Life with Feathers is an important cartoon for another reason other than it was the first cartoon with Sylvester. I corresponded with Mike Barrier over when exactly Hawley Pratt began working as Friz Freleng’s layout artist, and this is what he had to say:
Owen [Fitzgerald] said that his last work for Freleng was in early ’44, on a cartoon that was almost certainly Life With Feathers (which he misremembered, understandably, as the first Sylvester and Tweety); Owen said that Pratt took over for him on that cartoon. Pratt’s next work for Freleng was probably Hare Trigger; Freleng told me twice that that was the first cartoon Pratt laid out for him, and it was the next Freleng cartoon after Life With Feathers on the release schedule. Holiday for Shoestrings has an earlier production number, and a Pratt credit, but it was released almost a year after Hare Trigger.
Pratt was an assistant animator at Disney, moved over to Warners as an inbetweener and then an assistant (to [Dick] Bickenbach) after the strike, until he became Freleng’s layout man.
People take for granted how Freleng turned out so many black comedies on a regular basis. He may have done more than Jones if we’re going by how many involve a character’s life-at-stake being played for laughs. This is by far the funniest cartoon turned out by the studio that year, and that’s not a small accomplishment. So much worthier of the Oscar than yet another standard Tom & Jerry. How many other times was an iconic character completely nailed (in design, voice, characterization, whatever) on the first go? (Well, other than the other iconic Freleng character established in 1945…)
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Judging by the comments over the ones Jerry Beck has posted over on Cartoon Brew lately, it seems that a lot of people take offense to these asshole wife/dweeb husband cartoons. I say the hell with ’em.
IMO ~
In the follow-up cartoon, “Peck Up Your Troubles”, Freleng further developed Sylvester’s personaltiy by having the cat get laughs even though he doesn’t speak – there is no dialogue in the whole cartoon (except for one point when Sylvester howls in terror). Friz used the silent Sylvester a few more times (like in “Tweetie Pie” & “Pappy’s Puppy”) while Jones would utilize him for his “Porky/Sylvester” trilogy.
Lisping or silent, Sylvester always makes me laugh.
“Lisping or silent, Sylvester always makes me laugh.”
He’s the only character that can do that for me for some reason.
I adore Sylvester in this one, and I have always been partial to the sad little lovebird too.
You’d be surprised how many men get up in arms over the “discriminatory” portrayal of the dweeb husband. As if either partner in this particular trope comes across in a positive way.
Dweeb husband? Bah! It’s just Wallace Wimple, plain and simple. Has anyone ever researched the number of times Warner cartoons ripped off radio programs? (And is the radio announcer in this cartoon not Tedd Pierce doing his Harold Peary impression – complete with Gildy’s ‘evil’ laugh?) Sure, the cartoons are funny, and the writers were looking for sure and easy laughs no doubt, but every time I notice a then-current radio reference jammed into one of the films, I cringe…
Other studios would portray cats as evil slobbering villians. What made Warners cartoons superior to their competitors was their fatalistic veiw of the universe. In almost every cartoon, even when Slyvester is indulging in his most basic instincts,they always treat him as a sympathetic character, as if they understood it’s not all the cat’s fault, after all, he’s only doing what’s in his nature. No wonder he’s such a neurotic.
Oh and the overbearing wife and the weak husband is as old as Greek Theatre. The self appointed social engineers of the world need to let it go. It wouldn’t be funny if there wasn’t some truth to it.
Perhaps the biggest testament to how well established Sylvester is in this cartoon, is how the animation of him rummaging through the rubbish was reused for two later cartoons.
It’s so funny how you could go right out and tell someone that “Life With Feathers” isnt the first Sylvester cartoon and there’s nothing in the cartoon that would stop someone from believing it. The design, the lisp, the attitude, the catchphrase – it’s all there right off the bat.
I can’t think of many other characters (at least during this time period) that started life in their finalized, iconic incarnation.
