Music and more with claudecat17 (aka Chris Davlin)!

And what a cartoon! Probably my favorite Bugs cartoon of all time, and there’s some stiff competition, mostly from prior years, though not all. The one with Elmer in the viking helmet singing “Kill the wabbit!” was 1957 I think, one of the last good ones!. That’s What’s Opera Doc, directed by Chuck Jones before he jumped ship and started making bad Tom and Jerrys for the still prestigious MGM, who spent big on ‘toon budgets. I’m going from memory on all that shit. Yeah… I got way into years ago. It was fun! Not especially useful or marketable in any way, but fun! Laughing is fun!

And this particular ‘toon, as we ‘toon nerds refer to them, was especially fun, as it’s one that gets a great response every time. Everyone loves this one! Young, old, both sexes and other, both sides of the political/intellectual divide, more of a gaping abyss in recent years. I’ve shown this to people a lot and it never fails. If they’re old like me it brings them back to childhood Saturday mornings, eating sugary cereal, watching the bad cartoons just to get to the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, or whatever they called it when you saw it. That was a little confusing later in life as I started learning more. I never really knew that these and all cartoons until maybe the 60s were made for adult audiences, to be shown in big movie theaters with aisles down the middle and ushers that did more than stand there like a machine collecting tickets and checking for outside food.

I’m old enough to remember those days, barely. By the late 60s it wasn’t the greatest cartoons, but I liked the Pink Panther, and a few of the other ‘toons made by that outfit, DePatie/Freleng, were even better. Remember the Ant and the Aardvark? I do! I don’t think they did Super Chicken but that was another one I tried not to miss. Those were TV though, mostly. In theaters it was already very rare to see a cartoon before a normal movie, unless the local theater did it themselves. It was just the Pink Panther movies that had cartoons anymore, unless you count Bambi Vs Godzilla a very entertaining but short mini-‘toon that was all the rage one summer and was played before lots of movies. Some kids movies probably had them too, but I’m blanking on anything more specific.

Anwway, you didn’t get WB ‘toons, the Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies, in theaters by then. That ended in the early, maybe mid-60s, and it was down to very lame characters like Cool Cat and heaps of offensive Speedy Gonzalez and rehashed Road Runner cartoons. Those don’t deserve the ‘toon appellation. I think they had a character called Snaggletooth too, another upright big cat with a voice like some long forgotten vaudeville guy probably. just awful stuff that made you feel bad. Daffy had to have been spinning in his two-dimensional grave, by Acme, seeing all this mediocrity from a once proud animation department.

Didn’t they make a new Daffy ‘toon for showing before one of the Star Wars movies? The first one, right, in 1976? I have a story there but I’ll keep it in my pants for another time. I can bundle that one with the tale of my 18 year ol California cousin and I taking a Trailways to DC for the Bicentennial, which was a great time of course. I was 15. We got a hotel downtown, walked to everything, got very wasted on Hawaiian, played a lot of Frisbee on the big lawns between Smithsonian buildings, which is where we ate our meals. The little cafeterias in the basements were reasonable back then, and great food too! We ate like kings! We stole some flag napkins off tables they were already setting up for the big day and headed back to the hotel. We did not partake in the fireworks, instead watching multiple showings of the immersive movie “To Fly”, where it made you feel like you were really flying at some points, especially if you were already flying on Hawaiian!

That was a memory that’s really stayed with me! Maybe 5-6 years ago, or longer actually, before dad died in 2016, that cousin visited me here in MD, and we tried to relive the day, not without some success, but it wasn’t the same. The cloudy day had the most to do with it being underwhelming. We did everything else… The food was insanely priced so we ate at a sub place, that one that was big for a while for their hot subs. The name escapes me, but it was just a chain, nothing special at all. He’s had a successful life, a metallurgic engineer of all things, who’s worked mostly with high end bicycle companies all over the world. Pretty cool! Wife and kids I think, I forget to be honest. I need to be better about that kind of thing with the good family members. There ain’t many!

I’m gonna snap out of therapy mode now and get to the fucking ‘toon, I promise! Just one further related anecdote. At one point in my early history with using Soulseek to track down tunes, not ‘toons, I became friends with this very nice gal in Manitoba! She was a French speaker! I had no idea they were out that far west too! I’d been to Montreal a few times so was aware of some things. Our French class went up there to participate in some weird dance thing, which I doubt I did. I only recall winning big at poker on the bus during the trip. Those dorks were clueless! I coulda told ’em 3s were better than aces and they woulda believed it…

Pockets full of quarters all the way home! I think it was almost $20! I coulda bought an ounce of weed! I bought my first ounce from a guy in a class of mine and he passed it to me right there in the room, which freaked me out! But I was fine after a while. There were plenty of places to get high at school, including a big woodsy area way back behind all the sports fields, but I, being lazy, usually chose the little vestibules with lots of doors at the bottoms of stairways. There was kid traffic but rarely anyone that would bother you, and never any teachers. I got spotted once from a window but it was my cool English teacher and she didn’t care. She came to one of the open mics I was at years later, a total surprise coincidence. She was always encouraging, just a great teacher. Had me reading Joyce in AP English, which was a little challenging but the right choice. Weird, angsty, dour… I can get with that! I especially liked and identified with Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I’d originally thought was a choice too on the nose, but it was great, and much easier to comprehend than Ulysses or some of the other shit.

