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How Looney Tunes almost lost their first Oscar
The story of the first pairing of Tweety and Sylvester.
The cartoon that won Warner Bros. their first Academy was almost scrapped.
The year was 1945, director Friz Freleng was twenty years into his animation career and fifteen years into his tenure at Termite Terrace. As a Looney Tunes animator, he created Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester the Cat, and many other classic Looney Tunes characters. Of the five Academy Awards won by Looney Tunes, four of them were directed by Freleng. He had thrived under the production and leadership of Leon Schlesinger, who gave Freleng and the other directors complete creative control over their cartoons. Schlesinger's hands-off approach allowed the animators the freedom to experiment with comedy styles, animation techniques, and comedy timing. But then everything changed in 1944 when Leon Schlesinger retired and sold his company to Warner Bros. The animation team at Termite Terrace officially became the Warner Bros. Cartoons Studio - and they had a new boss.
Edward Selzer was appointed by Jack Warner himself to lead the cartoons studio. Selzer did not come from a cartoon background, but then again neither did Schlesinger. Taking leadership inspiration from Warner, Selzer started asking the animators for scripts before a cartoon could go into production. Animator Chuck Jones described the tense situation as "In his twelve-year tenure it never became apparent to his mouse-like brain that there were no scripts for animated cartoons...So, for those twelve dreadful years of his reign, he demanded the impossible: the sort of man, said one writer, who makes his way through life like an untipped waiter." This certainly sounds harsh, but after experiencing total freedom under Leon Schlesinger, working for Selzer was frustrating for the animators at Termite Terrace. The tension continued until 1945 when Bob Clampett, a Looney Tunes animator and creator of Tweety Bird, left the studio due to artistic differences. Sources disagree if he was fired by Selzer or if he left on his own accord, but he left behind several incomplete Tweety shorts. Many of Clampett's storyboards were scrapped, but one "Fat Rat and the Stupid Cat" showed early brainstorming of a Tweety and Sylvester collaboration. In Clampett's absence, Friz Freleng adopted the character Tweety and redesigned him into the cute, yellow canary we know today.
Excited by the opportunity to use Tweety, Freleng paired Clampett's yellow bird with his character, Sylvester the Cat, for a new short called "Tweetie Pie". With a newly designed Tweety, the project was sure to be a hit. Before production began, Selzer rejected the cartoon. He thought using Tweety was impractical and pairing Tweety with Sylvester wasn't a guarenteed hit. Selzer insisted that instead of Tweety, they pair Sylvester with a woodpecker, going so far as to say "Oh no, that woodpecker is the whole show,". Sylvester had appeared in other cartoons with this unnamed woodpecker, but with Clampett gone, Freleng saw a lot of potential in Tweety as a strong character. According to Freleng in his documentary, Friz on Film, Freleng told Selzer "Since you've been here six months and I've been here 15 years, and you know more than I do: here. You do it," and placed his drawing pencil on Selzer's desk. Freleng walked out, presumably about to leave the studio forever.
According to Freleng, he knew Selzer was going to chase him because he could not let Freleng go. Faced with losing one of the strongest animators and builder of the Looney Tunes series, Selzer had to cave. He called Freleng, apologized, and told him he could he could do the cartoon the way he wanted to, with Tweety. Freleng went into production with "Tweetie Pie" and later on it was nominated for and won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. After Shirly Temple announced the winner, Selzer accepted the Oscar and gave the speech saying "In accepting this award, I'm naturally thrilled, but I accept it for the entire Warner Bros. Cartoon Studio... However, the one man who really should be up here getting this award and not me, is the director of the picture, Friz Freleng, who is in the audience. I can't pay him too great a tribute. Thank you." Which is a very nice speech if Selzer didn't take Freleng's award home and hold onto it until he died! Freleng inherited the Oscar - for the movie he directed - from Selzer in 1970.
While Selzer's humorless skepticism nearly ruined an Academy Award winning cartoon, his pushback gave the animators at Termite Terrace inspiration to prove him wrong. Every time Selzer said something wasn't funny, like bullfighting or camels or even the Tasmanian Devil; Freleng and his fellow animators would create a cartoon that argued the opposite. Despite Selzer's tense relationship with the animators, we have him to thank for "Bully for Bugs", "Sahara Hare", and, the cartoon he almost killed, "Tweetie Pie".
