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Sunday, August 10, 2014

League Assignment: Top 10 / Looney Tunes shorts!

This week's assignment for the league.



TOP 10 Best Looney Tunes Episodes!


Fast and the Furriest - All time favorite Road Runner and Coyote Cartoon.  Set to the great March of the Comedians.  Although most of the earlier Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons are awesome before Bill Lava took over the music which I never cared for.  We get the character M.O.'s, an effect which I love, with RoadRunner as "Accelleratii Incredibus" and Wile E. Coyote as "Carnivorous Vulgaris" and includes all the classic tricks like painting the tunnel on the wall, fast sneakers, boulders and whatnot...no patented falling off a cliff gag though surprisingly but this one is the special episode for me.



Ali Baba Bunny - Bugs and Daffy interacting with someone other than Yosemite Sam or Elmer Fudd, it's nice.  "Hassan Chop" is one of the best lines in the Looney Tooniverse.  Daffy is at his best here and really ups the ante with his over the top greed and reactions to the treasure crack me up.  "It's all mine, mine, mine!  I'm independent!" was the first set of wav files I used on my first computer sounds.  Hassan is great too as well as Daffy's reaction to him. Just pure comic gold.



The Abomidable Snow Rabbit - Bugs and Daffy take the big, dumb, galoot to a new level with this guy.  Daffy in the mistaken rabbit identity is great and I love his reactions.  Honestly, Daffy is my hands down favorite character just in his facial animations.



It's Hummer Time - Great comic timing and physical gags galore as a cat chases a hummingbird around the yard and repeatedly lands in the path of a bulldog whom repeatedly beats the bejeezus out of him.  "Not the Birdbath" "Not Happy Birthday" "Not the Thinker!" All are hilarious especially from Mel Blanc's great frantic cat as the dog almost stoically delivers the torture.  It's even funnier that apparently all of these punishments happen at a frequent enough rate that they are all given names and once the punishment is delivered the cat just sits there and takes it while the dogs just sits there and delivers it.  All while the classic track "the works" plays in the background.  Superb.


Hot Cross Bunny - Bugs at his finest with a no-name straight character to play off of loosely based on a German accented doctor with intent to experiment on him.  Bugs dances, sings, does a magic act and does his iconic vaudeville dance that I remember served as a bumper for the "June Bugs" promotions.  When he runs into the skeleton closet, the reaction is priceless.  Bug's quick monologue is just so goofy and random, "Ladies and Gentleman of the jury..." To this day I don't even know what they are lampooning but it's still hilarious as it was when I saw this as a little kid.



Wabbit of Seville - Looney tunes infusing culture onto us young ones while including Bugs in drag, Elmer's speech impediment and a slew of slapstick insanity.  Rossini would be proud!



Rabbit Fire / Duck, Rabbit, Duck! / Fricasseeing wabbbit!  Fiddler Crab Season! Pronoun Trouble! Dirty Skunk Season!  Be it on land,  in the snow or wherever  with Fudd being the great shotgun wielding moderator to Bugs and Daffys' ceaseless debate of wordplay and semantics.  The plays on words here showed that they were quite a bit of smarts behind that writing intended for children.  This explains in my opinion why this was so universally funny.



Duck Amuck - Daffy doing what he does best this time alone against an unseen animator antagonist driving him nuts.  Breaking the fourth wall consistently and being an absolute comic genius is truly Daffy's great M.O. and why I love him most in the Looney Tunes family.



The Great Piggy Bank Robbery - Although I like Daffy lampooning Buck Rogers better just in production value alone and Porky being hilarious I gotta say this one makes the list just for the Dick Tracy nod and the great list of bad guys.  I still think Neon Noodle deserves to be made into a figure.

1 comment:

  1. Looney Tunes!! In Latin América they were known as "El Show de Bugs Bunny". All my childhood I thought they were cartoons from 70s. I was surprised when I knew they were much older!

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