With a poll currently taking place on IMDbs Classic Film board for the best movies from the 1915-1919 era,I began to search online for titles to view,and I was surprised to stumble up on the debut appearance of Felix the Cat,which led to me getting ready to see Felix's first tail.The plot:Promising to keep the mice away from taking all their food & drink,a cat called Master Tom waits until the shadows of his owners are long gone,and then secretly leaves the house for a date with Miss Kitty.Seeing no sign of Tom,the mice decide to come out and make make sure that this time the cat will not get the cream.View on the film:Despite sadly not featuring a score,director Otto Messmer is still able to make the film pop with a tremendous bite,thanks to Messmer giving Felix (here named Master Tom!) a gritty,pulp appearance,with Messmer also skilfully using speech bubbles to give the title an animated comic book atmosphere.Along with the stylish design,Messmer also reveals an excellent,jet-black Comedy streak in the movies screenplay,as Miss Kitty reveals that their date was far from innocent,and Felix/Master Tom dies from a suicide!,which thankfully did not stop Felix from coming back to life.

"Feline Follies" is the first Felix the Cat cartoon, though it isn't exactly the Felix that was popular through the 1920s. The character looks similar and it was brought to the public by the same folks who made the Felix cartoons, though he is more like a real cat in this cartoon and they call him 'Master Tom'.The film begins with Tom going out for a walk and meeting a cute white female cat. They spend time together--much to the annoyance of everyone but the mice! And, in the end, the ending (which I won't divulge) is very, very dark--and the sort of cartoon parents probably would NOT let their kids see! So dark that I was actually pretty shocked.While this cartoon is much too normal for my tastes (except for the ending), it is historically important and worth a look if you are an aficionado of the history of cartoons.

This story takes place in "Pussyville." I am not making that up, nor am I touching that line. Similar to Felix The Cat in looks, we have "Master Tom" as the main figure in this story, which has literally no sound nor sound-effects, just title cards, courtesy of "Paramount Magazine" and a few comic-strip balloonsBasically, the story is Master Tom wooing a female. Their "trysting place," as the card puts it, is a garbage can. We also see what happens when "the cat's away," as five mice trash the house. They're funny to watch.Without saying more, the ending of this cartoon is really unexpected. It literally made my jaw drop.Overall, this is extremely primitive and dated but so bizarre that you can't take your eyes off it. It was part of the Popeye The Sailor 1933-1938 DVD set. Look for it under the bonus feature, "From The Vault."

In what was the earliest appearance of Felix the Cat, Feline Follies, he is called Master Tom and is more cat-like here than in most of his subsequent appearances. In this one, he's a house cat guarding some mice in the kitchen. When he gets away for awhile to rendezvous with his girlfriend, the mice make a mess of the kitchen. He serenades her with his guitar while she dances. Later, some notes appear literally and become wheels for go-carts they ride on. When he comes back and finds what the mice have done, the female head comes and throws him out. He then goes back to his girlfriend and sees other cats in a crowd look interested in her. The cat then goes to a gas site where he finds a hose and commits suicide...Yikes, what a downer beginning for animation's first superstar character! Otto Messmer must have not of thought of long-term commitment when he created his famous feline. Good thing with a more appealing design, and a more lasting name in Felix, this character would eventually take over the silent animation world. So for many Felix enthusiasts out there, this is worth seeing for at least historical interest.