I only had to do one book, and she picked the easiest one for me! Plus it’s been genuinely helpful touchstone at times, not that I remember much if anything of the book itself. It was more about that teacher thinking of me in those terms, which felt great! Her name was/is Gwen Nelson, and I’d like to thank her here, where nobody will ever see it, for being an important factor in my development into something resembling a human being, and better yet, one who is able and eager to enjoy and otherwise experience art, in any form really. Not just music. I love surrealist paintings, all kinds of sci-fi novels not related to Star anything or superheroes or comic books beyond Archie and his pals, especially Betty! I can be open to any form of art, I think. As a kid mom was constantly taking various fine arts classes, everything from pottery to weaving to oil painting, and much more, so there was always stuff around to play with, had I felt the urge. I never really did. I was laser focused on music before I even knew it!

Why did they not get me into something like piano lessons? I was constantly talking about how much fun it was when I went to so and so’s house, where they had a piano and were willing to let me bang away on it for a while. It drove their moms crazy I’m sure, as I made a bee line for the piano every time and started playing Heart and Soul or Chopsticks yet again. Some real musical instruction would have been perfect exactly then! I was ready! How could they not know? I mean, I didn’t know yet, but those fuckers were parents! They were supposed to notice these things and act, not buy another few hundred hits of acid! I’m speculating, but it’s informed speculation. Chocolate Chip was one of the many names used for batches… I wish I knew more, or anything for sure… It’d be nice. I never will…

Alright, I guess I had a few more minutes on the therapy clock there… Sorry! This incredible, stupendously hilarious ‘toon will make up for everything, the longwindedness, the haughty dismissals of family and anyone else I don’t like, etc. It’s that good! In fact, I’ll let the 2015 version of me take it from here. He wasn’t in therapy yet, so it’ll be better for everyone. I got what I needed out of this. Hey, at least I didn’t go off on superheroes or Batman again! I’m such a Reggie sometimes… I need to be an Archie! Or at least a Jughead. Hot Dog? I don’t wanna be a dog!!!

I now turn you over to a more innocent, far less confident me, working at the yard, enjoying life for the most part, but still deluded, still a cog in a machine nobody should be a part of. Here he is folks! The guy with teeth to spare and a head full of baseball stats at the time, good ol’ me!

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Sunday! Cartoon day y’all! And do I have a great one for you this time. Bully For Bugs may be my all time favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon. It’s got everything. Classic David vs Goliath “plot”, exotic locale, full animation, and Chuck Jones’ trademark hilarity of facial expression… It’s as good as a cartoon has any right to be.

Things to savor in this one start with the bull himself. From the first moment this fearsome critter explodes onto the scene, you just know it’s gonna be fun. Check out his fantastically animated facial expressions first of all, then his star-encrusted exhaled breath! Unbelievably awesome!

And some of the sounds that help bring the bull to life are insane as well. Those snorts and wheezes sound dangerous! You truly and profoundly believe that this thing has limitless potential for mayhem.

The way the bull moves too, like a hellishly propulsive locomotive of cartoon death. That bull has some heft to him, some genuinely terrifying mass and weightiness. Just brilliant animation.

And this is all before we even see Bugs! His entrance is like a little fluttery respite from impending doom. An island of wisecracking subtlety amidst what’s sure to become even more bovine malevolence. Dialog enters the already near perfect gathering of cartoon elements of joy, and hilarious dialog it is! Coachella Valley Carrot Festival indeed!

I love the way the bull inserts himself into Bugs’ reality, like a runaway steamroller, approaching from behind with as much brutal momentum and ire as can possibly be conveyed in any medium ever conceived.

This is what cartoons are all about. Can you imagine seeing that on film? It simply could not possibly carry the same emotional and visceral weight. You’re almost backing away from the screen that bull is so real, so palpable and surly an unstoppable physical force.

The whole cartoon is just more and more of this, gag after mostly predictable gag, but it’s all done so artfully, with such craftsmanship, such attention to detail and convincingness of physics, that you just can’t look away. You’re terrified for poor ol’ Bugs even though you know he’s gonna win in the end.

The final gag, with the glue and the sandpaper and the match and the TNT? Well, it just doesn’t get any better than that, does it? Bugs wordlessly and nonchalantly putting up the “The End” cape is absolutely perfect! Like a deliciously understated after-dinner mint following an epic feast of succulent but once violent meats and only the heaviest yet most scrumptious vegetables.

I know I’m foaming at the mouth even more than is my norm on this one, but I really do feel like it deserves every adjective and adverb I can trowel offa my frontal lobe. What you have here is the perfect marriage of great animation, great dialog in perfect proportion and contrast to the rest, attention to details like facial expressions and bodily functions, incredible sound effects, fine music, a wonderful palette of colors, just everything.

This is a perfect ten of a cartoon, at least for me. I hope you enjoy it even half as much as I have, over and over and over again over the years.