(Last updated on Monday, January 19, 2009 08:45 AM)
The 50 Best Warner Bros. Cartoons
by Fëanor
UPDATE: I've submitted this post to digg, so please, if you enjoy it, digg it! Thanks.
Poppy and I were recently made aware of a blog post (I've since lost the link) wherein a fellow who was writing a book about the 100 best Warner Bros. cartoons requested his readers post their own favorites, in lists of 50 or so. We took this as a challenge and proceeded to crack out our five volumes of 4 DVDs each of 15 cartoons each of Looney Tunes (that's 300 cartoons, if you don't want to do the math), going through every single cartoon and picking out our list of favorites. At the end we'd written down around 60 titles which we then cut down to the 50 you see below. We didn't get it done in time to send it to the book guy, but it's still good for a blog post! Of course feel free to comment with your favorites, in list form or otherwise. (Btw, I managed to find and embed every single cartoon except one. If anybody can find that one online, let me know and I'll add it!)
Rabbit Seasoning
The quintessential meeting of Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Daffy Duck. It's the classic conflict between Bugs and Elmer, reexamined in postmodern fashion with Daffy looking on as the "straight man," utterly flabbergasted at Elmer's idiocy. He's also constantly commenting on the trickery Bugs is using against him, trying to figure it out and turn it back on the bunny, but never quite able to do so. A masterpiece of silly wordplay, hilarious voice acting, perfect comic timing, and wacky animation.
Little Red Riding Rabbit
Many, many cartoons have parodied the story of Little Red Riding Hood, but this is the best one. The Red Riding Hood depicted here is so hilariously irritating ("Those sure are big ears for you... TO HAVE!") that eventually Bugs and the Wolf join forces against her. I have many favorite moments from this cartoon, including when Bugs keeps pointing the wolf to different places he could be hiding, until all of the sudden Bugs is in one of those places. There's also the great sequence where Bugs gets the wolf singing, "Put on your old gray bonnet..." And there's the great "door gag," which recurs in "Buccaneer Bunny."
Hair-Raising Hare
One of two different versions of the same cartoon, wherein Bugs Bunny is captured by a mad scientist and must escape both him and his pet monster. This is the superior version, but both made the list, because both are excellent. In this version the scientist is a caricature of Peter Lorre who uses a mechanical female rabbit as bait to trick Bugs into his lair (a trick used by many characters - including Bugs himself - in many cartoons to try to outwit their enemies, with varying levels of success). The great ending features the monster looking out at the audience and screaming, "PEOPLE!" before running away in terror.
Bunny Hugged
Bugs faces off against a huge, muscle-bound wrestler, and once again the bunny's wily trickery wins out against a larger, stronger foe. Some truly wonderful voice work and animation in this one. One of my favorite things about it is the announcer at the ring, who speaks in an oddly amusing cadence. His introduction of "the Crusher" is wonderful, as is the Crusher's first appearance in the ring, when he removes his robe by flexing his muscles, which bulge so ridiculously that the cloth just tears right off.
Duck Amuck
The classic postmodern short in which Daffy is tortured by an unseen animator eventually revealed to be Bugs Bunny himself. Plays with the process and medium of animation in brilliant and hilarious fashion.
Bugs Bunny and the 3 Bears
Another great fairy tale parody, this time with Bugs filling in for Goldilocks and facing off against an extremely dysfunctional family of bears. His bid to get away by seducing the Mama Bear backfires on him, leading to a rare defeat for Bugs via the classic "inescapable character" gag, wherein one character goes to ridiculous lengths to escape another only to find that somehow, impossibly, he cannot.
Slick Hare
Other common themes in old cartoons were Hollywood satire and celebrity caricature. This is the best cartoon in that genre, with Elmer Fudd playing the part of a waiter at a fancy Hollywood restaurant determined to turn Bugs into dinner for Humphrey Bogart - or rather, as it turns out, Bogart's lady friend, Lauren Bacall. There's a wonderful musical sequence, a great scene featuring many pies to the face, and then a fantastic ending wherein Bugs gives up trying to get away and serves himself up on a silver platter.
