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Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: September 2, 1949
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘Dough for the Do-Do’ is a remake of Bob Clampett’s ‘Porky in Wackyland‘ (1938) in color.
The cartoon is more than a recoloring, however. Porky is reanimated throughout, and several scenes are different from the original. Scenes that are omitted are the paperboy appearing on the title card, Porky showing us a picture of the dodo, and the cat-dog attacking itself. Two scenes are altered: the way the guide ‘leads’ Porky to the dodo, and the finale: in the original Porky dresses as a paperboy announcing that Porky has captured the dodo, in ‘Dough for the Do-Do’, Porky dresses like a do-do, making the bird itself think he has caught the last of the do-dos.
The most conspicious difference between ‘Dough for the Do-Do’ and ”Porky in Wackyland’, however, is found in the backgrounds: where the original had rather undefined, a little George Herriman-like backgrounds, the remake uses clearly Salvador Dalí-inspired settings, full of typical Dalí-rocks, sticks and eyes. The title card even shows Dalí’s melted watches, linking cartoon surrealism to high art surrealism. Dalí-inspired scenery would return two years later in the Porky Pig cartoon ‘Wearing of the Grin’ from 1951.
It is striking to see how different this cartoon is from its contemporaries. ‘Porky in Wackyland’ was a milestone in surrealism, a move forward in wackiness, an innovative cartoon stirring up the childish make-belief world of the 1930s cartoons. However, eleven years later its remake ‘Dough for the Do-do’ feels old-fashioned: its animation is crude, its characters are unrefined, and its zaniness seems to come from another era.
And it does: in the late 1940s, the wild surrealism of the early Warner Bros. cartoons had toned down. It survived in cartoon conventions, which always contained a twist of surrealism, but the outlandishness had disappeared. Now, more emphasis was played on character humor and dialogue, something the Warner Bros. studio excelled at with its numerous stars. Only at MGM and Walter Lantz some of the original zany vibe was retained, but at large the wild era of studio cartoons was clearly over.
Watch ‘Dough for the Do-Do’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.220.ro/desene-animate/16-Porky-Dough-For-The-Do-Do-1949/mL0EVmznKK/
‘Dough for the Do-Do’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 128
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Often an Orphan
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Bye, Bye Bluebeard
Director: Art Davis
Release Date: February 12, 1949
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Porky Chops’ a squirrel from Brooklyn is having a holiday in a forest where Porky is working as a lumberjack.
This outlandish idea creates a rather routinely conflict with loads of dialogue. The result is one of Art Davis’s weaker cartoons, particularly because of the squirrel’s rather unpleasant character. This makes it difficult to sympathize with either protagonist.
The cartoon shows an interesting mixture of styles: the squirrel looks vaguely like a Robert McKimson-character, while Porky is designed and animated in a toned-down Clampettian style.
Watch ‘Porky Chops’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/650/porky-chops.html#.URQKvKU9R8E
‘Porky Chops’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 123
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Awful Orphan
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Paying the Piper
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: December 18, 1948
Stars: Porky Pig, Sylvester
Rating: ★★★
Review:
Chuck Jones was the only director to pair Porky Pig with Sylvester.
His Sylvester is very different from the one in Freleng’s Tweety cartoons. In Jones’s shorts he’s a cowardly cat that cannot speak. In all Porky-Sylvester cartoons Porky tries to stay asleep unaware of the real dangers around him. Sylvester, on the other hand, sees them all, but fails completely in convincing his master of the dangers.
The aptly titled ‘Sacredy Cat’ was the first of a series of three. In this cartoon Porky and his cat Sylvester enter their new mansion, which has genuine horror allure, scaring Sylvester to death. And for a good reason, because this mansion is inhabited by homocidal Hubie and Bertie-like mice who make several attempts to murder Sylvester and Porky.
Only when Porky discovers the mice, too, who lead him to a certain death, Sylvester rediscovers his courage and chases all the mice out of the house, except for the headsman mouse, who knocks the cat down, and reveals to be a caricature of comedian Lew Lehr (1895-1950), exclaiming a twist on the comedian’s catchphrase: “pussycats is the craziest people!”. An odd ending to a sometimes rather unsettling cartoon.
Porky and Sylvester would reunite six years later in an all too similar cartoon called ‘Claws for Alarm’ (1954), and again in ‘Jumpin’ Jupiter‘ (1955).
