Bugs Bunny and Halloween – CartoonClack Flashback

So … you’re all set.

It’s Halloween and you prepared way, way in advance. You changed out all the photos in their frames to the creepy images of ghouls and goblins. The wispy cobwebs and hacked, bloody hands and feet are in every possible room. You’ve hung your mask up for the night. (You decided you’d wander the neighborhood as the scariest character you could conceive — Oprah.) The orange and purple mini-lights are still blinking outside from the dangling, swaying little plastic skeletons you have hanging from the eve, as a cacophony of silent jack-o-lanterns keep “dem bones” company, still glowing happily from within. The last of the trick-or-treaters seem to have faded into the gloom of the night, there’s still a little candy in the cauldron, and it’s finally time to sit back, relax, and get comfortable with a horror flick or two.

Well, no matter what the cut of your jib is when it comes to your fearful viewing — Carpenter’s Halloween, Scott’s Alien, or the laughable Humanoids From The Deep with Vic Morrow — why not spice things up a bit and make it “the complete experience” with a little Bugs Bunny comic relief in between showings, or during a self-imposed intermission … ??? I cannot think of a grander manner in which to subsidize your mini horror marathon than with a bit of wascally wabbit monkey business. Can you?

I recommend the following videos for your dining and dancing pleasure: 1955’s Hyde and Hare, and 1956’s Broom-Stick Bunny. Come on! You know you want to! You’re not too old or too forgone to appreciate the antics of Bugs and Company. No one is. The fourteen minutes of cartoons below provide a pure guilty pleasure I promise won’t stick to your thighs or coalesce around your middle … unlike that fifth mini Butterfinger you just scarfed down. (“It’s the last one I’ll eat! I swear!” you promised to yourself … four Butterfingers ago.)

Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones master-crafted these two classics that not only hold water 50+ years after they were originally released, but which continue to provide us warm smiles pulled directly from our childhoods.

The thrill of viewing these and others from the Warner Bros. collection (at least for me) is the subtle (and not so subtle) asides and wisecracks and characterizations we often take for granted … not the least of which is the truly American voice-over character actor and grand master Mel Blanc. Do you need proof? Take in any less-than-ten-minute Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies short: How can you not marvel at the bevy of voices Blanc portrayed? Movie critic Leonard Maltin even noted of “The Man of a Thousand Voices”: “It is astounding to realize that Tweety Bird and Yosemite Sam are the same man!” (Nifty Side Note: Speaking of characterizations, the beautiful June Foray gives voices to Witch Hazel in Broom-Stick Bunny.)

In Hyde And Hare, the simple, blank but full-of-character facial features of the supporting players on the park bench (and even Dr. Jekyll himself) are part of the subtlety making these cartoons so terrific. And you want to see some of the most unique and interesting backgrounds in a film ever? Take a gander at what’s behind Bugs and Hazel in each and every scene. Bows and ribbons? Hearts? There are amazingly muffled yet contrasting backdrop colors of visual flavor and tone bringing out the characters. Impossible and gravity-defying staircases. Funkadelic wallpaper. A tea cart. Fleur-de-lis? Really? How wonderful! But wait! My most favorite? All those spinning bobby pins rotating in mid-air when Hazel gunshots *ptwang!* out of a scene. Love it.

But it’s Bugs Bunny who is the star of the videos. Whether cracking wise, playing the piano, or shedding huge, wet, drippy, mournful tears as he’s about to become the main ingredient in Hazel’s concoction, Bugs is a welcome emollient to any and all thrills and chills you’ll be experiencing in the midst of your horror-fest All Hallow’s Eve. You need him to calm all that angst and body tenseness you’ll no doubt put yourself through.

And face it: You’re heartless — heartless, I say — if you aren’t touched by Bugs’ sentiment toward his conniving hostess and enchantress:

“She may not be very pretty now … but she was somebody’s baby once …”

Happy Halloween, everyone! Please enjoy!

Clacked by Michael Noble
on Oct 31, 2011 @ 11:00 EST5EDT