Kitty Kornered
You can tell we love Bugs Bunny; this is the first cartoon in the list that doesn't feature him. Instead, it stars Porky Pig in his greatest role, as a homeowner trying to put his cats out for the night. But they don't want to go out into the cold, and concoct a scheme to get back in and stay in, for good. One of the cats is an early and particularly funny version of Sylvester; the others I don't believe have names, and didn't reappear in other cartoons, but are just as unique and hilarious.
The Great Piggy Bank Robbery
This was bound to be one of my favorites, as it focuses on a comic book-obsessed Daffy who manages to knock himself out and so fall into a dream where he's the detective Duck Twacy, the hero of his own surreal comic book story. Perhaps because it's a dream, the animators take things even further toward extremes, abstraction, and absurdity than normal, with Daffy moving about in a crazily exaggerated manner toward a lair whose architecture follows some other kind of geometry where he faces off against looming, eerily lit gangsters. The villains, like the enemies of the real Dick Tracy, are a grotesque collection of freaks and monsters and, rather surprisingly, Daffy ruthlessly guns them down, leaving a pile of bullet-ridden corpses in his wake. Despite the violence and creepy animation, it's still a knee-slapper. Daffy went through an evolution in the hands of different directors. Early on he was the main star, and a creature of pure insanity who brought ruination upon hunters, just like Bugs. Only later would Chuck Jones turn him into the arrogant, greedy, envious, attention-loving, perpetual second fiddle that people tend to remember. I love both versions of Daffy, but this cartoon showcases the earlier version quite well. (As you might expect, it was not directed by Chuck Jones, but by Robert Clampett, master of insanity.)
Back Alley Oproar
Friz Freleng directs a confrontation between Elmer Fudd and Sylvester. Fudd is just trying to get to sleep, but Sylvester is determined to put on an extra loud singing and dancing show in the alley behind his house. The music and sound effects are just astoundingly brilliant, and I love the way Fudd dashes into his bed and falls asleep instantly at the beginning of the cartoon.
Book Revue (AKA Book Review)
This is the best example of another oft-repeated cartoon concept, wherein we zoom into a shop of some kind late at night and discover that all the objects have come to life to sing and dance and tell a story. In this case it's a book shop and the story is about a villainous wolf who chases Red Riding Hood (there she is again!) and Daffy Duck about for a while before he's finally defeated. Daffy shines in this cartoon, especially during his truly fantastic solo performance of a song from his "native willage." This is again Bob Clampett's wacky solo Daffy, so he is allowed to be triumphant. (Whereas Chuck Jones' Daffy would have to be left in ignominious defeat.)
What's Opera, Doc
Chuck Jones' epic parody of opera in cartoon form, while undeniably a masterpiece, is a bit further down our list because I never really enjoyed it as much as many of the other quicker, wackier, funnier cartoons. But the animation is wonderful, the music excellent, and the ending surprisingly effective.
Super-Rabbit
This Warner Bros. parody of the Fleischer studio's Superman cartoons was also bound to get a spot on this list. Bugs' powers come from some scientifically engineered carrots, and not from any alien heritage, and in the end he decides to become a true hero and join the marines, a sequence that the real U.S. Marine Corps enjoyed so much that they officially inducted Bugs into the marines as a private. He was discharged at the end of WWII as a Master Sergeant. "Bricka bracka firecracker sis boom bah! Bugs Bunny! Bugs Bunny! RAH RAH RAH!"
Baseball Bugs
Bugs takes to the great American pastime in this cartoon, forced to play single-handedly against an entire team of dirty cheaters after his big mouth gets him in trouble again. His ability to throw a pitch and then somehow leap ahead of the ball and be there to catch it is truly wonderful. His wind-up when pitching is also a thing to behold.
