I think it’s Chuck Jones’s “Broom-Stick Bunny.” I think I have a real fondness for Halloween stories where trick-or-treating turns disastrous, whether it’s for Bugs in this cartoon or Margaret O’Brien in Meet Me In St. Louis (one of the few movies that portrays kids playing old-fashioned Halloween games, where they literally try to be evil). It is kind of a spooky concept.
Tag Archives: Chuck Jones
Happy 60th Birthday, Road Runner
This counts as a TV post because many of us grew up watching these things on TV: I am reminded that this is the 60th anniversary of the very first Road Runner cartoon (which was released to theatres on September 17, 1949). Nobody really thought that “Fast and Furry-ous” would be the start of a long-running series; Chuck Jones intended it as a sort of reducto ad absurdum of all the “chase” cartoons that were proliferating at the time, almost a self-parody of the rituals and rules that go into making a cartoon like this. Of course it caught on and became the pilot for a popular series that we all loved because it was so formulaic, and because the only question in every scene was just how the Coyote would fail. And from the very first film, most of the elements were in place: the fake Latin names, the “meep-meep” voice provided by background artist Paul Julian, and even the choice of a dance from Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride as the theme song.
Happy Father’s Day To Everyone, Including Bears!
Let’s let Mama and Junyer Bear show us how to celebrate Father’s Day. Remember, “G-U-N-P-O-W-D-E-R” spells “Tobacco.” (A scene, by the way, that was cut when I grew up watching this on ABC. I don’t know if they objected to the smoking or the explosions.)