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Life with Feathers is a 1945 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng.

Title[]

The title is a pun on the 1935 book and 1939 play Life with Father.

Plot[]

A lovebird is depressed because his wife no longer loves him, so he decides to commit suicide. He finally settles on getting eaten by a cat. The bird happens on a hungry Sylvester and calls him over with a whistle. Excited, the cat runs to the bird, only to stop when he finds the bird wants to be eaten. Sylvester, thinking the bird is poisoned, refuses. Determined, the bird tries to sneak and even force himself into the cat's mouth, but to no avail.

Finally, the bird tunes into food commercials on the radio to increase Sylvester's appetite. The cat decides he "might as well die" eating the bird. As the feline is about to have a meal at last, a telegram arrives for the bird. It reads that that relations between him and his wife are going to be just fine. Unfortunately, the cat hasn't changed his mind and pursues the bird off a balcony.

The bird, overjoyed, returns home and says that his wife has returned to her mother. A dish is thrown from across the room. It was from the wife, who changed her mind. The bird runs back outside and calls for Sylvester.

Caricatures[]

Availability[]

Censorship[]

  • On Cartoon Network, Boomerang, TNT, TBS, and The WB, the scene of the lovebird contemplating different ways to commit suicide after his wife has thrown him out (shown as crude sketches of the bird shooting himself, throwing himself off a building, and laying on active train tracks) before coming up with the idea to have a cat eat him was cut.[4]

Notes[]

  • This is the debut of an unnamed cat, who would be later known as Sylvester. He got this name three years later in a 1948 short, "Scaredy Cat", directed by Chuck Jones.
  • It was nominated for an Academy Award for best short subject in 1946, but lost to the Tom and Jerry cartoon "Quiet Please!".[5]
  • This was the final cartoon to have 1941-45 rendition of Merrily We Roll Along. The opening themes would be shortened, but the ending rendition still remained unchanged for another ten years.
  • This was the final non-Bugs Bunny Merrie Melodies short with the WB shield appearing before "WARNER BROS. PICTURES INC.", Present, the production code, and the copyright notice appear. Some cartoons from 1949-51 would have this feature, but only for Bugs Bunny cartoons.
    • The next cartoon "Behind the Meat-Ball", would be the final non-Bugs Bunny short to have the WB shield appear before the byline words "WARNER BROS. PICTURES INC." This was also the last cartoon to have the WB shield as big as it first appeared in 1936. In later shorts, the shield is smaller, even with the big background circle Merrie Melodies shorts still had in later years.
  • When re-released in the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies program, like most reissued Merrie Melodies at the time, the original closing bullet titles were kept. All Merrie Melodies shorts that were part of the Associated Artists Productions package originally released between 9/1/44-7/10/48 had their original closings bullet titles kept, except for the Cinecolor ones.
  • In 1951, Chuck Jones reused a similar concept for Hubie & Bertie's final short, "Cheese Chasers".
  • On September 5, 2014, a Facebook post by a cartoon historian Jerry Beck revealed a 35mm print of the original titles [6]. Due to the print having no music track, and the fact that it is in black and white, the Blue Ribbon titles were restored instead.
  • In the 1995 Turner "dubbed version" (and presumably other TV prints), Sylvester has black fur (similar to his current appearance). The restored version on Blu-ray and DVD releases shows that Sylvester originally had a lighter bluish-black fur.
  • This was Owen Fitzgerald's last cartoon where he provided layouts. Since his work was unfinished, Hawley Pratt had to finish his remaining work. Pratt would soon replace Fitzgerald as Freleng's layout artist.[7]

Gallery[]

References[]

ā† N/A Sylvester Cartoons Peck Up Your Troubles ā†’
Sylvester Cartoons
1945 Life with Feathers ā€¢ Peck Up Your Troubles
1946 Kitty Kornered
1947 Tweetie Pie ā€¢ Crowing Pains ā€¢ Doggone Cats ā€¢ Catch as Cats Can
1948 Back Alley Oproar ā€¢ I Taw a Putty Tat ā€¢ Hop, Look and Listen ā€¢ Kit for Cat ā€¢ Scaredy Cat
1949 Mouse Mazurka ā€¢ Bad Ol' Putty Tat ā€¢ Hippety Hopper
1950 Home, Tweet Home ā€¢ The Scarlet Pumpernickel ā€¢ All a Bir-r-r-d ā€¢ Canary Row ā€¢ Stooge for a Mouse ā€¢ Pop 'Im Pop!
1951 Canned Feud ā€¢ Putty Tat Trouble ā€¢ Room and Bird ā€¢ Tweety's S.O.S. ā€¢ Tweet Tweet Tweety
1952 Who's Kitten Who? ā€¢ Gift Wrapped ā€¢ Little Red Rodent Hood ā€¢ Ain't She Tweet ā€¢ Hoppy Go Lucky ā€¢ A Bird in a Guilty Cage ā€¢ Tree for Two
1953 Snow Business ā€¢ A Mouse Divided ā€¢ Fowl Weather ā€¢ Tom Tom Tomcat ā€¢ A Street Cat Named Sylvester ā€¢ Catty Cornered ā€¢ Cats A-weigh!
1954 Dog Pounded ā€¢ Bell Hoppy ā€¢ Dr. Jerkyl's Hide ā€¢ Claws for Alarm ā€¢ Muzzle Tough ā€¢ Satan's Waitin' ā€¢ By Word of Mouse
1955 Lighthouse Mouse ā€¢ Sandy Claws ā€¢ Tweety's Circus ā€¢ Jumpin' Jupiter ā€¢ A Kiddies Kitty ā€¢ Speedy Gonzales ā€¢ Red Riding Hoodwinked ā€¢ Heir-Conditioned ā€¢ Pappy's Puppy
1956 Too Hop to Handle ā€¢ Tweet and Sour ā€¢ Tree Cornered Tweety ā€¢ The Unexpected Pest ā€¢ Tugboat Granny ā€¢ The Slap-Hoppy Mouse ā€¢ Yankee Dood It
1957 Tweet Zoo ā€¢ Tweety and the Beanstalk ā€¢ Birds Anonymous ā€¢ Greedy for Tweety ā€¢ Mouse-Taken Identity ā€¢ Gonzales' Tamales
1958 A Pizza Tweety-Pie ā€¢ A Bird in a Bonnet
1959 Trick or Tweet ā€¢ Tweet and Lovely ā€¢ Cat's Paw ā€¢ Here Today, Gone Tamale ā€¢ Tweet Dreams
1960 West of the Pesos ā€¢ Goldimouse and the Three Cats ā€¢ Hyde and Go Tweet ā€¢ Mouse and Garden ā€¢ Trip for Tat
1961 Cannery Woe ā€¢ Hoppy Daze ā€¢ Birds of a Father ā€¢ D' Fightin' Ones ā€¢ The Rebel Without Claws ā€¢ The Pied Piper of Guadalupe ā€¢ The Last Hungry Cat
1962 Fish and Slips ā€¢ Mexican Boarders ā€¢ The Jet Cage
1963 Mexican Cat Dance ā€¢ Chili Weather ā€¢ Claws in the Lease
1964 A Message to Gracias ā€¢ Freudy Cat ā€¢ Nuts and Volts ā€¢ Hawaiian Aye Aye ā€¢ Road to Andalay
1965 It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House ā€¢ Cats and Bruises ā€¢ The Wild Chase
1966 A Taste of Catnip
1980 The Yolks on You
1995 Carrotblanca
1997 Father of the Bird
2011 I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat


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