Peck Up Your Troubles

Peck Up Your Troubles is a 1945 Merrie Melodies, silent animated short featuring Sylvester directed by Friz Freleng. It was reissued in 1951 about 6 years after its release date. Like most reissued Merrie Melodies at the time, the original closing card was kept.

This is Sylvester's second appearance. In this cartoon, he is coloured a little differently to his classic black and white colouring - here he is black and light grey.

This is the first appearance of Hector the Bulldog. However, a dog with the same appearance, Butch, appears in a 1944 short Birdy and the Beast.

Plot
Sylvester is determined to get a woodpecker that just moved in, high in a tree. He climbs, but the bird greases the tree; he starts to cut it down, but a mean dog stops him (this becomes a running gag). Several other attempts follow; at one point, he puts his paw into the bird's home, and the bird puts a tomato there; Sylvester squishes it, and the bird dresses as an angel to torment him, but Sylvester sees through the disguise. Finally, Sylvester tries to blow up the tree; the dog again intervenes. Sylvester gets the dynamite off the tree and puts out the fuses, but the bird has lit them again, and now Sylvester really becomes an angel.

Censorship

 * On Cartoon Network, the part where Sylvester holds the gun to his head and attempts to shoot himself after the "angel" woodpecker gives him the gun (only for Sylvester to realize he's been duped and blast the woodpecker in the rear end) was cut.