One gag I enjoyed was when Sylvester shut all the windows from the bird in a particularly large house.
When you think about it, the mean wife/wimp husband stuff shouldn’t be THAT offensive, since particularly in cartoons, women barely had any aggressive roles, and men were often portrayed as fall characters anyway.
You can go back to the endings of Friz’s two 1944 cartoons with Bugs, “Little Red Riding Rabbit” and “Hare Force” and see that — while the conventional wisdom on Freleng was he always played it safe — there was a cynical, dark nature to his stories (helped by Maltese and Pierce) that was willing to go places other directors wouldn’t tread.
(And as far as Sylvester goes, its interesting that, in terms of his facial features, Friz’s effort in the debut cartoon is actually far more in line with how we see him today than some of the efforts over the next couple of years, especially McKimson’s failed attempts to give him a far more articulated muzzle. It’s a good thing by the late 40s Bob was no longer in charge of “standardizing” the look of all the shared characters.)
A certain other blogger keeps insisting that Bob Clampett created Sylvester because Tom McKimson his layout guy drew a cat with a big nose that was used in Kitty Kornered. And yet, the production of Life With Feathers predates all that even if Kitty Kornered was held back about a year before its release.
Oh that silly “other blogger”. ;)
I think this is a wonderful cartoon. Funny, great characters, and fabulous animation. So what if it features a henpecked husband and his overbearing wife. It tears down that whole ideal of marriage. That makes for good comedy. People need to lighten up.
I loved it! incredible that after so much time they still have the same punch.
Germain: That “other blogger” also thinks Ranger Smith is complex. XD
Why would you cringe at a radio reference?
@rodney: I think anon cringes at the radio references because making a reference to popular culture in a cartoon often comes across as a forced and/or unnecessary way to get a cheap laugh. Fortunately, Looney Tunes also has an array of original humor to go along with the jokes they “borrowed” from other sources (unlike certain other cartoons of our day…)
rodney: I overstated; mea culpa. For ‘every time’ sub ‘sometimes’ and for ‘cringe’ sub ‘flinch’ or ‘fart’.
re: sometimes… perhaps at times this was done to quickly (shorthand-like) establish a character, or a character’s motivation; that may be the case here. Not the same as putting a facet of one’s own personality into a character, I think. Pale substitute.
Of course, if Bill Thompson had voiced the bird, and if it had been an orange-haired, short hunting dog instead of the bird, it woulda killed me.
Thanks, John M!
The cartoons with suicide are great. I like that one woody where he blows his brains out
The opening is so abrupt. I wish an original print of this cartoon existed somewhere.
The good thing about cribbing from radio comedy is that because there was no visual aspect, the voices themselves had to provide a lot of the humor. So using a voice like Hal Perry’s in this cartoon (or Hare Conditioned, or Meatless Flyday…) most viewers in 2009 may not know the original reference, but the voice is funny enough to work on its own in the cartoon.
(Also, doesn’t the second-floor porch cover Sylvester runs across at the end of the cartoon look a lot like the one he sang “You Never Know Where You’re Going ’till You Get There” on in Back Alley Oproar?” Aside from the similar layout making it more likely there was a Pratt–Paul Julian connection between this cartoon and that one, I wonder how Elmer slept through all the din caused by Sylvester and the love bird?)
Thanks, Thad – that’s a great classic cartoon!
Is Mike Maltese the common element in all these black comedies (both by Freleng and Jones)?
For this one Maltese was an element, but Freleng seemed to do them often without him … (Each Dawn I Crow, His Bitter Half, Canned Feud, Birds Anonymous to name a few)
Shadenfrued is where it’s at. It’s only funny when everyone is in a situation you would never want to be…
(Why is it that cartoon ‘fans’ are the first to wave the PC flag on tame stuff like cuckolds, smoking, gambling and stuff? Don’t they realize that it’s satire or what? Live action comedies go way farther and never get that crap. That reaction completely confuses me.)