It's Hummer Time (1950) User Reviews

hummer time, when the living is queasy

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 3 March 2007]

Maybe I would have liked "It's Hummer Time" more had they cast Sylvester and Tweety. Still, the hummingbird and anonymous cat do some neat things. The cat keeps trying to catch the hummingbird, but always awakens a nearby bulldog, who proceeds to put the feline through increasingly nasty punishment. But the bird turns out not to be quite what he seems.

I think that the best part was "The Thinker". Like the "books come to life" series and the Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd pairing "What's Opera, Doc?", it exposes children to high culture. All in all, this cartoon is worth seeing, if only once. Available on the Looney Tunes website.

Back in America's Innocent Daze . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 27 May 2016]

. . . under Haberdashing President Harry, IT'S HUMMER TIME could be used as the title of a kiddie cartoon, rather than the grabber for a live-action pornographic feature flick. Though this Warner Bros. animated short includes a brief spat between the Birds & the Bees, it mostly deals with the fowl machinations of a devious winged nut who hums too much. This feathered fiend is keen to set his neighborhood's mammals at loggerheads, as he tries to buzz through pretty much every ditty in Warner's 1950 Song Catalog in about seven minutes. (My Grandpa told me about reading a novel by Clifford Irving titled THE SEVEN MINUTES when he was in College during the Free Love Era, but I cannot remember it having much to do with hummingbirds.) Art critics have long questioned how sculptor Julius Rodin churned out so many weighty objects during his career. IT'S HUMMER TIME suggests that there may well have been a cement mixer involved. Rodin's THE THINKER was the Motor City's main Object of Art before Detroit got Fisted, thanks to Joe Louis.

It's amazing that Warner Bros. cats are NOT drawn as stick . . .

[pixrox1 · 6/10 · 24 October 2021]

. . . figures, like many if not most of the animals in the early Dizzy Corporation cartoons, given how often they seem to be thwarted on-screen in chowing down on typical feline fare. During IT'S HUMMER TIME, the kitty is totally stymied by a mean bulldog in his natural desire to consume the title food. Perhaps Sylvester and company are allowed to pig out off camera, bolting as many chicken nuggets as their screen-famished tummies can contain.

Great Tweety and Sylvester parody from McKimson

[carryall · 10/10 · 10 September 2007]

It's Hummer Time (1950) is one of the best shorts directed by the heavily criticized Robert McKimson. It features an unnamed cat who tries to catch a little, but very clever hummingbird, and often runs into a vicious and sadistic bulldog who bullies him in various ways. The cartoon is often remembered by the popular quotes of the cat "No, not happy birthday" or "No, please, not the Thiiinker", and its reference to Tweety "I Tought I taw a Puddy Tat".

Why I think this is an excellent cartoon is the great timing and the musicality which rarely can be seen in McKimson's filmography. I always thought his shorts from 1950 (along with other great ones like "A Fractured Leghorn", "Hillbilly Hare", "Boobs in the Woods", "What's Up Doc?" or "Dog Collared") are the peak of his career as a director, and it's too bad he started to slump after this year with losing Warren Foster, his story-writer.

The cartoon itself seems to be a Tweety parody, and the whole thing is done in Friz Freleng's style. There are a lot of scores here: "Ain't we got fun", "I'm looking over a four leaf clover" or Raymond Scott's popular "Powerhouse" and many others. The timing is very precise, it made even the weaker gags better, and I was rather satisfied with the ending. The hummingbird itself is very much like the early clampettish Tweety, that's another strong point.

I'm a bit baffled why this cartoon haven't been added to the Golden Collections yet (much better than its weak and unfunny successor "Early to Bet" which was on the 1st volume), but maybe next time. Recommended to watch it on the Looney Tunes website.

10/10

Stop........ Hummer Time!

