Tugboat Granny


Tugboat Granny is a 1956 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon animated short directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on June 23, 1956, and stars Tweety and Sylvester.
The voices were performed by Mel Blanc and June Foray.
The cartoon's title is a play on Tugboat Annie, and is the only cartoon in the Warner Bros. series to bear Granny's name.
It joined Guided Muscle and The Grey Hounded Hare as the cartoons featured on the final episode of ABC's The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show on September 2, 2000.

Plot

In the opening scene, Granny and Tweety are happily piloting a tugboat in a harbor, singing a kiddie-song duet about the carefree joys of their activity. It is the only scene in which Granny appears, as the rest of the cartoon is devoted to Sylvester's latest attempts to catch and eat Tweety, which begins when, after failing to grab a fish by hiding in a fisherman's basket, he sees the boat carrying the canary chug past.
Sylvester's attempts, all unsuccessful, include the following:
  • Using a wooden rowboat to get to the tug. Tweety drops anchor in the boat's hull, sinking Sylvester.
  • Using an inflatable raft, which is deflated by a dart thrown by Tweety, sinking Sylvester once again.
  • Attempting to jump off a bridge, which is mistimed, as Sylvester lands inside the smokestack, leaving him frantically trying to put out his now-on fire backside.
  • A follow-up attempt from another bridge to parachute onto the boat's deck results in a jammed pack, which only opens after Sylvester sinks to the bottom of the river. He subsequently uses a pipe as a snorkel to walk on the sea floor to the boat. Unfortunately, a seagull finds Sylvester's pipe the perfect resting place, blocking the airway making Sylvester unable to breathe and turning him blue; gasping for air the cat rushes back to shore, he starts panting and finds the seagull laid an egg in his mouth. The frightened seagull flees as Sylvester angrily throws the egg at it; the gull catches it and hits Sylvester in the face with it.
  • Driving a motorboat, but Sylvester instead goes into the rapids and over a waterfall. All the time, the motor fails to start and when it does, Sylvester pounds it to submission.
  • A lasso, which instead grabs the antenna of a speedboat. Sylvester decides to show off several waterskiing tricks... until the inattentive puddy smashes into a pole. As he floats upside-down, a fish gurgles Tweety's signature line: "I tawt I taw a puddy tat." The cartoon ends just after Sylvester fails to grab the fish.