Mouse and Garden

Friz Freleng's Oscar-nominated 'Mouse and Garden' is a nicely orchestrated piece of toing-and-froing which is constantly entertaining. While the Oscar-nomination may have been a bit of an overreaction, Freleng still shows himself to be an old master at timing gags. Sylvester and his supposed pal Sam (voiced by the legendary Daws Butler, doing an impersonation of Stan Freberg's Pete Puma voice) scavenge for food together while constantly attempting to screw the other out of whatever they find. When Sylvester finds a live mouse, the battle is upped to the next level. 'Mouse and Garden' is ultimately a film about friendship and deceit and the detrimental result when the two meet. After suffering the indignity of being paired with intolerable characters like Tweety and Speedy Gonzales for years, it's always good to see Sylvester in a cartoon without either of these twin drag factors. Here, the mouse is more a prop than a character, looking on in mute bewilderment as the two cats cheat themselves out of a meal. The limited animation is effective in evoking the atmosphere of a pier at night and, while Sam is hardly a memorable adversary, the whole cartoon is carried by the false niceties and growing paranoia that eventually defeats the two characters. It might not quite be a classic but 'Mouse and Garden' is a solid, always enjoyable cartoon that stands out from much of the 1960s Warner Bros. output.

Jeez, no matter how you look at it, Sylvester probably has THE worst luck of all the Looney Tunes. In some cartoons it plays out more than in others, but Friz Freleng's "Mouse and Garden" is an example.

One night, Sylvester and his friend Sam (an orange tabby who talks as though he suffers from either Downs syndrome or cerebral palsy) are rummaging through garbage cans looking for food - not to mention stealing each other's morsels - when they catch a mouse. But each cat still wants the mouse for himself, and so they spend the rest of the night trying to eat the little guy, all the while suspecting the other one of trying to do just that and trying to stop the other one from doing it! Needless to say, there's some dynamite involved.

While Milt Franklyn's music didn't quite equal Carl Stalling's, it still provides a neat setting for the wacky action here. And Daws Butler was clearly pretty adept at doing voices (he voices Sam, accompanying Mel Blanc as Sylvester). In any case, this is one of the nearly 1,000 classic cartoons released through Warner Bros. That'll never be all, folks.

And I now see that the song is called "Moonlight Bay". I'd heard the song before in "Porky's Duck Hunt" (Daffy Duck's debut), but couldn't understand the whole thing. Now I finally know.

"Sylvester" and his bright orange pal "Sam" are raiding the waterside dustbins looking for their evening meal when they espy a mouse! This isn't the nimblest critter around and so is soon apprehended, but in the spirit of companionship they agree to savour this little snack for tomorrow's breakfast. Safely ensconced in a corked jar dangling beneath their cabin, the mouse is left whilst the two try to catch some sleep. Of course soon their tummies start to rumble and their imaginations run wild, and so what now ensues sees each of them trying to outwit the other so they don't have to share! It's quite good fun, this, featuring the usual calamity props. What it does miss, though, is more activity from their prey. Indeed, despite some lovely fed up expressions near the start, it doesn't really appear as the two cats try to find new uses for sticks of dynamite. Passes the time fine, but not so very memorably.

This short was nominated for an Oscar and deserved to be! There's not even a feather to be seen of a certain little yellow bird and the object of Sylvester's gastronomic desires is little more than a prop in this. The cartoon is stolen by Sam, another feline, who 1) is a "friend" of Sylvester's and 2) will not be a candidate under serious consideration for membership in MENSA in this lifetime. He's hilarious and makes the cartoon. Sylvester works best as a more or less secondary character, reacting rather than acting. This is his best outing without Tweety (although there are one or two with Porky that are close) and Cartoon Network runs this fairly frequently. Most recommended.

Mel Blanc and Daws Butler - two Hall-Of-Fame voices - combine their talents to give us this battle of the felines over possession of one mouse.

Sylvester (Blanc) and Sam (Butler) are two waterfront cats browsing through the garbage cans on the pier when they get a little mouse. The story from that point is the paranoia and mistrust these two guys have for each other. Neither is willing to share and both try every trick in the book to hide the fact they have the mouse. (It keeps changing hands, er paws.)

The huge moon and beautiful nighttime artwork in here on the water with his big house is fantastic. For the visuals alone, this is a good cartoon but listening to the accents and funny voices of these two geniuses doing these characters makes elevates this from very good to excellent.