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Director: unknown
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd
Rating: ★★
Review:
This a series of seven short filler gags that bridged two cartoons within an episode in the original ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons’ television series. All start with Elmer Fudd in his hunter costume chasing Bugs Bunny through the woods.
All the gags in this compilation feature holes: in the first Elmer Fudd uses a plunger to get Bugs Bunny out, in the second he loses his pants, in the third, he uses a carrot and a fishing rod, in the fourth there are more than one holes, in the fifth there’s short falling gag, in the sixth Elmer Fudd becomes small after emerging from one of the holes, and the seventh is a wack-the-rabbit gag.
If anything, these short gags show the original chase concept of the very first Bugs Bunny cartoon, ‘A Wild Hare‘ from 1941, can still be very much alive today, even if they’re not that funny when watched in sequence.
‘Hole Gags: Plunger, Fishing Pole, Bees, Mini Elmer’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Director: Kenny Pittenger
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Hare Restoration’ is the first part of the tenth episode of the Looney Tunes Cartoons television series of 2020-2024.
In this short Bugs Bunny wakes up in what turns out to be Elmer Fudd’s rabbit stew. He tricks himself out of the predicament by helping Elmer get more hair before Elmer’s date comes to dinner. This cartoon contains some particularly Ren & Stimpy like expressions on Elmer Fudd’s face.
Watch part 1 of ‘Hare Restoration’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Hare Restoration’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Director: David Gemmill
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In this short Elmer Fudd wants to paint a picture in the woods, but when he blocks Bugs Bunny’s sunlight by sitting on the hare’s entrance, a classic chase cartoon start.
This cartoons contains both a classic death scene and a falling scene, harking all the way back to Bugs Bunny’s very first shorts (‘A Wild Hare‘ from 1940 and ‘The Heckling Hare‘ from 1941). But the best part is an original gag in which Bugs Bunny paints Elmer Fudd’s face with several pieces of art.
Watch the opening of ‘Vincent van Fudd’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Vincent van Fudd’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Director: Kenny Pittenger
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Grilled Rabbit’ is the first cartoon of the eight episode of the ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons’ series of 2020-2024. It’s a one scene short which immediately starts with Elmer Fudd interrogating Bugs for carrot theft.
This is one of the weaker cartoons of the first series, although Bugs Bunny playing good cop, bad cop on Elmer is a nice gag.
Watch part 1 of ‘Grilled Rabbit’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Grilled Rabbit’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Director: unknown
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In the original Bugs Bunny cartoons Yosemite Sam could be found everywhere around the world and in history, and the Looney Tunes Cartoons series from 2020-2024 continue that tradition. Thus, we find Yosemite Sam in Siberia as ‘Siberian Sam’.
In the opening scene he tells the audience the importance of a fur hat in the Siberian cold, only to get his one stolen by a bird of prey within seconds. In his search for a new hat, his eye naturally falls on Bugs Bunny. The chase cartoon that follows also features a Siberian Tiger and, unfortunately, too much dialogue. In the best gag Bugs Bunny makes Sam believe he is going to watch some Russian ballet.
Watch ‘Siberian Sam’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Siberian Sam’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Directors: David Gemmill & Michael Ruocco
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Beaky Buzzard
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Buzzard School’ sees the return of Beaky Buzzard and his mother from ‘Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid’ (1942).
As in the original short, Beaky’s mother sends her son away to catch a rabbit for dinner, and Bugs “helps” the dumb bird by teaching him how to catch rabbits. Highlight of this short may be scene in which Beaky fights himself.
The design and animation of Beaky Buzzard are practically indistinguishable from the original ones in Clampett’s 1940s cartoons, making ‘Buzzard School’ an excellent example of the nostalgic homage quality of this 2020-2024 television series.
‘Buzzard School’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Director: Ryan Kramer
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Pest Coaster’ is the first cartoon of the fifth episode of the new Looney Tunes Cartoons series from 2020-2024. This episode starts with Bugs Bunny classically travelling underground, now ending up at an amusement park. In this park he wants to ride the rollercoaster called ‘The Murderizer’. Unfortunately, this ride is operated by Yosemite Sam, who has made a lot of rules, one of which is ‘no rabbits allowed’.
What follows is a string of gags in which Bugs Bunny does ride the rollercoaster and Yosemite Sam tries to prevent that. At one point Bugs dresses up like a Veronica Lake-like woman, emphasizing the nostalgia modus of the series. More interesting than the antics is the rather Joan Miró-like background art.