Long-Haired Hare
Many of Chuck Jones' Bugs Bunny cartoons would follow a similar structure: a big bully of some kind would attack Bugs, usually multiple times and with little provocation, until Bugs, unable to put up with it anymore, would declare, "Of course you know, this means war," and would proceed to horribly beat, blast, and pummel his enemy, again and again, until finally the enemy would surrender, or simply collapse in utter ruin. This is one of those cartoons. In this case, the bully is a stuck-up opera singer who is trying to practice but is constantly interrupted and annoyed by Bugs' less cultured, more blue-collar singing. The way he completely disassembles Bugs' banjo is really wonderful. The end features one of my favorite types of jokes: the long, drawn-out defeat. Bugs has disguised himself as a conductor and is forcing the singer to hold a big, high note for an incredibly long amount of time. But the note is so loud it's hurting Bugs' ears, so he leaves his glove hanging in the air to keep the singer singing (Bugs always has complete control over the laws of physics) and wanders off to order a pair of earmuffs. The earmuffs arrive, he puts them on, then comes back and slides his hand right back into the glove. It's the only time I can remember Bugs taking off one of his gloves.
Bully for Bugs
Another true classic in Jones' series of Bugs declaring war against bullies, and this time the bully is actually a bull. There's so much character and personality in the drawings in this cartoon, even in the slightest expression of the bullfighter that Bugs ends up replacing. Some of my favorite moments: when the bull discovers his horns have become guns, and the elaborate Rube Goldberg mechanism Bugs constructs at the end to have his final victory against the bull.
Water, Water Every Hare
The second of the Bugs Bunny vs. the mad scientist cartoons features an evil lair with a neon sign on the side identifying it as such. Bugs is kidnapped and wakes up inside the lair next to a mummy. He leaps away in horror, only to land on a succession of even more horrifying things. This time he defeats the monster by becoming invisible and shrinking the creature, leading to a funny confrontation with a mouse, and to the villain of the piece to utter the unforgettable line: "Never send a monster to do the work of an evil scientist." Then there's a slow chase through ether and a final, very funny "it was just a dream, or was it?" gag.
Rabbit of Seville
Another epic, expertly animated, musical parody masterpiece from Chuck Jones, and one of a number of cartoons that features Bugs and Elmer getting married.
The Hare-Brained Hypnotist Elmer employs a new technique to capture Bugs in this short: hypnotism! He first tests it out on a bear, and does such a good job convincing the animal it's a canary that it flies away. The bear returns later for a wonderful follow-up gag when Elmer is tricked into holding a balloon that flies him far up into the air. Fudd tries on the role of an evil mastermind in this cartoon, saying hilariously inappropriate lines like, "You are compwetewy under my contwol. Huh huh huh huh huh." Eventually Bugs turns the tables and hypnotizes Fudd, but then makes the mistake of convincing the man he's a rabbit, leading to a fascinating role reversal wherein Bugs takes on the part of the frustrated hunter and Fudd becomes the wily, tricky creature he's trying to capture. It's great stuff.
Scaredy Cat
The better of two very similar cartoons (the other does not appear on this list) in which Porky and his cat Sylvester enter a house which Sylvester quickly realizes is infested with evil creatures that want to kill them. Porky thinks Sylvester is just being paranoid - which he is, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you! Of course Sylvester's attempts to save Porky are constantly misinterpreted by Porky as attempts by Sylvester to injure him, but finally the truth comes out, and finally Sylvester finds the courage to fight back. There are some legitimately creepy moments in this cartoon, with evil mice threatening terrible murder from the shadows. The scene at the end where Sylvester's conscience convinces him to go back and roust those mice is quite wonderful.
The Hypo-Chondri-Cat
This is a rather odd cartoon starring a trio of lesser known, but truly wonderful recurring characters: the mice Hubie and Bertie, and their cat nemesis Claude. This time Claude is a hypochondriac, a weakness Hubie immediately notes and discovers how to exploit. By the end the mice manage to trick Claude into believing he's dead and that he must fly away to cat heaven. The conclusion is oddly sad, funny, and touching, all at once. (Another great Hubie/Bertie/Claude cartoon that we couldn't find space for on this list is "Cheese Chasers," which sees the mice trying to commit suicide after having pigged out on cheese. Claude refuses to eat them, and finally becomes so freaked out by their actions that he tries to feed himself to the dog. The dog is horrified, freaks out, and tries to throw himself to the dog catcher. It's twisted but very funny stuff, and is loaded with suicide-related gags, which were oddly popular in these old cartoons.)
