Canned Feud

Sylvester the Cat is left alone in his house all by his lonesome by his neglectful owners who lock him in with nothing to eat or drink. He finds a stash of canned tuna, but a deviant mouse has stolen the can opener and holds it just out of his reach, needlessly tormenting him. This is a somewhat amusing shot, but the mouse is just being a dick for the sake of being a dick which kind of tainted the overall feel of the short a tad. This animated short can be found on disc 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1 and features an optional commentary by Jerry Beck.

My Grade: B

I can't believe Sylvester's owners are cruel enough to go on holiday without him, never mind leaving him locked in the house for 2 weeks without any milk. Luckily our fave cat finds a massive stash of tinned tuna. But wait...no can opener. The mouse has stolen it.

But instead of being nice to Sly the mouse taunts him endlessly with an ever-just-out-of-reach can opener. Why? Why not be nice? The more he starves Sly the more likely he is to just eat the mouse. Sylvester's plans and attempts at getting the can opener echo many Tom and Jerry cartoons. But when he finally gets his hands on the prized object the mother of all twists is revealed.

Poor kitty.

Every now and then, a cartoon comes along that you can't help but feel bad for the supposed-bad guy. Sylvester's owners have gone on vacation in California, and they (gasp!) forgot to put the cat out! Sylvester luckily finds a stash of canned tuna, but he still needs a can opener to get the food or he'll starve. As luck would have it, there is only one can opener in the house, and it's being held by a mouse who decides to torture poor Sylvester into fighting for it.

I couldn't help but watch this and wonder, what did Sylvester do to deserve this? Makes you wonder just what he's done to that mouse in the past to deserve such treatment. Or, there is the possible alternative that this mouse is just evil, pure and simple. Either way, Sylvester truly takes a beating through a falling piano, a vacuum cleaner, and a rather large mess of fireworks, as he desperately tries to keep from starving. A Friz Freling classic that everyone will love.

I've long wondered why the Termite Terrace crowd tortured Sylvester so much. In "Canned Feud", his owners go on vacation and leave him locked in the house. He has plenty of cans of tuna, but a nasty little mouse keeps holding the can opener out of reach, forcing Sylvester to come up with all sorts of unpleasant gags to try and get it.

So why would a mouse want to be a sadist? Your guess is as good as mine. Of course, these cartoons were chock-full of sadists (or at least characters with a New York side): Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, even Tweety himself. If nothing else, it goes to show that these cartoons weren't really intended for children; they were created to get shown before feature films in the cinema.

Anyway, it's not a bad cartoon, but I've seen better.

Canned Feud is an excellent cartoon- very funny, very clever and very inventive. While it could've been perhaps a tad longer, I enjoyed every minute. We know right from the start the mouse is not someone to be reckoned with. Is he likable? No, but that was the intention I think. Besides, it is very fast paced and along with Falling Hare has one of the most effective character mental break downs in cartoon history. The animation is excellent, the music is energetic and the whole cartoon is one funny and clever sight gag after sight gag after sight gag. Sylvester is wonderful to watch, and you do feel seriously sorry for him which was nice considering most of the time he is quite crafty and takes the laughs of each cartoon he features in. Overall, great. 9/10 Bethany Cox