The Jet Cage (Looney Tunes)

The Jet Cage (episode 906)
The short that started the downfall of classic era Looney Tunes.
Directed by: Friz Freleng Written by: Friz Freleng Release date: September 22, 1962 Franchise: Looney Tunes Prequel: "Honey's Money" (previous short) Sequel: "Mother Was a Rooster" (next short)

The Jet Cage is a 1962 Looney Tunes short directed by Friz Freleng. In this short, Tweety obtains a jet-propelled cage to fly around outside, but Sylvester wants to eat Tweety even if the cage will prevent him from doing so. It is considered one of the weakest Tweety shorts, alongside "Tweet Dreams", "Trip for Tat", and "Hawaiian Aye Aye".

Bad Qualities

1. Milt Franklyn died while composing the music score for this cartoon, and as a result, the rest of the cartoon (from when Sylvester tries to catch Tweety via a net to the end) had to be scored by William Lava. William Lava's score is ill-fitting, atonal, and shows very little to no attempt to imitate Franklyn's music in the earlier portions of the short.
2. Rough animation compared to the other cartoons of the time, even though the colors aren't washed out.
3. Almost all of the gags in the cartoon are those reused from Freleng's past work, making them too easy to predict.
4. Very slow pacing; there are only five gags in this short, even though most earlier Sylvester and Tweety shorts often have more or have wittier gags to make up for the ones that take longer.
5. The short starts to see the downfall of the classic era of Looney Tunes, as gags start to become more tired and the music score from William Lava and animation start to become cheaper.
6. While Mel Blanc is great, for some reason he phones it in as both Sylvester and Tweety, as his voice-over performance for both characters sound kind of bored and slow (though it's likely due to the car accident Blanc had in January 1961).

Good Qualities

1. The idea of Sylvester attempting to catch Tweety that is flying in a jet-propelled cage is a decent concept, albeit executed poorly.
2. Mel Blanc and June Foray both do a great job voicing the characters, as always, despite the former sounding bored.
3. Some funny moments, such as Sylvester falling to the ground in a style resemblant of Wile E. Coyote.
4. The musical score from the title card to the scene of Tweety flying outside is still scored by Milt Franklyn and sounds better than the rest of the cartoon.
   • Likewise, some of William Lava's music can be fitting too, such as the entire nike rocket scene.
5. We somewhat get to find out more about Tweety's life as a pet canary to Granny in this cartoon as opposed to just a being a bird that does nothing but just sit around in his cage most of the time, such as at the beginning scene where Tweety wants to fly freely like other birds but couldn't do so by Granny because of his safety as Sylvester is always constantly lurking out to eat him.
6. Granny, Sylvester and Tweety are still like likeable characters.

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