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Director: Chuck Jones
Release date: June 8, 1963
Stars: Bugs Bunny & Wile E. Coyote
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Hare-breadth Hurry’ is the last of five cartoons in which Chuck Jones combined the Coyote with Bugs Bunny. This is a particularly weird one, as Bugs Bunny replaces the Road Runner, as he explains at the beginning of the short.
The coyote, thus, is his silent self as in other Road Runner cartoons, and not the suave talkative character of ‘Operation: Rabbit’ (1952) or ‘To Hare Is Human’ (1956). In fact, this is a Road Runner cartoon in everything but the coyote’s co-star. In two of the gags Bugs doesn’t even participate, with the coyote hampering himself.
The gags are fair, but Bugs is very talkative, addressing the audience several times, and he’s actually the most tiresome aspect of the cartoon. The end scene, which features a string of gags around a telephone, is the most inspired, but I can hardly count ”Hare-breadth Hurry’ among either the coyote’s or Bugs Bunny’s classics.
Watch ‘Hare-breadth Hurry’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 161
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: The Million-Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: The Unmentionables
‘Hare-breadth Hurry’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice Vol. 2’
Director: Earl Hurd
Release Date: November 9, 1919
Stars: Bobby Bumps & Fido
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
In this short film, little boy Bobby Bump jumps out of the inkwell, together with his dog Fido, and calls his master, who hasn’t arrived at work, yet, on the phone.
Their creator Earl Hurd invites them at his home. What follows is a funny smoke gag, but shortly after Bobby and Fido start packing, the cartoon ends, cutting short a promising premise.
As ever with the Bobby Bump cartoons, the designs are very appealing, but the animation is very limited and a bit crude. Yet, the simple gags have their own charm, and this cartoon is particularly interesting for starring the master Earl Hurd, himself.
Watch ‘Their Master’s Voice’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Their Master’s Voice’ is available on the Blu-Ray/DVD-combo ‘Cartoon Roots: Bobby Bumps and Fido’
Director: Frank Moser
Release Date: 1930
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Family Album’ is a commercial by Charles W. Barrell for the Western Electric Company, glorifying the telephone, and its ‘offspring’: other inventions that are derived from telephone technology, including the microphone and the speaker.
The film reuses the character Talkie from Fleischer’s earlier film ‘Finding his voice‘ (1929), but its star is an anthropomorphized telephone, talking about his family. Although quite educational, the film is less interesting than Fleischer’s film. The animation, by veterans Paul Terry and Frank Moser, is rather poor and limited. There’s no rubbery animation whatsoever, and the designs are still in 1920s style.
‘Family Album’ is available on the DVD ‘Cultoons! Rare, Lost and Strange Cartoons! Volume 2: Animated Education’
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