Watch ‘Scaredy Cat’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1z1upl_sylvester-the-cat-ep-12-scaredy-cat_fun
‘Scaredy Cat’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 121
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Riff Raffy Daffy
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Awful Orphan
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: January 29, 1949
Stars: Porky Pig, Charlie Dog
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Awful Orphan’ is the second cartoon of five starring that delightfully annoying mutt, Charlie Dog.
In this short Charlie Dog sneaks into Porky’s apartment ‘disguised’ as a canary. He then tries to persuade an unwilling Porky Pig to let him stay as a pet. In the end Porky even forces him to stay, as a master with Porky being his dog.
‘Awful Orphan’ is hampered by Porky’s untypical behavior, being rather nasty at several points. The animation, however, is top notch, and full of excellent poses and smears. On Porky’s wall we can see a rather fauvist painting of two naked ladies, one of the smaller signs of Jones’ interest in more classical arts.
Watch ‘Awful Orphan’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ecxen
‘Awful Orphan’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 122
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Scaredy Cat
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky Chops
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: July 24, 1948
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Marvin the Martian
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Haredevil Hare’ Bugs opens with two headlines of the ‘Daily Snooze’: ‘Scientist to Launch First Rocket to the Moon’ and ‘Heroic Rabbit Volunteers to Be First Passenger’.
Cut to Bugs Bunny ‘volunteering’ (he’s literally dragged towards the spaceship by two men). Bugs changes his mind however, when he notices the supply of carrots dumped into the rocket. And so he’s off to the moon.
Bugs has a hard landing on the moon, which destroys his vesssel and leaves him in shock. But just when he’s adjusted to the fact that he’s alone on the moon, Bugs encounters Marvin the Martian (in his first screen appearance) and his green, talking Martian dog, who is designed like a green version of Charlie Dog and who speaks with the dumb voice of Junior Bear, provided by voice actor Stan Freberg.
The two Martians are on the first Mars-Moon expedition and want to blow up the Earth. But it’s Bugs who blows up the two and accidentally half the moon, too. In the end we see the three hanging on the left piece of the moon with bugs screaming to the control room: “Get me outa here!”.
‘Haredevil Hare’ is one of the first science fiction-themed films that flooded the post-war era. It even predates the first post-war live action features set in outer space, ‘Rocketship X-M’ and ‘Destination Moon’ by two years. In the 1950s outer space would become a popular film setting. Indeed, Chuck Jones himself would revisit outer space several times in his cartoons, most notably in ‘Jumpin’ Jupiter‘ (1955), ‘Rocket Squad’ (1956), and the greatest of all science fiction cartoons, ‘Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century‘ (1953).
The latter cartoon also features Marvin the Martian, who would reappear in three more Bugs Bunny cartoons: ‘The Hasty Hare’ (1951), ‘Hare-Way to the Stars’ (1958) and ‘Mad as a Mars Hare’ (1963). Of all cartoon villains, Marvin the Martian is the most extraordinary. He’s as gentle, polite and mild-mannered as he is destructive. Although he would never become a major star, he’s still popular today.
Apart from introducing Marvin, ‘Haredevil Hare’ is a notable cartoon because of some nice and weird animation by Ben Washam of Bugs being a nervous wreck after his voyage to the moon: we watch him changing from one bizarre pose into the other, almost without any animation in between. The scenes inside the rocket scene are reminiscent of Bob Clampett’s ‘Falling Hare’ (1943).
Watch ‘Haredevil Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/661/haredevil-hare.html
‘Haredevil Hare’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 51
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Bugs Bunny Rides Again
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hot Cross Bunny
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: April 23, 1949
Stars: Claude Cat, Hubie and Bertie
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
Mouse Wreckers’ is one of Chuck Jones’s all time classic cartoons.
Hubie and Bertie have found a new home, which unfortunately is inhabited by a prize-winning mouse chasing cat, Claude (in his debut). But Hubie and Bertie succeed to chase the cat out of the house by turning him into a nervous wreck. Hubie and Bertie angle themselves through the chimney to evoke the cat’s doom. After several gags, ending with one using an upside down room, the cat, who never knew what was going on, flees the house in horror, leaving it for Hubie and Bertie to roast marshmellows at the fire.
