Il gatto delle nevi

Grannie comes to a halt in a blizzard as she heads toward her cabin. In the cabin are Tweety and Sylvester, co-existing. Unfortunately, food has run out and all that there is is tons of bird seed. Well, you can imaging. The kicker, however, is a ravenous mouse who torments the poor cat. Sylvester's natural instincts are never given any respect and he has to try to cope with the cruelty done him.

Sylvester and Tweety are trapped by heavy snow in Granny's mountain cabin. Tweety has plenty of birdseed but poor Sylvester is all out of food. I'm not sure if Granny just isn't stocking up on food for him or if he's just eaten it all. Probably the latter although the ending to this one makes you wonder. Anyway, Sylvester naturally decides he will have to eat Tweety to survive while a starving mouse has the same idea about Sylvester. A fun short with nice animation, great music, and lots of funny gags. The mouse's attempts to eat Sylvester are especially good. Tweety is as adorable as ever. He sings "The Song of the Marines" while in a little paper boat, which is just priceless. Some people don't like the Sylvester & Tweety cartoons but I happen to enjoy them. Yeah, they can be repetitive after awhile but most of the Looney Tunes shorts feel that way after you've seen a lot of them.

After the feeble 'A Bird in a Guilty Cage', Friz Freleng finally injected some life into his repetitive Sylvester and Tweety series with the brilliant and novel 'Snow Business'. Owing a good deal of its success to a superbly inventive script by Warren Foster, 'Snow Business' opens with Tweety and Sylvester as the best of friends. Only when they are stranded in a cabin by a snowstorm do the starving cat's thoughts turn to eating his former playmate. A great twist on the straightforward formula, 'Snow Business' has a few more tricks up its sleeve. For one, Tweety remains oblivious of the danger he's in throughout the whole cartoon as Sylvester convinces him that a ride in a boiling hot cooking pot and skating on a greased frying pan are enormous fun. This unusual set-up creates a whole new refreshing dynamic between the cat and bird. The real star of 'Snow Business', however, is a psychotic little mouse who, driven crazy with hunger, decides he wants to eat Sylvester. It is this final bizarre plot twist which pushes 'Snow Business' from great to brilliant and the emaciated little rodents attempts to devour a creature ten times his size are hilarious to watch. 'Snow Business' is, in all probability, the very best of all the Tweety and Sylvester shorts. It's a genuinely funny and odd script brilliantly directed by Freleng.

Yes, it's true: I derived in "Snow Business" a connection to "The Shining". Obviously, you have the snowbound individuals (Sylvester and Tweety = the Torrance family), while someone else tries to return to the snowbound place (Granny = the cook). But aside from Sylvester starting to get cabin fever and view Tweety as a possible meal, there's the other presence in the snowbound location (the mouse = the ghosts) eating at the character going crazy - and I mean literally in this case.

I understand that my interpretation is probably one of the more outlandish interpretations of this cartoon, as the cartoon was probably intended as pure entertainment. I just like to look for similarities between different kinds of movies, cartoons, etc.

All in all, worth seeing.

Sylvester Cat and Tweety Bird are trapped in a snowstorm in Granny's mountain cabin. Tweety doesn't need to worry food-wise as there's plenty of bird seed around, but Sylvester has only the bird to think about eating. There's also a mouse who gets into the act. Only 2 Tweety shorts to go on this DVD, these are quite the chore as my loathing of that damned speech impediment having bird is by now well known. I find it hard to be fair-minded with a character I actively detest and fear my reviews for the Tweety cartoons are suffering because of it & am so very glad that the next short is the last one I'll have to review, until Volume 3 of the Golden Collection at least. This animated short can be seen on Disc 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2.

My Grade: D+