Feed the Kitty
Absolutely and without doubt the cutest Warner Bros. cartoon of all time, featuring a big, tough, lumbering bulldog named Marc Antony who falls for a cute little kitten (apparently called Pussyfoot), whom he tries to hide from his owners. He is utterly devastated when he mistakenly believes the cat has been baked into a batch of cookies, but it all turns out well in the end. This one is so cute and so effective that it's both funny and agonizing watching Marc Antony go through paroxysms of horror as he witnesses what he thinks is the destruction of his beloved kitty.
Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid
One of two cartoons in which Bugs faces off against a dopey vulture named Killer (AKA Beaky Buzzard), a character who's actually introduced in this short. I've always loved Beaky and his mother, so this one had to go on the list. Great voice acting, plenty of silly gags, and some really wonderful animation.
Tortoise Wins by a Hare
Another fairy tale that got many cartoon adaptations was the story of the tortoise and the hare. At least three of those adaptations starred Bugs Bunny, but this is the best of them all. It's one of those rare cartoons where Bugs can't keep his cool, and doesn't win in the end. Which means of course it could not have been directed by Chuck Jones; Robert Clampett is in the big chair this time. As the cartoon opens, Bugs has already lost to the turtle in a number of races, but is determined to win this time. Some gangster rabbits are also determined to help him win, but they end up working at cross purposes. There are a lot of really fantastic scenes with the rabbit mobsters; Cecil Turtle is quite excellent; and it's pretty interesting to see Bugs spluttering and desperate for once.
Baby Buggy Bunny
A true classic, with some really fantastic, surreal animation, wherein a small gangster named "Babyface" Finster mistakenly drops the take from his latest bank robbery down Bugs Bunny's rabbit hole. To infiltrate the hole and get his money back, he pretends to be a baby that was left on Bugs' doorstep. Bugs falls for the trick... at first. The characters brutalize each other in various hilarious ways before Bugs finally ties up Finster and leaves him with a note at the police station, in classic superhero fashion.
Rhapsody Rabbit
An oft-used cartoon subject is to simply have the main character play a classical piece of music on the piano, accompanying the performance with various visual gags that integrate with and interpret the music. Usually the character is fighting or competing with another character throughout the piece. Tom and Jerry did it, and here Bugs does it - and his adversary is even a rather Jerry-like mouse. This is another of those rare cartoons where Bugs is pestered, instead of doing the pestering. It's directed by Friz Freleng, and features some really memorable gags, such as the scene in the beginning where Bugs becomes frustrated with an audience member who keeps coughing loudly before he can begin playing, to the extent that Bugs finally just pulls out a gun and shoots him (probably not a gag you'd see in a modern children's cartoon). Then there's the great moment near the end where Bugs turns the page of the music book to find an impossibly difficult scramble of notes which he prepares to play by removing his shirt, oiling his hands, and praying. It's also really wonderful how the characters are animated playing the music, and how the music informs the gags and the movements of the characters.
Hare Force
A kind old lady takes Bugs in when she finds him trapped outside on a cold, snowy night, but her faithful hound Sylvester is jealous of the way the rabbit seems to have taken his place in her affections, and he determines to throw the bunny out. Thus the battle begins! I'm not sure Sylvester the dog appeared in another cartoon, but he's a pretty funny character. The final sequence with the two of them throwing each other out over and over again, and finally throwing out the annoying old lady instead, is quite wonderful, and reminiscent of the ending of "Little Red Riding Rabbit."
Hare Tonic
Elmer takes Bugs home to eat him, but Bugs easily tricks him and is about to escape - when he decides to stay to bedevil Elmer further. It's a unique moment in Bugs' relationship with Elmer. This time, Bugs chooses to torture Elmer by convincing him that the bunny he's brought home is infected with a highly communicable and dangerous disease called rabbititis, thus putting Elmer in the strange position of wanting to run away from Bugs, rather than the other way around. Bugs therefore becomes the inescapable character. There follows a series of very funny gags, including a reenactment of the classic mirror gag from the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup. The final gag is played on the audience itself, as Bugs breaks the fourth wall to try to trick us into believing we're infected, as well.