‘Mouse Wreckers’ features some minor stars from the Chuck Jones vault, but its character comedy is brilliant nonetheless. The character animation of Claude Cat trying to deal with his supposed hallucinations is wonderfully well done, and his steady decline into madness is both hilarious and chilling to watch.
Fifteen years later Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese would reuse this story idea in their Tom and Jerry cartoon ‘The Year of the Mouse’ (1965).
Watch ‘Mouse Wreckers’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Robert McKimson
Release Date: May 27, 1950
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★
Review:
‘An Egg Scramble’ introduces the feeble hen Miss Prissy, who would star in several Foghorn Leghorn cartoons.
In this short, however, she’s owned by Porky, who scowls her for failing to lay eggs. Shes tricked by the other hens, who make her believe she’s laid an egg. But when Porky takes it from her to sell, she follows it into town, where she accidentally teams up with a huge gangster.
The story of ‘An Egg Scramble’ is rather odd and never really convinces. It features a dog-like criminal and a very lifelike human woman, for instance. It’s also hampered by way too much dialogue, something that would become sadly characteristic of the McKimson cartoons.
Watch ‘An Egg Scramble’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.b99.tv/video/egg-scramble/
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 132
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: The Scarlet Pumpernickel
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Golden Yeggs
Director: Art Davis
Release Date: October 21, 1949
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Porky tries to get rid of an annoying mouse.
When it’s announced on the radio that brutal killer Bluebeard is in town, the mouse disguises as the criminal. Porky quickly discovers his disguise however, but then the real killer shows up, too. Porky faints on the spot, and is tight to a rocket and put under a guillotine. It’s the little mouse who saves the day by blowing up the killer, and in the end he’s allowed to stay in Porky’s house.
This story is not presented very logically, nor is it very well executed. Therefore, one doesn’t care for the characters, nor is it very funny. Art Davis definitely could do better, but unfortunately this was his last cartoon at Warner Brothers. He would not direct again until 1962, when he directed the Daffy Duck short ‘Quackodile Tears’. In the meantime Davis returned to animating, joining Friz Freleng’s unit.
Watch ‘Bye, Bye Bluebeard’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.220.ro/desene-animate/10-Bye-Bye-Bluebeard/2Z9yE6bPnU/
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 129
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Dough for the Do-Do
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Boobs in the Woods
Director: Robert McKimson
Release Date: August 27, 1949
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
The three pigs sell their straw and wooden houses to Bugs Bunny, because they’ve read in a book what’s going to happen.
The wolf, who’s reading the same book, indeed blows both houses down, to much dismay of Bugs. Bugs revenges by dressing up like Red Riding Hood. This leads to hilarious sequences, including a perfectly executed light and staircase gag. In the end, Bugs helps the wolf blowing the pigs’ brick house down, by blowing it up.
‘The Windblown Hare’ is a nice example of a fairy tale mix-up cartoon, comparable to ‘The Big Bad Wolf‘ (1934), ‘The Bear’s Tale’ (1940) and ‘Swing Shift Cinderella’ (1945). It is hampered a little by large amounts of dialogue, but it still has plenty of silliness to laugh at.
Watch ‘The Windblown Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2nfts9
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 64
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: The Grey Hounded Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Frigid Hare
Director: Robert McKimson
Release Date: March 6, 1948
Stars: Daffy Duck, Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
Porky Pig tries to find a room in a town in which all hotels are full due to a convention.
When he finally finds one, he has to share it with a room mate, which turns out to be Daffy at his looniest. Daffy certainly is your worst nightmare of a room mate: he arrives singing loudly, talks to an invisible kangaroo, awakes Porky just out of curiosity, hiccups, steals blankets, puts his cold feet against Porky’s back and spills his glass of water over him. Porky, naturally, throws the looney duck out, but Daffy returns and makes Porky believe it’s morning already, and that he has to catch a train, which Porky eventually does, defying all logic.
This zany Warren Foster-penned story undoubtedly is one of Robert McKimson’s finest cartoons. The gags come fast and plenty, and are as insane as they are familiar. ‘Daffy Duck Slept Here’ is one of the last Warner Brothers cartoons to feature the looney Daffy. The result is a cartoon to laugh your head off.
On a side note: The elevator gag in this cartoon was reused in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit‘ (1988) starring Droopy as the lift boy.
Watch ‘Daffy Duck Slept Here’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7kee7v
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 117
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Little Orphan Airedale
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Nothing But the Tooth
This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 42
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: What Makes Daffy Duck?
