Dog, Cat and Canary is a 1945 animated short film (6 minutes) directed by Howard Smith, part of Screen Gems' Color Rhapsody series.
A cat is struggling to get food and failing, unable to catch a bird, a squirrel, and a mouse. Then the cat happens to see a canary, hanging in a cage on the neighbor's patio. The only problem is, there's a large dog sleeping on the patio under the cat. The cat, the dog, and the canary wind up going on a merry chase.
The whole thing plays like a Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird scenario that got sent to the wrong studio.
Tropes:
- Circling Birdies: The dog sees stars when the cat leads it to wrap itself around the post by its leash, the dog finally crashing into the post.
- Efficient Displacement: One gag has the canary, cat, and dog go through a screen door in that order, leaving three perfect silhouettes in the screen.
- Evil Slinks: The cat slithers like a snake when first approaching the bird cage.
- Eye Pop: The cat does this when it sees the canary in its cage.
- Impossible Shadow Puppets: The cat makes an absurdly detailed shadow puppet of a rooster to distract the dog.
- 1-Dimensional Thinking: The canary for some reason never thinks to fly up as it's being chased around by the cat.
- Silence Is Golden: No dialogue in the short.
- Visual Pun: The canary opens the spigot on a garden hose. The cat, at the other end, gets blown up into a round shape like a balloon, and the sight of the cat in the air with the undulating hose is drawn to look like a cobra being tamed by a snake charmer.
