Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection: Funko Cwap
Before we talk about three of the better Bugs and Elmer shorts included in the numbered, limited-edition Blu-ray set The Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection, a word about packaging. The Looney Tunes gang has changed significantly since Termite Terrace closed in the early 1960s, but no more worryingly than bugs. The zombified Funko Pop Vinyl Wabbit in the Diamond Collection is enough to petrify any child. The collector’s item with glittering tip is advertised as “full-size”. (Without the help of the package, the hydrocephalic figure cannot stand on its own two paws.) If that were the case, Elmer would have squashed the 2-inch pest like a bug instead of wasting bullets.
It doesn’t stop with the packaging. Better kids elbowing the piano keys than the cacophonic rendition of The Merry-Go-Round Breaks Down that punctuates the menu. I’m never the kind of person to judge a Bugs Bunny Box by its shabby cover: Doc, there are 28 previously unreleased shorts on display! For the price of designing and creating this hollow-eyed monstrosity – his looks have the emotional power of black stoppers found on a BIC Cristal – I would have been satisfied with another 10 remastered shorts. It’s listed on Amazon for $ 74.99, but you can do better.
Elmer’s open camera (1940)
If Tex Avery and Chuck Jones had a son, he would have looked a lot like Elmer J. Fudd. As it is, it was Egghead who fathered Elmer. The strange-looking creation – an egg-shaped nose protruding from an otherwise egg-shaped noggin – made its box office debut and earned the title in Avery’s Egghead Rides Again (1937). It wasn’t until his sixth cartoon that the nickname Fudd was introduced. Elmer’s Candid Camera gave birth to the prototypical Fudd, first voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan. On his first foray through the forest, Elmer follows his prey with a camera, not a weapon, so a derby is sufficient for the time being instead of an oversized hunter’s hat. This was the fourth round for Bugs, and with no rabbit hole to call home amid the idyllic Disney-themed setting, the rock-hard earth was his bed. The vulcanized tips of the ears would soon disappear; ditto the hoarse-throated lisp Mel Blanc was still refining Bugs’ instantly recognizable Brooklyn twang. (We block out Bugs, who lets loose with a decidedly Woody Woodpecker laugh.) Under Jones’ guidance, Bugs assumed a “passive to bumped” demeanor. (Under Jones’ guidance, Bugs first said, “Of course you know that means war.”) This nasty twist leans more towards studio villain Bob Clampett, especially when it’s for no other reason than the opportunity Being an idiot, Bugs plants his rabbit foot right in Elmer’s Keester.
The old gray hand (1944)
Bob Clampett had always dreamed of producing an animated version of Jon Carter on Mars, so it’s not hard to see why this futuristic glimpse into the life of the most enduring cartoon duo is his crowning achievement. Sixty years later, Bugs and Elmer are still pulling on the same chic, now with rubbery, age-defining folds. Elmer has traded his trusty rifle for a Buck Rogers Lightning-Quick Rabbit Killer, while Bugs speaks through a cottontail beard. The lumbago that plagues him forces the old hand to walk with a stick in front of the backdrop of Wackyland. As if looking into the future weren’t enough, Clampett hops on a slingshot and takes us back in time for a Bugs & Elmer origin story. What begins with the baptism of Baby Elmer’s bonnet by breaking a glass bottle of carrot juice over his skull ends with a uniformed Bugs pimp clapping Elmer in his stroller until he is forgotten before he seals the deal with a kiss on the lips. (Are you sure you want kids to see this stuff?) It luckily ends up with Elmer and Bugs buried alive. Just four years after their relationship, and Clampett is already doing what animation historian Greg Ford called “a cradle-to-grave biopic.”
Bunny brush (1955)
One of the best of the “Wabbit Weversal” shorts in which Elmer wins. If the EJ Fudd building opening the show is any clue, Elmer has invested his money wisely. The only problem is that after all the years Elmer has spent hunting a rabbit, he believes he is one. It’s hard to imagine a contemporary cartoon set in a mental institution, especially one called the Fruitcake Sanitarium. And why Bugs strolls through the premises of an insane asylum is unclear. It is important that inmate Elmer discovers him and offers to swap places in exchange for the lifelong supply of carrots. Bugs is the perfect patient who swallows every pill. The German-sounding Dr. Oro Myicin hands him – in this case an anesthetic strong enough to instill a new mantra in the rabbit: “I’m Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht. ”Once he’s acclimatized, Bugs spends his hump day in the wild, chasing a billionaire in a rabbit suit. For two minutes, Fudd earns his retrospective repayment as it seems that every act of violence against him turns in the direction of his enemy. There’s even a tashlin-esque bear reminiscent of the one who tormented the duo in The Unruly Hare (a short film in desperate need of CD debut). In the end, Bugs is carted away, not to Bellevue, but to prison. Fudd slacks off his vigilance long enough (and returns to humanity just long enough) to partake in a dance sensation that once conquered the nation: the bunny hop.
