Life with Feathers
| Life with Feathers | |
|---|---|
| Merrie Melodies/Sylvester series | |
 Lobby card for Life with Feathers. | |
| Directed by | I. Freleng |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer (uncredited) |
| Story by | Tedd Pierce |
| Voices by | Mel Blanc |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
| Animation by |
Virgil Ross Jack Bradbury |
| Distributed by |
Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
| Release date(s) | March 24, 1945 |
| Running time | 7:41 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Life with Feathers is a 1945 Merrie Melodies cartoon, directed by Friz Freleng and produced and released by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short Film. This cartoon marks the first appearance of the then-unnamed cat Sylvester as well as the first of his many Academy Award nominations.
This is the final cartoon with the 1941-45 version of Merrily We Roll Along on opening credits until the Blue Ribbon Reissue version of the older Merrie Melodies cartoons.
The title is a play on the longest-running non-musical 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
The film centers on a heartbroken lovebird's decision to commit suicide after his marriage goes sour. He recruits a black cat (Sylvester) to eat him, but the suspicious cat thinks the bird is poison and refuses. For the rest of the film, the lovebird attempts to get Sylvester to eat him by persuasion, bribery, and force. The gag of a character wanting to be eaten and the cat refusing to is later repeated in the Hubie and Bertie cartoon Cheese Chasers. The cartoon ends with the bird getting a telegram saying his wife is moving out, so he escapes from the cat 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 cat again in order to get himself eaten.
Home media
This cartoon was released, uncut, uncensored, and restored, with the Blue Ribbon reissue on Blu-ray on the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Vol. 3, on August 12, 2014.
Edited versions
- When the cartoon was shown on Cartoon Network and The WB, the part where the lovebird thinks of different ways to commit suicide after his wife throws him out was cut.
Cast
- Mel Blanc as Sylvester, Telegram Guy and Lovebird