A Hare Grows in Manhattan
Bugs, playing the part of the big star, is asked by a reporter to retell the story of his youth in the lower east side of New York, which he proceeds to do. It involves him being chased by a gang of bullying dogs. Particularly funny is the scene in which he and the dogs first meet each other, and the gang is trying to determine just what Bugs is. Perhaps a giraffe? There's also a funny scene in an automat, a sadly now defunct type of restaurant.
Easter Yeggs
Bugs finds the Easter Bunny crying (which confuses him; "What's up Doc, you sittin' on a tack or something?") and is tricked by the lazy, conniving creature into doing his job for him. So out Bugs goes to deliver eggs to all the children. But the first kid he runs into is a complete terror ("I want an Easter egg, I want an Easter egg!"), with a family of huge, thuggish rednecks ready to take on Bugs if he gets smart (it's a great scene). Bugs high tails it out of there only to discover his next customer is Elmer Fudd, who of course comes after him. There follow many great gags with Fudd, including a particularly odd and amusing moment involving his wardrobe. In this episode, Fudd is wearing a snazzy dress hat rather than his normal hunter's cap, and in one scene he makes an aside to the audience: "I can't miss in my Dick Twacy hat!" When warned that he'll give the Easter Bunny a bad name, Bugs responds, "I already have a bad name for the Easter Bunny!" Eventually, of course, he gets his revenge. "Remember, keep smiling!"
Case of the Missing Hare
This is another of Chuck Jones' Bugs vs. bully cartoons; in this case the bully is a magician who insists on posting a sign for his show on the tree that Bugs Bunny is living in. Bugs tries to explain why this is not cool, but the magician just asks him, "Do you like blacksberries pie?" Bugs says, "Uh, no no... Did you say blackberry pie? Mmmm mmm!" "Well then have some!" the magician roars, smashing Bugs in the face with said pie. He then wanders off chuckling to himself, "What a dumb boonny." Of course, you know, this means war. Bugs goes on to spectacularly ruin the magician's performance. This cartoon has some particularly abstract and surreal backgrounds, and Bugs is even weirder than usual. Plus, gotta love that magician's goofy accent.
Daffy Duck Slept Here
Robert McKimson directs a short starring the old school wacky Daffy (not the Chuck Jones Daffy). The duck is pestering Porky this time, thanks to the fact that Porky has to share a room with him in a fully-booked hotel. Daffy comes in late and drunk, and accompanied by a giant invisible kangaroo name Hymie. Awesome. Daffy is hilariously annoying. One of his greatest performances.
Rabbit Punch
This is pretty much just another version of "Bunny Hugged," except this time Bugs is facing off against the big bully in the boxing ring instead of the wrestling ring. Not quite as funny as "Bunny Hugged," but still excellent.
Walky Talky Hawky
Easily my favorite Henery Hawk/Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. Henery's father reveals to him that he's a chicken hawk, and that he hungers to eat chicken, so Henery heads out to find one, but he doesn't know anything about them. Foghorn Leghorn is in the midst of an unending war with the Barnyard Dawg (yes, apparently that's his name) and manages to convince Henery that the dog is a chicken - but not for long. The three creatures do many hilariously violent and terrible things to each other. I particularly like when Foghorn uses the dog's head in a game of croquet.
Bye, Bye Bluebeard
Porky sits down to a nice big meal but is interrupted and annoyed by a tiny mouse, who briefly tricks him into believing that he's a serial killer on the loose known as Bluebeard. But when the real Bluebeard shows up, Porky and the mouse have to team up to survive, and end up becoming friends. Definitely one of the better Porky cartoons, with the stuttering pig backed up by some relatively unknown, but very fun, characters.
Robin Hood Daffy
Chuck Jones' perpetually frustrated Daffy claims to be Robin Hood, but a friar played by Porky doesn't believe him, so Daffy sets out to prove his identity, with disastrous results. Probably the best moment in this one is the quarter staff fight near the beginning.
Wagon Heels
I can't help loving this cartoon, despite the fact that it's incredibly politically incorrect. It features Porky as a rider protecting a wagon train heading west - a wagon train that is quickly attacked by the scourge of the land, the gigantic, impossibly strong Indian known as Injun Joe. My favorite moments in this episode involve the totally surreal and over-the-top depictions of Injun Joe's ridiculous strength. He walks through mountains, across rivers, and uses entire trees as his arrows.
