Author: Dr. Foolio

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Any bonds today?

Now what we have here is a short that is entirely music. We see a figure approaching and it is our patriotic cartoon character, Bugs Bunny. He starts to sing and tell us we must buy war bonds if we are going to win World War 2. Soon Porky and Elmer (in his fat phase) join him. So as you are probably guessing it is not really worth your time to watch it, right? Wrong! It is a great song! One that I find myself singing whenever I take a walk. If you do not watch this, then you are definitely missing out. (Just be mindful of the blackface. That is humorless.)

Personal Rating: 3

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Lady Play your Mandolin

“Hola!”

This is the first Merrie Melody and is one of my all time favorites, so lets get this party started.

We open on a bar with one of the catchiest songs ever played. (These old M.M.’s titles were just the name of the song that was played in the short.) All the customers are singing and drinking (beer) and having a great old time. After some music we find our character, Foxy. He is riding his horse to the party to have some fun. He arrives and plans to go in but his horse wants in on the action. Foxy ties his neck around a cactus (Imagine how horrible that would be!) and goes in.

He drinks and the entertainment begins. It is Roxy and Foxy asks her to (all together now) “Play her mandolin!” She complies and more music ensures. The horse is ticked at being left out and unties himself. He yells some thing and Foxy breaks some tequila over his head. His horse gets drunk and comes in. He drinks more and starts to hallucinate wildly. Pretty scary. He burns up and our characters finish their song.

Personal Rating: 4 (First cartoons aren’t supposed to be this good.)

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Merrie Melodies

I have no idea how these are supposed to be classified. I have read many different interpretations. One said these contain minor characters who do not appear in any other picture. Another said they are just music focused. I have found neither to be completely true. In my opinion they are exactly the same as their Looney counterparts, just a bit more Merrie. (Yeah, that’s the ticket.)

At one point, they were the cartoons that Warner Bros. released in color, but that eventually became every picture. I however, am a fan of Looney Tunes to such an extent that I do not care. They are wonderful, and every bit as enjoyable as the others. However, if anyone can tell me a difference that I have not mentioned, and makes sense, then I would love to hear it.

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Crying for the Carolines

I am quite sure this is the first Spoony Melody made, and if you watch it you can easily see why they never made many more. It starts with some guy singing, and we see some woods. A boat FLIES by, and we see the moon. After that, we see a city and the boat returns. That’s it, the end. Now it is not really bad, but it is just freaking weird. This is the kind of thing that would have messed me up as a child. These are just the kind of things we have to put up with.

Personal Rating: 1

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Spoony Melodies

Looney Tunes was doing so well that Leon Schlesinger thought that these would be a good idea. What they would do is replace the real organist usually found in a theater, with a musical short in live action. Needless to say, you probably never heard of these, because only four of these were ever made.Although today you can not really find any of these, I was lucky enough to find one, and tomorrow, I shall talk about it. See you then.

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Bosko

When it comes to early Looney Tunes, you can not go any earlier than this guy. Bosko was our first Looney Tune and the father of all shorts. He was created when two of Disney’s ex-animators left Disney to start their own company. Their character was Bosko, a happy go lucky talk-ink kid. (who a lot of people these days think is a racist caricature. Well, he is only black and white and I am sure black showed up better against the background, I am sure they never meant to offend. Me personally, I always thought he was some kind of ape. And I’m aware that isn’t necessarily a good thing.)

After him, many others would soon follow but the magic started here. Bosko is not completely forgotten. (Watch “Space Jam” and keep your eyes open. There is a picture of him.)

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Toon Heads

It is time to upgrade this place and so, pics. and videos will now be available! To celebrate, I decided to talk about one of my favorite childhood shows: ToonHeads. Yeah, I know it was not only focused on Looney Tunes, but it featured them prominently and it taught me to love them. (Yes, as a kid I was scared that all the characters got killed.)

This show had a great soundtrack which was just a drumbeat. Each episode showed a certain theme. Like cartoon caricatures or musical cartoons. We would see two shorts and then a trivia question. After that they would show us the final short, and call it a half hour. Ahh, those were the good ole’ days. Cartoon Network was great and I loved it. I think it was the best out of the three networks I watched. (Which included Nickelodeon and Toon Disney. R.I.P.)

Personal Rating: 3 (I mean, not only are the shorts sometimes edited, but not every episode can even be viewed these days.)

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Tortoise Wins by a Hare

“Here comes the toitle.”

In what may be the first Looney Tunes clip show, we see footage from Bugs’ first race against Cecil Turtle. As we all know, Cecil won, and Bugs is ticked. How did he do it? He goes to Cecil’s house in disguise and asks for the secret. Cecil tells him that his shell is streamlined and that rabbits are retards. Bugs is mad and runs off to make sure he’ll win the next race. Cecil of course knew who it was the whole time and speculates that another race is about to happen.

The day of the race arrives and the rabbits are betting everything on the rabbit, and they are sure to have some tricks. They begin and Bugs puts on a metal tortoise shell in hopes of raising his aerodynamics. However, Cecil is now wearing a rabbit suit and as mentioned before, rabbits are dumb. They clobber Bugs and carry Cecil to the finish. Bugs reveals who he is and the rabbits commit suicide.

Personal Rating: 4

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Bugs Bunny gets the Boid

“Shh! I’m a-stalking a victim.”

Its Beaky Buzzard’s debut and he is sent by his mother to get food for dinner. (While she stays home and does who knows what) Beaky wants no part of this, but his mom kicks him out saying to at least get a rabbit. (We all know where this is heading)

The Snerd bird sees Bugs and grabs him. Bugs says he must shower first, but Beaky catches on. He leaps into the hole only to find Bugs dressed as a woman. Bugs smacks him with his towel and runs. Beaky catches him and flies off. Bugs rips out one of his feathers and tickles him into letting go. Bugs lands in front of a skeleton and mistakes it for his own. On seeing his feet he realizes he is okay.

He goes off but Beaky grabs him. They dance and Bugs puts him in front of the skeleton. Beaky calls for his mom and she is ticked. Bugs reveals that her “leetle keeler” is fine and she declares him a hero instead!

Personal Rating: 4

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Don’t Give up the Sheep

“Hello, Fred.”

This is the first appearance of Ralph and Sam, and it shows. Sam is erroneously called Ralph, and the real Ralph looks less like a coyote and more like a starving animal.

It starts with Sam going to work. He greets Fred Sheepdog and they switch places for the day. Ralph shows up and plans to get the sheep. He sets the time-clock ahead and this works. Until Sam sees the village clock and runs back to the field. (One thing to keep in mind, Ralph usually gets his prey. He just does not get to eat it.)

3 more scenes deserve mention. Ralph digs under the ground to get the sheep but he gets greedy and takes them all. Sam sees this and rushes down. The wolf grabs him. POW! Ralph uses a rope swing to swing down and get a sheep, bur he grabs Sam. Finally, Sam quits for the day and Fred greets him. Sam starts pounding him and we see it’s really Ralph in disguise. The real Fred shows up and takes over Sam’s Ralph pounding.

Personal Rating: 3