‘Pest Coaster’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Director: Ryan Kramer
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Pool Bunny’ starts with Bugs crossing a scorching hot desert. The chase cartoon starts when the hare enters Elmer Fudd’s swimming pool, but Elmer kicks him out, prompting Bugs Bunny to say: “of course you realize this means… You know what”.
This short is both a nice new take on classic tropes as a homage to the old cartoons. Bugs Bunny is particularly cruel in this cartoon and his revenge on Elmer is sweet, and even includes a classic death scene.
Watch ‘Pool Bunny’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Pool Bunny’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Director: Unknown
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Gossamer
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Big League Beast’ is the first cartoon of the second episode of ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons’ and in this short Bugs Bunny is reunited with the evil scientist and red monster with sneakers from ‘ Water, Water Every Hare‘ (1952).
This red monster was christened ‘Gossamer’ by Chuck Jones in 1980, and Bugs Bunny addresses the hairy fellow by this name. Unfortunately, the plot is rather weak (Bugs Bunny wants to see the big (baseball) game on the scientist’s television) and the gags are more of a homage to Jones’s classic shorts than adding anything new.
Watch the opening of ‘Big League Beast’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Big League Beast’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Director: David Gemmill
Airing date: May 27, 2020
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Looney Tunes Cartoons’ was a television series that ran from 2020 to 2024 and which was a surprising revival of the classic Warner Bros. Cartoons of the 1940s and 1950s, featuring the same stars and the same frantic classic animation of the originals, but with slightly more modern designs and animation influences from the Renaissance period, most obviously from ‘Ren and Stimpy’.
The third disc of the ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Edition’ Blu-Ray set contains nine Bugs Bunny shorts from the first season of this series and these show the high quality of this revival series. At their worst the cartoons are mere homages, but at their best they reshuffle the classic characters into new situations with new gags.
‘Harm Wrestling’, for example, the third cartoon from the very first episode, takes Yosemite Sam back to his Western roots, where he claims to be the arm wrestling champion of ‘Tough City’. Then, of course, Bugs Bunny comes along. This short reuses some classic gags from the 1940s, but add new ones and some particularly Ren & Stimpy-like takes on Yosemite Sam. Bugs Bunny, meanwhile, looks most like his 1940s self, harking mostly back to the Robert McKimson design for the Bob Clampett unit.
Watch ‘Harm Wrestling’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Harm Wrestling’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection’
Director: Mike Mitchell
Release date: February 2, 2019
Rating: ★★★
Review:
One of the surprises of 2014 was ‘The Lego Movie’, a surprisingly funny and sophisticated movie, making clever use of the source material, and transcending by far the product placement it actually was. Its huge success spawned the equally great ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ and the much weaker ‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’ (both from 2017), but one had to wait for five years for the true sequel: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.
This second movie immediately starts with a new threat to Bricksburg, the city in which Emmett lives, this time from the planet Duplo. In a toddler’s voice the new arrivals claim: “We are from the Planet Duplo, we are here to destroy you”. After some mayhem we jump to five years later, in which Bricksburg has apparently been destroyed and rebuilt as ‘Apocalypseburg’, a Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic world in which according to his girlfriend Lucy there’s no place anymore for niceness and optimism, although Emmett is still full of these things, despite having nightmares of “Armamageddon” (sic).
To make matters worse, a new, almost indestructible alien arrives with the name of General Mayhem, messenger of the shape-shifting Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi from the “Systar System”. What follows is another adventure full of references to other movies (e.g. The Wizard of Oz), which takes place both in the LEGO world and in live action, and in which Emmett meets a though guy called Rex Dangervest, who teach Emmett to grow up, or does he?
Unfortunately, this movie strives too hard to play a similar trick to the LEGO world as the first film, but it does all too obviously so. For example, we could see the origin of ‘Systar system’ from miles away. A huge talent like Maya Rudolph is wasted on the live action scenes, which remain formulaic and unspontaneous. The film’s message, too, is brought right in your face and lacks all the subtleties of the first film. There are some nice touches (for example, Bruce Willis playing a Lego version of himself, some nice 2D animation and a couple of pleasant songs), but overall the film never transcends mediocrity, despite all the evident effort. Thus one must conclude that after two films most of the inspiration for LEGO movies had died out.
Watch the trailer for ‘The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Chuck Jones
Release date: December 28, 1963
Stars: Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘To Beep or not to Beep’ is a late, but fine entry in the Road Runner series, exemplifying Chuck Jones’ late, rather deft style.
