King-Size Canary
King-Size Canary
| 06 December 1947 (USA)
King-Size Canary Trailers

A hungry cat has the idea of giving "Jumbo Gro" fertilizer to a scrawny canary to make him a bigger meal, which leads to a race between the cat, the canary, a dog, and a mouse to see who can grow the biggest.

Reviews
ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "King-Size Canary" is certainly among the most famous cartoons by Tex Avery and also among the most famous from the 1940s. This one here is about a starving cat who finds a growth elixir and gives it to the chicken he is about to eat. Unfortunately, it grows a bit more then expected. So the cat takes some as well and relations are fine again? Or are they really? Things become even more mayhem when a dog and mouse come into play, also with altered sizes. The joke is very much the same for these 7 minutes and it's not too groundbreaking in any way in my opinion, but still it was a decent watch. Nonetheless I must say that Avery cartoons lack something in terms of heart and recognition value compared to Disney's and Warner Bros's finest. All in all, recommended, but not a must-see by any means.
raykeller Tex Avery, IMHO, is probably hands-down the best at his craft. Current stuff -- just that, stuff. The closest I've seen of recent work would have to be the four Roger Rabbit/Baby Herman cartoons (including the short that opened the film, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?").This simple premise -- starving cat & undersized intended snack -- is complicated by a miraculous growth fertilizer and spirals rapidly out of control to a completely ridiculous conclusion.I was lucky enough to own the box-set of laserdiscs which included every cartoon Tex Avery made for MGM, and I would have paid three times what I did for it. Although this particular cartoon wasn't my favorite (I might have to lean toward one of the two versions of "Northwest Hounded Police" in which double-takes and eyeball gags are elevated to an art form), it was certainly in the upper levels. Another high-ranking short: "Bad Luck Blackie", in which a black cat simply struts in front of a surprisingly vicious bulldog to bring him instant -- and potentially lethal -- bad luck.Try to see these shorts unedited, not the hacked 'politically correct' versions being shown on some cable cartoon shows. Absolutely the best animation for sheer hilarity that has ever been committed to celluloid.
Robert Reynolds While I do not personally think this is Avery's best cartoon (that honor goes to The Legend of Rockabye Point) and this one is also not among my personal favorites, this is the ultimate in Tex Avery cartoons. Everything Avery strived to do is here-he loved taking a quasi-normal situation, tossing in a random, improbable element or three and then piling sight gag after sight gag, each one more outlandish than the ones before. The jokes are all sight gags. What dialogue there is is generally there as necessary for set-up and only one or two lines are even mildly funny. Just sight gags, as far as the eye can see, fast enough to register, but so fast that you almost don't have time to breathe because you're laughing so hard. This one makes you want to do things like hang spoons from your nose! Wildly silly and unforgettable, truly a masterpiece. This is a great cartoon! It worked 55 years ago and it works today. You have to see this one. Most highly recommended.
Ted Watson (tbrittreid) Of Tex Avery's three masterpieces, "King-Size Canary" is the best of the lot. (In case you're wondering, the other two are "Who Killed Who?" and "Red Hot Riding Hood," both 1943.) This has to be seen to be believed, let alone appreciated. I once tried to describe it to a friend, one who admitted affection for Chuck Jones' Bugs/Daffy/Elmer hunting trilogy from Warner Bros., and failed miserably to do it justice. The insanity builds from a merely amusing opening to a mind-boggling yet inevitable finale, an image that will stay with you for some time after the fade-out.