Feelings on The Dogfather cartoons were a very mixed bag as a child, they had their moments but DePatie-Freleng Enterprises did far better and far more memorable theatrical series. Decided to watch all the cartoons to see out of curiosity how well they stood up by young adult standards, whether they would be better on rewatch, the same or worse. Some of DePatie-Freleng Enterprises' theatrical series were good, some were mediocre at best or in one case bad.
Actually really liked the premise for 'Watch the Birdie', the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde scenario has been done in animation numerous times and often extremely well. What did dampen my expectations was, as well as not caring for any of the previous Dogfather cartoons, the return of the obnoxious Charlie the Singer introduced in the very mediocre 'Devilled Yeggs'. 'Watch the Birdie' is not quite one of the worst Dogfather cartoons, but it was one of the ones with the most potential and turned out unfortunately to be one of the biggest wastes.
'Watch the Birdie' wasn't all bad. Bob Holt is good fun as both Dogfather and Pug, his mix of Don Corleone and Columbo in his voicing of the former was inspired. Dogfather has some amusing lines.
There were a couple of amusing moments, the best one being Dogfather's reaction to being kissed by Pug. The ending was also quite amusing. The music fits well and the theme song is catchy.
Unfortunately, a lot of things are not good. Charlie the Singer is a very limited character in personality, his role in the cartoon is repetitive and is very obnoxious rather than funny. Reminding me a little of Crazylegs Crane's son. Pug also has very little to do, with all his material being late-50s-early-60s Looney Tunes but rehashed and none of it being imaginative or particularly funny. Frank Welker is one of my favourite voice actors, but his voice work as Charlie will never go down in history as one of his finest hours and that is being extremely generous.
Excepting a few good moments, very little of 'Watch the Birdie' is funny and nothing is imaginative or inspired, basically stale retreads of already long stale gags and there is little variety. Really liked the idea but very little is done with it in a very thin and predictable story that takes ages to get started. And only half of the cartoon is dedicated to the scenario in a rather derivative and energy-deprived version of the infinitely superior Sylvester and Tweety cartoon 'Hyde and Go Tweet'.
In conclusion, mediocre. 4/10.