The short is noteworthy for a string of gags that all use a large catapult, which of course, fails the coyote repeatedly. Apart from the catapult gags, the giant spring gag is a nice one. Note the extreme deformation of the coyote’s body when it gets caught in a telephone wire: the coyote’s eyes and feet stretch for several meters at that point.
The animation and background art are gorgeous throughout, and even Bill Lava’s music is apt.
Watch an excerpt from ‘To Beep or not to Beep’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘To Beep or not to Beep’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three’
Director: Alex Lovy
Release date: February 3, 1968
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
The Warner Bros. Studio was in its fifth incarnation and almost at the end of its life (the studio closed down in 1969) when ‘Norman Normal’ was released. The film is one of the most original of the entire Warner Bros. output, and remarkable for being a collaboration with musician Paul Stookey, the Paul of famed folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
‘Norman Normal’ knows a pleasant cartoon modern design and there’s no funny animal in sight. Instead, the short is rather puzzling and hardly knows a narrative, but seems to say something about emotional blackmail in society, and how trying to fit in in society can conflict with one’s own moral standards.
Introduced by a colorful beat band, we follow Norman who struggles with an abject order by his boss, while he seems at loss at a party. Especially the party sequence is strikingly modern, addressing the pushy coercion into drinking alcohol, while Norman himself questions a joke on being funny at the expense of a minority group. I didn’t expect such modern stances in a 1960s cartoon, at all.
Unfortunately, the short is too directionless and ends too abruptly to become a classic, but it’s certainly an interesting product of the 1960s, an era of more experimental approach to storytelling, both in live action and animation.
The film’s title song also appeared on Peter, Paul and Mary’s 1966 release ‘The Peter, Paul and Mary Album’. According to Wikipedia more ‘Norman Normal’ cartoons were envisaged, but this would remain the only one.
Watch a video clip based on ‘Norman Normal’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Norman Normal’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Robert McKimson
Release date: February 29, 1964
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Bartholomew versus the Wheel’ is an oddball cartoon in both the Warner Bros. Canon and in Robert McKimson’s oeuvre. Narrated by a little boy the film tells about a dog, Bartholomew, who hates wheels, and bites them all. But things change when he tries to bite an airplane wheel.
‘Bartholomew versus the Wheel’ is a sweet little narrative directed at children and knows very charming cartoon modern designs that are unlike any other Warner Bros cartoon. Bartholomew himself has a very handsome rounded design, and the humans are often of a monochrome cartoon modern design. Also striking is the background art, which emulates children pencil drawings. This film thus is another pleasant surprise out of the studio’s last days.
Watch ‘Bartholomew versus the Wheel’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Bartholomew versus the Wheel’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Chuck Jones
Release date: April 27, 1963
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Now Hear This’ is a cartoon on sound. The film is one of the most original cartoons by a major studio of the 1960s, for its ultra-modern designs and idiosyncratic narrative. The film knows a stream-of-consciousness-like way of storytelling, exploiting an inner logic, but with only a dreamlike coherence.
In the film Chuck Jones and his crew only use monochrome backgrounds, with shapes, lines and typography emphasizing both the action and the emotional response. Only the three main characters (a devil, a deaf Briton and a small character dressed in pink) are drawn and animated traditionally, with the Briton being the audience’s connection to what happens on the screen.
Being a film on sound, sound effect man Tregg Brown goes berzerk in creating and combining the craziest sounds, from the decades-old ‘rubber band’ sound snippet to bizarre new sound effects accompanying lines, shapes and words. The result is as mesmerizing as it is rewarding in its originality. It’s striking that the studio could produce such an avant-garde film in its final days, which were mostly populated with much less inspired products.
Watch excerpts from ‘Now Hear This’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Now Hear This’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Directors: Chuck Jones & Abe Levitow
Release date: December 29, 1962
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Martian Through Georgia’ is narrated by Ed Prentiss and tells about a Martian (typically designed as a little green man, if a rather frog-like one).
This Martian is so bored by his own society, his psychiatrist advices him to travel. So the Martian sets out for Earth, where things are very different, indeed. Nevertheless, the Martian finds little happiness on our planet, and in the end goes back home, with renewed love for his home planet (or at least one of its female inhabitants).
‘Martian Through Georgia’ knows a very lame and disappointing ending and is far from funny, but the film’s character designs and animation are of a high quality. Yet, the film’s main attraction are its avant-garde layouts by Maurice Noble and background art by Philip DeGuard. Noble goes completely wild, so the artwork becomes a marvel from start to end. So even if the story fails to inspire, the film’s looks remain entertaining throughout.