[phantom_tollbooth · 9/10 · 22 April 2009]

Robert McKimson's 'It's Hummer Time' is a gorgeous and extremely inventive cartoon that expands on the usual bird-cat-dog chase formula by incorporating sadistically pre-prepared punishments on the dog's part. Like many Spring/Summer based cartoons ('Swallow the Leader', 'Springtime for Thomas' to name but two), 'It's Hummer Time' is beautiful to look at, filled with uplifting bright colours. The plot pushes the whole thing into the realms of the classic as predictable spot gags are hysterically punctuated with unpredictable follow-ups in which the insistent dog drags the cat kicking and screaming to punishments that have been carried out so frequently in the past that the cat has named them all ("Oh no, not the thinker!"). There's also a pleasingly cyclical nature to the plot in which the cat begins and ends the cartoon as a bird bath. 'It's Hummer Time' was remade the following year as the infinitely inferior, over-complicated 'Early to Bet' which comes nowhere near recapturing the magic of this unique cartoon.

The cat and the hummingbird in a Robert McKimson classic

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 26 June 2013]

Robert McKimson's cartoons are always entertaining to watch, and when they are on top form they positively deliver. It's Hummer Time is one of his cartoons that I've always enjoyed the most. The animation is bright and colourful with everything lovingly drawn and careful in detail. The music adds so much character to everything and like the best of the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons have a sense of humour of their own. As well as being energetic and characterful, it is also lovely music to listen to. The writing is deliciously manic with lots of freshness and wit, and the inventive and cleverly timed gags match perfectly. The "thinker" sequence with the bulldog is comedy gold. The story is simple but thanks to the zippy pace it is never dull, and it is nice to do something a little different with an idea that would easily pass for a cartoon with Sylvester and Tweety and sort of parody it also. The characters are not among Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies' most memorable but they are huge fun to watch and all have moments to shine. Mel Blanc's vocal characterisations as always are spot on. So overall, colourful and immensely enjoyable, one of McKimson's best and like McKimson perhaps undervalued(especially when compared to the best work of the more revered animation directors Jones, Clampett and Freleng, all geniuses in their own right). 10/10 Bethany Cox

"Ooooh, I HATE that!"

[slymusic · 10 September 2010]

Directed by Robert McKimson, with a fine music score by Carl W. Stalling, "It's Hummer Time" is a fun Warner Brothers cartoon about a griping feline's travails in attempting to catch a hummingbird. A bulldog gets into the act, and I won't reveal much more than that.

My favorite highlights include the dog's hilarious "I tawt I taw a putty tat!"; the "Happy Birthday" punishment; and "The Works", in which the dog finally gets his comeuppance as he and the cat get dragged all over hell's half-acre.

Among all the wonderful popular songs that I recognize in "It's Hummer Time" are "I'm Looking over a Four-Leaf Clover", "Powerhouse", "By a Waterfall", "Baby Face", "Teddy Bears' Picnic", and "Ain't We Got Fun". So you see, when you watch these classic Warner Bros. cartoons, especially those with music scores by Carl Stalling, it's really fun to be able to listen and pick out various melodies you may recognize.

I hate this cartoon.

[colbj-49411 · 1/10 · 29 May 2018]

As a young child Looney Tunes was on every day at 5pm. I rarely missed it.

However, there were a few cartoons from WB that I really disliked. At the top of that short list was 'It's Hummer Time'. If it came on I'd either leave the room, or change the channel.

As with most of the cartoons made from this period, it's wonderfully animated and beautifully scored. The problem is the disturbing storyline between the dog, cat and hummingbird.

A dim-witted cat, pursuing a smart a** hummingbird, disturbs the rest of a large aggressive bulldog. In most cartoons the bulldog would simply belt the cat for this indignity and that would be it. Not in this case.

To the tune of a rather appropriate choice of angry and aggressive music called 'Powerhouse', he drags the cat, who screams for mercy, to an elaborate torture sequence. The cat then blithely accepts his sadistic fate.

Maybe this would be ok if it happened just once, but it happens several times, as the Hummingbird tries and succeeds in getting the cat in continual trouble with the dog. Eventually the bird get the best of the cat and dog and the cartoon ends. How hilarious.

Like most rational people you'd be happy to see the bird, clearly a nasty sociopath with no redeeming qualities, turned into a bird pie. Unfortunately, this doesn't eventuate.

I can only conclude that the main writer thought that senseless violence, no matter its form, is always funny. Well, it isn't.