays, the genie motif can work as a Christmas motif! But this puts me in mind of a Snagglepuss story which I can't locate, but which seemed to involve an encounter with a "real" teeny (though I think it was used more in the sense of teenager) genie. Anyway, the story is quite predictable but enjoyable, just like many of the Looney Tunes cartoons.
One hilarious factor in the "Sylvester tries to eat Tweety" scenarios is that Tweety would make one bite for a ravenous cat--and then what? He would have to go in quest of another little bird to satisfy his second bite. Similar situation to Yakky Doodle--if Fibber Fox or Alfy Gator or any of the other villains ever got their gourmet tastes satisfied with this obviously tempting morsel of duck, the gastronomic delight would last for ONE mouthful! And then where would the villain be? Back to looking for another duck dinner elsewhere! Leaving Hanna and Barbera to scramble for another headliner! And Chopper to look for another co-star! Of course if Sylvester or the other nasties ever stopped to think about this, that would end the Tweety & Sylvester franchise! Or the Yakky Doodle franchise!
I wanted to add to the comment about the "gentlemanly" Sylvester of the comics. Did this version of Sylvester not primarily appear in the non-predatory stories in which he costarred with Porky Pig or Bugs Bunny? The "guv'nor" thing was more of an affectation when he was interacting with his pals, and not so much when he was fixated on catching up to that one bite of yellow bird. I suppose I did think it was odd when I encountered it as a kid, but in them days I pretty much swallowed everything that was dished out, and didn't stop to consider such things as consistency of character. I guess to my way of thinking, if a character was drawn the same way, it was the same character regardless of whatever affectation he/she might put on. Or even if it was an early prototype, it was the same deal. If the character was the same character, it was consistent simply by being the same character. Acting in character was not necessarily required. (Except for one comic book story I recall where Chopper revealed that he hated Yakky and only saved him because he felt a sort of moral obligation. That was a bit much for my young mind to comprehend!) But as far as Sylvester was concerned, I didn't have much of a problem with whether he said "guv'nor" to his friends or was trying to catch Tweety. BTW, Merry Christmas!
Scarecrow: (you write):
“What? No Christmas?”
However, when we are discussing LOONEY TUNES, shouldn’t it be “What? No GRAVY?” But, per the ending of that great Chuck Jones cartoon, “THIS TIME we didn’t forget the GRAVY!”
…And “THIS TIME we didn’t forget CHRISTMAS!” There’s still plenty of time left for festive… um, festive… uh… festivities! Yeah, that’s it… festivities! Why, I’ll bet many of us are not even through with our shopping yet! Check back as we get closer to the joyous day… and you’ll find something… um, something … uh… joyous! Yeah, that’s it… joyous! …It’s not as if you’d catch ME napping under that… um, festive… and joyous ol’ tree!
Sometimes just a little bite of something delectable can be quite satisfying, but, yes… like me (glutton that I am), I suspect Sylvester and Fibber Fox would hunger for more. Alfy Gator, on the other hand, is a noted gourmet and is no doubt used to fancy foods in microscopic portions. After cleansing his palate with sparkling water, he probably maintains his rotund physique (note that Sylvester and Fibber are on the thin side) by gorging himself on MacDougals, or Burger Tsar when he’s off camera.
In comic books, the eloquent vagabond version of Sylvester was indeed mostly, if not completely, limited to earlier stories – mostly of the adventure genre with Porky Pig or Bugs Bunny. And, sorry if I didn’t make that clear above.
When paired with Tweety, he was more of his normal self. Usually a domesticated house pet of Granny’s living under the same roof with Tweety! He never said “guv’nor”… he probably never even VOTED for governor!
But, if you grew up with the older version of the Bugs Bunny newspaper comic strip as I did, the lines were a bit more blurred because that was exactly who he was in the strip… and in the concurrent Gold Key mid-sixties reprints of many of those early Dell stories.
Looking back on it, that Bugs Bunny comic strip was an unusual affair in that it did not include Tweety (perhaps to better lock-in Sylvester’s affectation?), or Daffy Duck, or Yosemite Sam, or the Tasmanian Devil. or many other familiar fixtures of Looney Tunedom. It’s cast was limited to Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, Cicero Pig… and, of course, the goodly guv’nor himself, Sylvester. Kinda suspended in the period of those early Dell stories that you and I so fondly remember.
But I must mention ONE STORY where that lost-to-time characterization of Sylvester broke through long after it had been retired from comic books… PORKY PIG #19 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: August, 1968)!
In the one new story in the book (the rest were reprints), “The Last of the Big Spongers”, the “old Sylvester” made a short-lived comeback in a story that was new to 1968!
Here’s what I wrote in the NOTES section of the index for GCD: “New story. In this story, Sylvester is characterized as an “eloquent vagabond”, as he was in the Bugs Bunny newspaper comic strip of the late 1960s, and in many of the late 1940s-early 1950s Dell Comics stories that starred Porky Pig or Bugs Bunny.” You can check out the whole index HERE!
Funny thing is that, at that time in 1968, I was also reading the Bugs Bunny newspaper strip and so its reemergence seemed not the least bit odd to me!
Mark Evanier may also have brushed-up against that characterization (while not fully embracing it) when he was writing the various Warner Bros. Gold Key/Whitman titles in the mid-1970s. Back when he introduced Sylvester’s Stan-Laurel-lookalike cousin “Clovis”!
BTW, Merry Christmas to you, too, guv’nor!
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