Saturday Morning Cartoons--Canned Feud

This is a classic Warner Brothers cartoon. Canned Feud is a 1951 Friz Freleng cartoon, where Sylvester the Cat is locked away in the house while the family goes on vacation, and there is nothing to eat. Going frantically through the kitchen, Sylvester discovers a cabinet full of canned tuna, but there is no can opener. It turns out that a small mouse has the only can opener, and taunts Sylvester with it. The rest of the cartoon is about Sylvester first trying to open a tuna can without the can opener, and then trying to get the can opener away from the mouse. The beauty of this cartoon is that your sympathies lie with Sylvester here. In the Tweety/Sylvester cartoons, Sylvester is the antagonist, where Sylvester first initiates the chase of Tweety in the hope of catching and eating Tweety. Here the mouse is the antagonist in taking the can opener and taunting Sylvester for no reason at all--just pure spite. And at the end of the cartoon, the antagonistic mouse still wins over Sylvester. It is a brilliant twist of the cat-chases-mouse theme, especially with the Tom and Jerry cartoons that were also produced at that time.

So here is Canned Feud. From YouTube: