Satan's Waitin'

Satan's Waitin' is a 1953 animated Warner Bros. Looney Tunes (reissued as Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies in 1961) cartoon directed by Friz Freleng, released in 1954, starring Sylvester and Tweety.

A different episode, Devil's Feud Cake, was re-titled Satan's Waitin' when it was featured as part of The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie.

Synopsis

Sylvester is in pursuit of Tweety, chasing him to the top of a building. Sylvester falls from the building (first he grabs some of Tweety's feathers to help him fly, but Tweety takes them back), crashes to the sidewalk (which cracks) and dies. The spirit of his first life approaches two escalators and takes the "down" (to Hades) one (since the one going "up" (to Heaven) is roped off) and ends up in Hell. He is greeted by a Satanic bulldog (Hector the Bulldog), who realizes he must goad Sylvester into giving up his remaining eight lives, so he asks life #1 to sit on a bench to wait for the others.

Sylvester wakes up and Tweety tells him he's in trouble for breaking the sidewalk (which cracked upon impact of his earlier fall). Sylvester has had enough of Tweety and tells him to get lost. The bulldog's spirit reminds him that he has eight lives left, so Sylvester starts the chase up again. He chases Tweety around a moving steamroller but gets flattened, sending life #2 through the street and into Hades. The flat #2 gets up and sits beside #1.

The chase then continues through an amusement park. They both run into a lion's mouth entranceway to the fun house, but Sylvester steps back out, takes one look at the lion and is literally "frightened to death". As scared-white-as-a-sheet life #3 takes his place on the waiting bench, the cat recovers and finds Tweety amongst the moving targets in a shooting gallery. He climbs into the targets to get at his prey but is shot several times in rapid succession. With each shot, lives 4 through 7 pop up on the bench. Sylvester bursts out of the gallery (narrowly missing another shot) and sees Tweety heading towards the roller coaster. As Tweety sits in the front seat proclaiming "that puddy tat will never find me here", the cat takes the seat directly behind him. The train ascends the lift hill and proceeds to go through the drops and turns. Near the end of the ride on straight track, Sylvester stands up. Just as he is about to pummel an unsuspecting Tweety with a club, he slams into the entranceway of a tunnel. Upon impact, the train carrying life #8 in the front seat runs through the tunnel and down Hades' twisted conveyor route that took Sylvester's first life down earlier.

Recovering, Sylvester realized that he only has one life left. The bulldog again goads him to go after Tweety, but Sylvester screams "No, no, no! I don't want him! I don't want him!" and runs off. He decides to move into a bank vault with several cans of food, commenting that he'll be safe in there and nothing can happen to him. Later that night, two bank robbers (named Rocky and Mugsy) try to break into the safe, but fail when they use too much nitroglycerine and end up killing themselves and Sylvester. As the three of them go down the escalator conveyor to Hades, one of the robbers tells the other: "Yer used too much, Mugsy." The disgruntled #9, Sylvester's Last Life, adds: "Now... he tells him!"

Availability

This short is available on the VHS "Sylvester and Tweety's Tale Feathers". It is also available uncut and fully restored on Disc 1 of Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6 DVD set and Disc 2 of Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3 Blu-ray set, with the latter restored to HD quality.

External links

• Satan's Waitin' at the Internet Movie Database