Good start, but then it gets ruined

As Good As It Gets

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

. . . somewhat problematic. I guess it may be analogous to the American Black Folks who owned slaves themselves in the 1800s (but they, at least, had to be "Free Men" BEFORE purchasing their racial equals). Blacks owning Blacks made Slavery "Fair and Balanced," according to the Southern Church Preachers back then. But Goofy owning Pluto (at least when Mickey Mouse was in jail)?! Werern't Goofy and Pluto BOTH dogs?! That one always threw me for a loop, and similar arrangements still do. The bulldog Marc Anthony adopts a kitten on the sly in FEED THE KITTY. Eventually Marc's human mistress tells her dog that he can keep this tiny cat as his pet, as long as he cleans up her litter box for the next 26 years. Unfortunately, that's about TWO CENTURIES in Dog Years! This means that Marc's newly assigned responsibilities won't work out, mathematically. Apparently, it will be up to Marc to find himself a mate, and to train their puppies to care for cats. This unrealistic expectation of multi-generational canine cat management is why it really helps if there is a Man of the House in an American Home, who can use his innate STEM skills to figure out the logistics of complicated matters, such as pets owning pets. Or to simply put his foot down, which probably would be the best option here.

(spoilers ahead for the review) Most people denounce a lot of animated cartoons as emotionless - they have no real human emotions whatsoever. But one of the few exceptions is FEED THE KITTY, a Chuck Jones classic starring minor Looney Tunes characters Marc Antony and Pussyfoot.Well, it starts with the bulldog Marc trying to terrorize stray kitten Pussyfoot, but the latter is unfazed, thus snuggling up on his back. He walks home and his owner, a housemaid who expects cleanliness, also expects nothing else brought into their keep.Marc tries smuggling the forbidden item from the maid, but the horror starts to increase when he hides Pussyfoot in the flour bin when she is about to make sugar cookies. He unsuccessfully tries to save her from being entangled in cookie dough and baked. The owner ousts him as she emerges out of the batter and escapes the mixer. The horror increases as Marc sees the maid roll and stamp out the dough, knowing that his dear Pussyfoot is getting baked to death. He cries through (already bloodshot and red) eyes a pond as she bakes her sugar cookies in the oven.A short while later, the maid lets Marc back inside, his eyes raw and red from crying fervently. Seeing his puffy, ruddy eyes, she hands him a sugar cookie in the shape of a kitty. After receiving it with shaking paw, he places the confection on his back where the real kitten once laid, and bawls knowing that it's her remains.I know for sure, as a cartoon fan, that the grieving dog is not the only cartoon character to cry till his eyes are red. (A lot of others' eyes remain white when they cry a river.) Take Skippy from ANIMANIACS, for instance. His red eyes (from crying a stream when he sees a death scene in a kids' movie, a BAMBI spoof) are seen when he blows his nose in Aunt Slappy's huge tissue outside the cinema in "Bumbie's Mom." As Marc bewails his cooked kitty, the real Pussyfoot snuggles his face. He is overjoyed when he sees his kitty alive and well. But the maid notices him, and he bawls with red eyes again, this time holding the kitten indicating that he wants her in the house. She allows him to keep him under a few conditions – he has to take care of him and clean up after him (despite the fact that Pussyfoot is actually a "she"). The cartoon ends with Pussyfoot snuggling up and sleeping on his back.FEED THE KITTY stands out in emotional terms from myriad other Warner Brothers shorts made during the latter part of the Golden Age of American Animation. Yes, it has funny parts like a lot of them, but many a viewer would match Marc's red eyes as he grieves his pet and places the cookie on his back. Simply put, you'd better get a box of tissues at standby when watching this cartoon for the part when he cries a pond! Any cartoon lover should not overlook this animation short.

Chuck Jones's 'Feed the Kitty' is one of the undisputed classics of animation. It runs the gamut of moods from sweet to horrifying, hilarious to tear-jerking. The short made such an impression on director Joe Dante that he regularly pays tribute to it in his full length features. Starring a soft-hearted bulldog named Marc Anthony and a doe-eyed kitten named Pussyfoot, 'Feed the Kitty' forsakes the usual anarchic mayhem of Warner Bros. cartoons for a disarmingly heartwarming tale of one dog's adoration for a cat. Jones knows better than to revisit the Disney-esquire cuteness of his dull early work and neatly sidesteps this by mixing the sweetness with plenty of laughs and an extremely dark sequence in which Marc Anthony thinks Pussyfoot has been chopped up and baked to death! 'Feed the Kitty' subverts the usual setup for cartoons in which a big character causes chaos while trying to catch and eat a little character by making the motive for the chaotic antics the big character's desire to protect the little character. Marc Anthony goes to extreme lengths to hide Pussyfoot's presence from the owner he is sure will eject the kitten from the house. In doing so, Marc Anthony undoubtedly steals the cartoon. Cute and accurately kitten-like as Pussyfoot is, he is basically a prop. Marc Anthony, on the other hand, became world famous for his performance in this cartoon by virtue of his plethora of amazing facial expressions. Much has been made of the facial expressions Jones coaxes out of his characters and 'Feed the Kitty' is the prime example of his genius with a reaction. Marc Anthony snaps instantaneously from ferocious to confused to adoring to desperate to stern to relieved etc. The saggy, bloodshot look of total devastation that he adopts when he believes Pussyfoot has been killed is the most jaw-dropping element of 'Feed the Kitty'. It is so heart-wrenchingly accurate in its depiction of a soul who has lost all hope that it is simultaneously unbearably sad and hilarious in its extremity. It's unlike any expression you've seen in a cartoon before and writer Mike Maltese pushes this grim gag one step further when he has Marc Anthony take the freshly baked effigy of his beloved pet and place it lovingly on his back. Of course, this deeply sad material is also very, very funny because the audience is in on the joke and knows that Pussyfoot is OK and we are rewarded with a happy ending. The cartoon ends on a quiet note instead of the usual crash of an anvil or straight to camera wisecrack, further highlighting what an unusual piece of work 'Feed the Kitty' is. Jones used Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot in several other shorts but never to such incredible effect as in this classic treasure of a film.

Close to being one of the best from Warner Bros. by a long way! Hard to imagine this was produced over 50 years ago, these are the REAL cartoons and examples like this one have proved timeless. The facial expressions, body movements and mannerisms are perfectly produced, nicely exaggerated but not to the point of being overdone, leaving the watcher in stitches! Marc Anthony (perfect name for a bulldog) is the classic image of the tough mutt who eats a pound of nails for breakfast, but whose heart is melted and his armour stripped away by the diminutive and completely defenceless Pussyfoot, who is just the epitome of cute. As far as I'm aware, only 4 cartoons were produced with these 2 characters in them, but perhaps that's what makes them so special.