Back Alley Oproar

Summary

Elmer is ready for bedtime, but Sylvester has other plans as he starts singing in Elmer's back yard. A series of gags play out, as Elmer tries everything up his sleeve to get rid of that unwanted pest. Elmer eventually confronts Sylvester, but before Elmer can blast him with his shotgun, Sylvester sings a sweet, gentle lullaby to ease him into a deep sleep. However, this doesn't last, and the insanity continues.

Elmer eventually gets defeated from explosives from his attempts to get rid of Sylvester. His spirit ends up in Heaven, on a cloud ascending into space. Momentarily he thinks he will finally get some peace and quiet. However, the spirits of Sylvester's nine lives ascend around him, with the male and female cloned ones following them, each with a numeral on its back, singing in a multi-nonet from "Lucia di Lammermoor", with their voices. Just after one of the cat spirits steals his halo, Elmer's spirit dives off his cloud and a crash is heard off-screen.

Production

The cartoon is a remake of Notes to You (1941), a Looney Tunes short that was also directed by Freleng. It has a similar plot, although the ending of the original doesn't have the characters die from an explosion (instead, the cat dies from getting shot, and returns as nine singing angels), and the roles of Elmer and Sylvester were taken by Porky Pig and an unnamed alley cat (the latter bearing a striking resemblance to the cat from Bob Clampett's The Hep Cat), respectively. Back Alley Oproar is one of the very few shorts in which Sylvester "wins out" over another character, albeit at the presumed cost of his life.

At the end, the singing is made up of by what seems like three voices (in order of most prominent to least prominent): Blanc's voice, the female voice from earlier, and a deep voice.

Release

This cartoon was reissued with new Blue Ribbon opening titles and shown that way on television for many years. It was restored with original opening and credits (as the original closing title was kept in the reissue) for the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 2 DVD and Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, uncut and uncensored.