Title - Canned Feud
Director - Friz Freleng
Released - 1951
Reason for Placement --
Of all the Looney Tunes stars, Sylvester was one of the few that didn't need a specific counterpart. He worked just as well against Speedy Gonzalez and Tweety as he did about half-a-dozen one-shot characters, including in Freleng's Canned Feud.
Sylvester's owners forget to put him outside before leaving on a long vacation, leaving him locked in the house. While Sylvester finds plenty of cans of food, the only can opener is being held by a mouse, who delights in torturing the poor cat over it!
Everytime I watch this toon, all I can do is wonder what Sylvester did to deserve to be treated like this. Did he chase or try to eat this mouse in the past, or is the mouse just a sadist? Seriously, he's pure evil!
This short always kills me, even though I've seen it a hundred times. Freleng's shorts always boast the best rhythm of all the Warners' directors and this one is no exception. What really puts the icing on the cake, though, is the payoff of the gag from which the still on this page is taken. You know the fridge is going to pancake Sylvester but that's not really the point: the point is the distraught expression on his face a second before it hits. That expression was a Freleng specialty and it never fails to make me laugh.
ReplyDeletePlus, look at those beautiful backgrounds. They'd be gone in a few years, in favor of the abstract and minimalist look that marked the late '50s and early '60s cartoons -- and in my mind is always associated with the studio's decline.
As for Sylvester -- fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Sylvester's gotta suffer: it's as simple as that....
Ah! I remember, when I watched this episode I asked my mom for a can just like this. It was so much stress in the house after that. Now, my kids do the same things with me. We are watching some nice shows by Andy Yeatman now days and there is a lot that they want to buy for themselves because of the show.
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