Watch excerpts from ‘Martian Through Georgia’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Martian Through Georgia’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Robert McKimson
Release date: February 27, 1960
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Wild Wild World’ is an obvious parody on the documentary series ‘Wide Wide World’, which run on NBC from 1955 to 1958. Of all cavemen cartoons ‘Wild Wild World’ is the one most directly anticipating The Flintstones, who would make their debut only seven months after the release of this cartoon.
The film is introduced and narrated by one Cave Darroway (a caricature of the original televison series’ host Dave Garroway), but the main cartoon is supposedly found footage (in “cromagnonscope”) from 75,000,000 B.C., which would explain the dinosaurs but not the cavemen. The trope of cavemen and dinosaurs existing together is almost as old as cinema itself, but ‘Wild Wild World’ goes at lengths to show the society of 75 million years ago as being just like ours, with sky scrapers, barbers, elevators and such.
The film exploits a pleasant cartoon modern design and knows a running gag of three hunters trying to catch a dinosaur, to no avail. These cavemen are drawn all too tiny compared to the dinosaurs, exaggerating the prehistoric animals’ sizes way too much.
‘Wild Wild World’ is more of a curiosity than a classic Warner Bros. cartoon, but shows that the studio could be inspired even in its nadir.
Watch excerpts from ‘Wild Wild World’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Wild Wild World’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Robert McKimson
Release date: July 16, 1964
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘False Hare’ starts with two wolves, ‘Big Bad’ and his nephew, who unconvincingly pose as rabbits to make Bugs Bunny join their ‘club del conejo’ (or Rabbit Club). Bugs is way ahead of the duo, and only plays along because he is bored.
The gags, which involve a falling safe, an iron maiden, a cannon and a lot of dynamite are surprisingly fine, and this makes ‘False Hare’ anything but a sad farewell to our hero. Sure, the short is no standout, but at least we can laugh with Bugs to the very end.
The wolf and his nephew [ who had been introduced in ‘Now Hare This’ from 1958 as Isla points out in the comments below] seem destined for a long series of cartoons, but in fact ‘False Hare’ was the very last Bugs Bunny cartoon of the classic era, and the second to last cartoon made at the original Warner Bros. studio (‘Señorella and the Glass Huarache‘ being the final one). Thus we would never see this comic duo again. Note the cameo of Foghorn Leghorn.
Watch ‘False Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is the 168th and last Bugs Bunny cartoon
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: The Iceman Ducketh
‘False Hare’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Edition’
Director: Friz Freleng
Release date: September 7, 1963
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
In the 1960s the quality of the Warner Bros. Cartoons rarely reached the heights of the best of the 1940s and 1950s, but there were a few which did so.
‘The Unmentionables’ surely is one of them. The cartoon obviously parodies the television series ‘The Untouchables’, with Bugs Bunny as Elliott Ness (or Elegant Mess, as he’s called in the cartoon). Luckily, ‘The Unmentionables’ doesn’t rely much on the parody element, but has many gags of its own, like silly gangsters (a series of gags harking all the way back to ‘The Great Piggy Bank Robbery’ of 1946) and a great example of Friz Freleng’s timeless lightswitch routines.
The cartoon also sees the welcome return of that infamous gangster duo Rocksy and Mugsy, who make their final appearance here. And then there’s Bugs as a flapper girl! Even the opening shots are wonderful, with some nice 1920s scenes drawn in a retro-1920s art deco style. The whole cartoon is a delight and one of the studio’s final best moments.
Watch ‘The Unmentionables’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 162
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare-Breath Hurry
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Mad as a Mars Hare
‘The Unmentionables’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Edition’
Director: Robert McKimson
Release date: April 1, 1963
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In ‘The Million-Hare’ Daffy Ducks spends his holiday at Bugs’s place, watching tv. The action only starts when their two names are mentioned on tv as contestants in a ‘buddy race’: whoever gets first to the studio, wins.
What follows is a series of rather Roadrunner-like gags, in which gravity often is as much Daffy’s enemy as it were the coyote’s in the Roadrunner films. The cartoon is very talkative, but some of the gags are good. I liked Bugs’s wonderings about Daffy’s abilities.
The staging on the other hand, is often rather odd. I especially thought that the characters were a little too big on the screen several times.
Watch two excerpts from ‘The Million-Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 160
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Devil’s Feud Cake
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare-Breath Hurry
This is Daffy Duck cartoon no. 92
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: Fast Buck Duck
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: Aqua Duck
‘The Million-Hare’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Edition’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 