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: You Were Never Duckier
‘Daffy Duck Slept Here’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three’
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: November 12, 1949
Stars: Pepe le Pew
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘For Scent-imental Reasons’ is the fourth Pepe Le Pew cartoon, and one of his best.
In this short a French perfume shop owner discovers Pepe le Pew in his shop and throws in his female cat to chase away our romantic skunk. Of course, she accidentally gets a white stripe on her back and she’s chased by the smelly Latin lover. But when Pepe accidentally falls into a barrel of blue paint, the tables are turned and he’s chased by the cat.
This short features an excellent scene of Pepe arguing with the cat through a glass window in silent pantomime.
Watch ‘For Scent-imental Reasons’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘For Scent-imental Reasons’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’ and ‘Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection: 15 winners’
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: October 7, 1949
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★½
Review:
On the way to Miami Beach Bugs misses a left turn at Albuquerque again and reaches the South Pole, where’s confronted with a little penguin chased by an Eskimo, who is as mean as he is out of place. Although Bugs wants to go to the beach, he saves the little fellow.
This is one of the weaker Bugs Bunny cartoons, mainly because of the rather inactive penguin, whose cuteness softens Bugs’s character and because of the large amount of dialogue, provided by Bugs alone. The short’s best scene is when Bugs dresses as a female Eskimo to rescue his waddling little friend. Jones would reuse the little penguin the next year in ‘8 Ball Bunny‘ with moderately better results.
Watch ‘Frigid Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/663/bugs-bunny-frigid-hare.html
‘Frigid Hare’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 65
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: The Windblown Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Which is Witch?
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: September 16, 1949
Stars: Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Fast and Furry-ous’ is the very first Road Runner cartoon.
The short lays out the plan for all other Road Runner shorts, introducing the Road Runner, and the coyote, and their habitat: a desert canyon landscape covered by freeways. Like all following Road Runner cartoons it consists of blackout gags, involving mail orders, strange inventions, explosives, trucks, boulders and cliffs. It differs from the other Road Runner cartoons, however, in that only one of the products the Coyote purchases (the Superman suit) is made by ACME. It also features quite elaborate designs of Wile E. Coyote. In later cartoon his looks would become more streamlined.
Fast and Furry-ous is an excellent debut. It already contains a classic gag with the one in which the coyote constructs a ludicrous machine from a refrigerator, which produces snow to ski on. Unfortunately he runs out of snow when he’s skiing above a huge ravine…
‘Fast and Furry-ous’ introduces the excellent silent comedy of the Road Runner cartoons, second only to the Tom & Jerry series, and very welcome in an age in which animated shorts became more and more dialogue-driven.
Although we would call the series after the Road Runner, the speedy bird is essentially a one-dimensional character: being invincible, the Road Runner knows only one cheerful expression, and doesn’t do much more than running really, really fast and going ‘beep beep’.
The Coyote, on the other hand, is the best character ever conceived by Chuck Jones. Although he is the predator, in several shorts Jones goes at lengths to show he’s starving and desperate for food, making him more sympathetic. Moreover, the Coyote is an optimist, ever believing he will once triumph. He’s also a fanatic, not giving up despite all his mishaps. And he is an inventor, thinking of countless ways to catch the Road Runner. It is however his unfortunate doom to be confronted with bad luck no matter what he does. In Chuck Jones’s own words:
“In the Road Runner cartoons, we hoped to evoke sympathy for the Coyote. It is the basis of the series: the Coyote tries by any means to capture the Road Runner, ostensibly and at first to eat him, but this motive has become beclouded, and it has become, in my mind at least, a question of loss of dignity that forces him to continue. And who is the Coyote’s enemy? Why, the Coyote. The Road Runner has never touched him, never even startled him intentionally beyond coming up behind the Coyote occasionally and going “Beep-Beep!”. No, the only enemy the Coyote has is his overwhelming stubborness. Like all of us, at least some of the time, he persists in a course of action long after he has forgotten his original reasons for embarking on it.”
(from ‘Chuck Amuck’, page 219)
So when this wonderfully enthusiastic character looks to us for sympathy, when confronted by boulders, trucks, explosions or one of the immensely deep canyons of his homeland, he gains it, for we understand his frustrations and sympathize with him wholeheartedly.