The Bashful Buzzard
Another version of "Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid," again featuring Bugs tangling with Beaky "Killer" Buzzard. This version features more great gags centered around Beaky's brothers. It's not quite as funny as the other, but it's still quite clever, and I still love Beaky and his mother.
Rabbit Hood
Daffy wasn't the only one to take on the story of Robin Hood; Bugs is all over it in this episode. After stealing a carrot from the King's garden, he finds himself facing off against the Sheriff of Nottingham. One of Robin Hood's merry men keeps showing up and promising that Robin Hood will soon appear, but he never does - until the very end, when a shot of Errol Flynn in the grand old film Adventures of Robin Hood is cleverly inserted into the picture. That's a wonderful moment, but there are many more here. The Sheriff has a lot of great lines, and the scene in which Bugs pops up out of a red carpet impersonating the King is truly inspired. Bugs repeatedly knights the Sheriff, calling him all kinds of ridiculous names while beating him savagely about the head with his scepter. When the Sheriff is finally about to collapse, Bugs quickly bakes a cake and ices it so the Sheriff will fall face first into it. Brilliant!
Broomstick Bunny
Bugs is going trick-or-treating as a witch when he stumbles upon the house of a real witch: Witch Hazel. She's horrified to learn from her magic mirror that this witch is even uglier than her, and drags Bugs inside, determined to slip him a magic potion that will make him beautiful. When she realizes he's really a rabbit and not a witch, she decides to make him an ingredient in her latest potion. But Bugs manages to distract her and slip her the beautifying drink, and she has to run for her life from the man inside her magic mirror, who chases her Pepe Le Pew-style. This is the only appearance of Witch Hazel on the list, and the first cartoon in which Hazel was given the instantly recognizable voice of June Foray. Foray also served as the model of the beautified version of Hazel who appears at the end of cartoon (wowser, was she hot!). One of the only things I don't like about this cartoon is the lame gag at the end, wherein Bugs calls air raid headquarters and warns them that he just saw a "genie with light-brown hair chasing a flying sorceress." Blah.
Bugs and Thugs
In this short, Bugs mistakenly stumbles into the getaway car of a couple of bank robbers named Rocky and Mugsy, and the gangsters quickly resolve to dispose of him, but of course Bugs is not so easily destroyed. In fact, he's ultimately so abusive of them that they beg to be arrested to get away from him. Rocky and Mugsy are pretty great characters, and this is their greatest cartoon appearance. The doubled sequence wherein Bugs is "helping" to hide them, first from imaginary police, and then from real police, is a true classic.
The Big Snooze
Another surreal, postmodern entry from director Bob Clampett (actually his last cartoon for Warner Bros.), this short sees Elmer fed up with getting "the worst of it from that wabbit in every one of these cartoons." So he tears up his contract with Warner Bros. and goes fishing - meaning, he finds himself a pond and promptly falls asleep on the shore. Bugs can't have this ("Think of your career! And for that matter, think of my career!"), and so uses his special cartoon character powers to invade Elmer's dream (a wonderful concept that sci-fi movies would later steal), turning it into an insane nightmare wherein Elmer gets it from that wabbit even worse than he normally would. Fudd awakes in horror and rushes back to reassemble his contract and continue being tricked by Bugs as before.
The resolution of this one always confused me a bit - why would a terrible nightmare confrontation with Bugs convince Fudd to go back for even more confrontations with Bugs? - but I guess the point is that the nightmare was even worse, and he much prefers the real-world confrontations. Anyway, when we fall into a character's dream in a Warner Bros. cartoon, things tend to be even wackier, more imaginative, and more extreme than usual, and this cartoon is no exception. You've gotta love when Elmer is run over by the "Super Chief." There's some pretty racy bits here where Elmer is running around practically naked, only to be dressed in a woman's evening gown by Bugs, made up all pretty with a wig and makeup, and then plopped down on the corner of Hollywood and Vine to be chased by "wolves" who howl out the question, "How old is she?"
Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century
Chuck Jones' version of Daffy (who's never as successful or competent as he thinks he is) stars in a brilliant parody of Buck Rogers - and science fiction in general - in this short, the only 'toon starring Marvin the Martian on this list. Gotta love those super loud transporters!
Steal Wool
This is one of only a very few cartoons featuring the endless battle between Ralph Wolf (who looks suspiciously like Wile E. Coyote) and Sam Sheepdog. Their conflict is surprisingly ordered and polite; they treat it like a job, with each of them punching in and punching out. It's a fun concept.
Mexican Boarders
We mostly left Speedy Gonzalez cartoons off the list, partially because poppy doesn't really like them that much, but also partially because they're all pretty much the same and none of them really stand out as truly excellent - except maybe this one. It's one of only two Speedy cartoons that also stars Speedy's cousin and counterpart, Slowpoke Rodriguez. Just as Speedy is the fastest mouse in all Mexico, Slowpoke is the slowest mouse in all Mexico, dragging himself around with his eyes lidded, seemingly half asleep, and singing songs to himself at a much slower rate than they're meant to be sung. It's kind of an obvious concept, but brilliantly and hilariously executed. In this particular cartoon, he comes to visit his cousin, and Speedy is constantly having to save him from the house cat (Sylvester, natch), thanks in part to the fact that Slowpoke is always hungry and always trying to wander out of the mouse hole to steal food. But in a rather unexpected twist, it turns out Slowpoke isn't so helpless after all.
The Aristo-Cat
The first short to feature the mouse pair Hubie and Bertie. As usual they're tormenting a cat, who looks and sounds quite a bit like Claude, but apparently is not officially the same character. He's a pampered pet of rich owners who have left him all alone. He's hungry, and has learned that cats eat mice, but he has no idea what a mouse looks like. Hubie and Bertie exploit his ignorance by explaining to him that the dog is a mouse. Much wackiness ensues.
Buccaneer Bunny
Another character we left mostly off the list is Yosemite Sam, but we had to include this cartoon, wherein Sam plays a pirate (or "pie-rayt" as Bugs pronounces it) trying to bury his treasure on a deserted island - only to find it isn't quite deserted after all. There's a screwy rabbit there! Bugs pulls a bunch of gags on poor Sam involving wordplay, cannons, and, in the memorable final sequence, matches thrown into the gun powder room. There's also great gags involving an interfering parrot, and a crow's nest that works like an elevator.
A Tale of Two Kitties
Yet another character almost absent from this list is Tweety Bird, for the simple reason that poppy and I don't like the character and find most of the cartoons starring him to be pretty lame. This short, however, introduces an early form of the character (he's pink instead of yellow, as if still lacking feathers) that's a little more amusing than later incarnations, and also stars a pair of very funny bumbling cats based on Abbott and Costello: Babbit and Catstello. There are plenty of great gags as Babbit and Catstello try unsuccessfully to capture and eat Tweety (although at one point Catstello is shown eating an apple that's much bigger than Tweety, so why they're trying to catch such a tiny bird is a bit of a mystery). An especially wonderful one sees Babbit yelling up to Catstello, "Give me the bird! Give me the bird!" Catstello responds with an aside to the audience: "If da Hays Office would only let me... I'd give him 'da boid' all right!"
Hollywood Daffy
The wacky Daffy arrives in Hollywood, determined to sneak onto the "Warmer Bros." studio lot and see the stars. Unfortunately for him, there's a studio guard who's just as determined to stop him. Daffy does end up seeing the stars, but not quite in the way he wanted. As one might expect, the cartoon is loaded with the usual celebrity caricatures and Hollywood satire, as well as plenty of great wacky Daffy gags and silly chase sequences.
Holiday for Shoestrings
Not even one of the many famous Warner Bros. characters appear in this short. It's a simple retelling of the fable of the sick shoemaker who's assisted in his work by a group of tiny elves. There's no real dialogue in the cartoon, just the elves working in their own goofy fashion, their actions all in time to the wonderful music. A twist ending sees the shoemaker trying to sneak off to play golf, but the elves aren't having it.
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by Fëanor
