"Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales" is a very nice television special featuring a fair number of familiar Warner Bros. cartoon characters, beginning with that "wascawwy wabbit"! The film appears to have been made long after the golden age of the theatrical cartoon shorts that Warner Bros. was grinding out, so the quality of this particular special is good but not outstanding. Some of the characters (Elmer Fudd, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe Le Pew) have virtually nothing to do, and the music score is definitely not of the top-notch quality of Carl W. Stalling but still palatable, even throwing in a little cheesy disco. In short, not the best Looney Tunes cartoon ever made, just a pleasant bit of Christmas amusement. Yosemite Sam makes a perfect Scrooge, Porky Pig makes a suitable Cratchit, and the Tasmanian Devil provides an interesting "twist" on Santa Claus. (If I were in Bugs Bunny's shoes, I'd be pretty sore at Taz for wrecking my house!)
Want me to share my favorite scenes? When Bugs conducts the small choir singing "Jingle Bells", he has the singers holding the word "sleigh" so long their faces turn blue! Wile E. Coyote repeatedly gets buried by a snow-cloud maker. Porky stops the camera's iris-out so as to get in the last word: "Happy Holidays". Taz turns green and burps loudly after eating a green tree bulb. Bugs is hilarious in his ghost disguise when he introduces himself to the petrified Sam Scrooge. Sam is likewise funny when he shouts, "You rackin-frackin carolers! I'll deck your heads with Christmas lumps!" (Incidentally, when Sam bounces down the staircase and mutters his odd curses, I could "swear" I hear an "f".)
Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones directed this nice little Christmas special, and Mel Blanc supplied most of the vocal talent, with a little help from June Foray. What a wonderful team! Find "Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales" on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5, and add some looney humor to your Christmas.
Want me to share my favorite scenes? When Bugs conducts the small choir singing "Jingle Bells", he has the singers holding the word "sleigh" so long their faces turn blue! Wile E. Coyote repeatedly gets buried by a snow-cloud maker. Porky stops the camera's iris-out so as to get in the last word: "Happy Holidays". Taz turns green and burps loudly after eating a green tree bulb. Bugs is hilarious in his ghost disguise when he introduces himself to the petrified Sam Scrooge. Sam is likewise funny when he shouts, "You rackin-frackin carolers! I'll deck your heads with Christmas lumps!" (Incidentally, when Sam bounces down the staircase and mutters his odd curses, I could "swear" I hear an "f".)
Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones directed this nice little Christmas special, and Mel Blanc supplied most of the vocal talent, with a little help from June Foray. What a wonderful team! Find "Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales" on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5, and add some looney humor to your Christmas.