These Oliver Hardy-like looks into the camera belong to the highlights of the series, and it is the silent comedy of the Coyote’s facial expressions that makes the Road Runner cartoons such fun to watch. Indeed, when given a voice, as in the Bugs Bunny cartoon ‘Operation Rabbit‘ (1952), the character becomes much less interesting; too pompous, too self-aware to gain the sympathy he would silently get. The four Bugs Bunny-Coyote combination shorts therefore never reach the comic success of the best of the Road Runner cartoons.
Watch ‘Fast and Furry-ous’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Fast and Furry-ous’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
Director: Robert McKimson
Release Date: October 14, 1949
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
At the San Juan Capistrano mission a cat is waiting for the swallows to return. Unfortunately, the swallows have sent a scout who is too clever for him.
This cartoon contains of several blackout gags, and, unusual for a Robert McKimson cartoon, practically no dialogue. Actually, the cartoon is reminiscent of the silent blackout gag comedy of the Road Runner series, which were introduced only one month earlier. ‘Swallow The Leader’ may be atypical for McKimson, it’s well-directed,with the gags coming in fast and well-timed.
The mission featured does really exists and is indeed famous for its nesting swallows. The cat is a typical McKimson design, and very reminiscent of the Supreem Cat in ‘Paying the Piper’ from earlier that year. Typically, he wears a collar, which makes him look like a forerunner of the standard Hanna-Barbera television studio design.
Director: Art Davis
Release Date: August 14, 1948
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
Art Davis is one of the unsung heroes of Warner Brothers animation. His unit existed for only three years, but in this short time period he released many fine cartoons, with a distinct and recognizable style.
‘Dough Ray Me-Ow’ is one of his best cartoons, and a rather macabre one, too. This short features a cat, called Heathcliff, who is even too dumb to breathe. Heathcliff, without knowing it, inherits an enormous sum of money. When his ‘pal’ Louie, a cynical parrot, discovers that if Heathcliff dies, this fortune will come to him, he tries to kill Louie in great, funny gags. Surprisingly, in the end he even succeeds, but when he tells the dying Heathcliff his secret, the cat’s nine lives simply refuse to go to heaven!
Apart from the main story, the cartoon contains a small running gag in which we see Heatcliff cracking nuts in ridiculously elaborate ways, always involving his own head.
‘Dough Ray Me-Ow’ features watercolor backgrounds, very unusual for Warner Brothers at the time.
Watch an excerpt from ‘Dough Ray Me-ow’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Dough Ray Me-Ow’ is available on the Blu-Ray-set ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’ and on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Four’
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: June 25, 1949
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
Bugs Bunny is singing nearby a villa, where a huge opera singer, called Giovanni Jones, is practicing.
The singer is heavily disturbed by Bugs’s performance and without arguing destroys our hero’s banjo, his harp and his tuba. Only then Bugs is prompted into war, which he reserves for the opera singer’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl.
What follows are great blackout gags featuring a string of opera tunes, with Bugs as ‘Leopold’ as a major highlight. This impersonation is an obvious reference to star conductor Leopold Stokowski, famous for conducting ‘Fantasia’ (1940). Bugs destroys the conductor’s baton, to direct with his hands only, like Stokowski does. From now on he controls the singer almost like a puppeteer. Bugs finally destroys his opponent by making him sing a ridiculously long high note, which tears the complete bowl down.
With cartoons like ‘Long-Haired Hare’ director Chuck Jones really came into his own: it shows Jones’ attitude to Bugs Bunny, who, in Jones’s cartoons, is only a misschief when provoked. Giovanni Jones is one of Bugs Bunny’s particularly large adversaries, following The Crusher (‘Rabbit Punch‘, 1948), and the warehouse manager in ‘Hare Conditioned‘ (1945).
‘Long-Haired Hare’ also shows Jones’ love for high culture, like opera. For instance, we can clearly detect a painting by Roussau le douanier decorating the opera singer’s villa. Jones’s love for opera would lead to two of his most famous and best cartoons, ‘The Rabbit of Seville‘ (1950) and ‘What’s Opera, doc?‘ (1958), which also feature Bugs Bunny.
In 1950, the Hollywood Bowl would be visited by cartoon characters again, when Tom & Jerry both tried to conduct in ‘Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl‘.
Watch ‘Long-Haired Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2fdnv1
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 61
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Bowery Bugs
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Knights Must Fall
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: April 30, 1949
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
Bugs is presenting a vaudeville show in some western town.
