Life with Feathers
Life with Feathers is a 1945 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short film directed by Friz Freleng.[1] The short was released on March 24, 1945, and was the first cartoon to feature Sylvester the Cat.[2]
| Life with Feathers | |
|---|---|
 Lobby card for Life with Feathers. | |
| Directed by | I. Freleng |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer (uncredited) |
| Story by | Tedd Pierce |
| Starring | Mel Blanc |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
| Animation by | |
| Distributed by |
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Release date |
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Running time | 7:41 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The title is a play on the longest-running non-musical play on Broadway, Life with Father (the title being the only connection between the two works). Warner Bros. would produce a film version in 1947.
Plot
A lovebird decides to commit suicide after his wife kicks him out of their nest and gets a cat named Sylvester to eat him, but he thinks the bird is poisonous and refuses to eat him. For the rest of the cartoon, the lovebird attempts to get Sylvester to eat him many times. The cartoon ends with the lovebird getting a telegram saying his wife is moving out, so he escapes from Sylvester in order to keep himself from being eaten. When he gets home, he finds out she has decided to stay, and he starts looking for the Sylvester again in order to get himself eaten.
Availability
- VHS - Cartoon Moviestars: Tweety and Sylvester
- LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 1, Side 2: Firsts.
- VHS - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vol. 2: Firsts
- Blu-Ray, DVD - Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3, Disc 2.
Notes
- "Life with Feathers" featured the first appearance of Sylvester. Sylvester would appear in 102 more shorts in the Golden Age.
- "Life with Feathers" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Trivia
- This cartoon was re-released into the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies program on March 3, 1951. Like most reissued Merrie Melodies at the time, the original closing bullet titles were kept.
- This was the last cartoon to use the 1941–1945 opening rendition of Merrily We Roll Along and the last non-Bugs Bunny cartoon to have "WARNER BROS. PICTURES INC." and "Present" fade in after the WB shield zooms in. As such, the opening themes would be shortened, but the ending rendition still remained unchanged for another ten years.
- In 1951, Chuck Jones reused a similar concept for Hubie & Bertie's final cartoon Cheese Chasers.
- In the American and European Turner "dubbed versions" (and presumably other TV prints), Sylvester has black fur (similar to his current appearance). The restored version on Blu-Ray/DVD shows that Sylvester originally had a lighter bluish-black fur.
References
- Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 159. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
- Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 140–142. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
