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Life with Feathers is a 1945 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short film directed by Friz Freleng.[4] The short was released on March 24, 1945, and is the first cartoon to feature Sylvester the Cat.[5]

Life with Feathers
Lobby card for Life with Feathers.
Directed by	I. Freleng
Story by	Tedd Pierce[1]
Produced by	Edward Selzer (unc.)
Starring	Mel Blanc Sara Berner Dave Barry (all unc.)[2]
Edited by	Treg Brown (unc.)
Music by	Carl W. Stalling Milt Franklyn (unc.)
Animation by	Virgil Ross Ken Champin (unc.) Gerry Chiniquy (unc.) Manuel Perez (unc.) Jack Bradbury (unc.) A.C. Gamer (effects, unc.)
Layouts by	Hawley Pratt Owen Fitzgerald (both unc.)[3]
Backgrounds by	Paul Julian (unc.)
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date	March 24, 1945 (1945-03-24)
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 Sweetypuss kicks him out of their nest. The bird wants Sylvester to eat him, but the cat thinks the bird is poisonous and refuses. 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 Sweetypuss 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 Sylvester again in order to get himself eaten.

Cast

• Mel Blanc as Sylvester the Cat, Lovebird, Telegram Guy
• Sara Berner as Sweetypuss, Housewife
• Dave Barry as Radio Announcer

Home media

• 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 Disc, 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.
• 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 Disc/DVD shows that Sylvester originally had a lighter bluish-black fur.
• The scene where Sylvester is rummaging through trash cans for food is reused in Kit For Cat, and Tweety's S.O.S. A similar but reanimated scene is also featured in Catch as Cats Can.

References

External links

• Life with Feathers at IMDb
• Life with Feathers at AllMovie
• Life with Feathers at The Big Cartoon DataBase

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