Yosemite Sam especially visits his show to see the high diving Fearless Freep. Unfortunately, Freep is delayed by a storm and can’t come to perform. The disappointed Sam urges Bugs to take Freep’s place.
What follows is a masterful series of gags, which all end with Sam falling from the ridiculously high platform. At one point Freleng doesn’t even bother to point out how Bugs makes Sam take the plunge once again. As if it’s a natural law, Sam will fall anyway. Bugs, on the other hand, defies the law of the gravity. But you know, he tells us at the end, he never studied law…
Penned by storyman Tedd Pierce, this wonderfully hilarious cartoon takes a single idea from Freleng’s earlier ‘Stage Door Cartoon‘ (1944) and milks it brilliantly to a superb finale. Freleng’s timing rarely was so effective as in this cartoon, and it must rank among his all time best.
Watch ‘High Diving Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2bdtkf_bugs-bunny-ep-73-high-diving-hare_fun
‘High Diving Hare’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 59
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Rebel Rabbit
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Bowery Bugs
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: December 14, 1948
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Bugs misses a turn at Albuquerque and ends up in Scotland.
When he mistakes a Scotchman’s bagpipes for a monster attacking an old lady, he ends up playing golf against the angered Scotchman. Of course, Bugs wins the game, which consists of several blackout gags, and he even manages to defeat the kilted guy at playing the pipes.
The Scotchman looks like a cross between Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam, but who hasn’t got anything near the personality of either of the two. Therefore the interplay between our hero and the villain never really come to live, despite some nice facial expressions on Bugs’ adversary.
Peter Alvarado’s backgrounds do not help: they are too vivid to ignore, but have none of the beauty of either Jones early 1940s cartoons or his cartoons from the 1950s. Instead they express a strange mix of realistic and more stylized patterns. The result is a rather mediocre entry in the Bugs Bunny catalog.
Watch ‘My Bunny Lies over the Sea’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘My Bunny Lies over the Sea’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 55
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: A Lad in his Lamp
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare Do
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: February 2, 1946
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
It seems an almost certain loss for the age-old Tea-Totallers, who get plastered by the tough team of the Gas-House Gorillas…
Bugs Bunny, who’s watching the game, wearing an innocent straw head, boasts that he can beat the Gas-House Gorillas single-handed, so he gets himself a game. Playing in every position he manages to win the ball game in this wild and hilariously funny cartoon, which is noteworthy for its great dialogue, excellent animation, and superb timing. Especially when Bugs Bunny starts batting, the gags role in in a remarkably fast tempo.
Highlight among the many gags may be Bugs’s constant jabbering. Some of it was copied by Jones in ‘Rabbit Punch‘ (1948). ‘Baseball Bugs’ reuses several gags from the Woody Woodpecker cartoon ‘The Screwball’ (1942), but with much better results, making it a classic, where ‘The Screwball’ was not. If the short has one flaw, it’s that it’s over before you know it, with the end coming all too soon.
Notice the advert for ‘Michael Maltese, Ace Dick’ in Bugs Bunny’s first scene.
Watch ‘Baseball Bugs’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tj0co
‘Baseball Bugs’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 35
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare Tonic
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare Remover
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: April 10, 1948
Stars: Bugs Bunny, The Crusher
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
When Bugs jeers at the champion of a boxing game, he’s suddenly ‘invited’ to be in it.
The boxing game soon changes into a wrestling match with blackout gags, in which we only see round 37, 49, 73, 98 and 110. These blackout gags foreshadow the complete Road Runner series. In the last one the champ uses a train in order to ride over Bugs, but then the film abruptly breaks, a revival of a gag Jones used in ‘My Favorite Duck‘ (1942).
‘Rabbit Punch’ is one of the earliest cartoons in what we can call Chuck Jones’ mature style, which consolidated in 1949. Like in his earlier Bugs Bunny cartoons ‘Case of the Missing Hare‘ (1942) and ‘Hare Conditioned‘ (1945), Jones uses his sense of grace and deftness to portray a particularly large, human opponent to Bugs. And like in those cartoons he does that with stunning ‘camera angles’ and a cinematic approach. Bugs is pretty suave in this cartoon, acting out complete terror in the final scene, only to appear in full control, after all.
Watch ‘Rabbit Punch’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2fby3f
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 48
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: A Feather in his Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Buccaneer Bunny
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 