Yankee Doodle Bugs (1954)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Warren Foster
Animation by Arthur Davis, Manuel Perez, Virgil Ross
Music by Milt Franklyn
While few animation scholars would cite “Yankee Doodle Bugs” as being among the finest of the Warner Bros. output, I freely admit this is one of my favorite cartoons in the Bugs Bunny series. Yeah, it is not an artistic classic, but it is a cute film that has good-natured fun with Colonial American history.
The film opens in Bugs’ house, which is designed in the then-popular Mid-Century Modern style. Bugs is reading a comic book featuring himself as the star attraction while his little nephew Clyde is trying to memorize the dates from the American Revolution class. It is interesting that Bugs lives in a house when Clyde is part of the story, as opposed to residing in a hole in the ground when he has a solo existence.
When Clyde admits having problems absorbing the story of America’s birth, Bugs offers to tutor him. “Do you know American history, Uncle Bugs?” Clyde asks, and Bugs replies: “Know American history? Why we rabbits have made American history!”
From there, the film goes into a skein of mini-sketches based on seminal events in the nation’s founding. Bugs recalls how the Manhattan skyline looked different when the Indians owned the island (we see skyscraper-sized tepees for a skyline) and stresses how “the Statue of Liberty was a little girl at the time” (the majestic lady of New York Harbor is shown as a spunky child holding a large flame aloft). Bugs then relates how the Dutch bought Manhattan from the Indians “for a song” – which is portrayed by a Dutch settler giving a piece of sheet music to a tribal warrior who happily declares: “Me rich! Me rich chief! Me rich super chief!” (For many years, the Indian’s response was cut from television broadcasts out of concerns over racial insensitivity.)
The cartoon fast-forwards to the mid-18th century where Bugs helps Ben Franklin with an experiment involving the flying of a kite in a lightning storm, and then it gets into the American Revolution by imagining King George III making a surprise visit to Boston to tax the local tea consumption – of course, that didn’t happen, but it enables a wonderfully lousy pun with “tacks” becoming synonymous with “tax.” George Washington gets drafted and informs his wife that she will need to “run the candy store alone” while he’s at war – a reference to the Martha Washington chain of candy retailers – while Bugs offers his input to Betsy Ross on the design of the new nation’s flag.
The war itself is depicted with the Redcoats storming Bunker Hill (they march stoically into a cannon that opens fire on them, forcing them to retreat in battered confusion) and the harsh winter at Valley Forge (with the freezing, snowbound soldiers opening fire on an anachronistic ice cream truck). The British fleet gets “bottled up” (literally, in giant bottles) and Bugs helps Washington cross the Delaware by manning an outboard motor. Bugs ends his history lecture and sends his nephew off to school for his history test. However, the little rabbit returns with a ferocious frown for his uncle – when asked how he did on the test, Clyde plops a “Dunce” cap on his head and growls, “Does THIS answer your question?”
The background animation in “Yankee Doodle Bugs” leans heavily into the limited style popularized by UPA. While that look doesn’t always work in the Warner Bros. environment, the eccentricity of this presentation succeeds in capturing the silly fantasy elements of Bugs’ version of history. It is interesting that Bugs’ intrusion into the stories twice results in violence against him – getting electrocuted in Franklin’s experiment and stepping on a rake and getting whacked with its handle at the Ross house.
“Yankee Doodle Bugs” is the second and final appearance of Clyde in the Golden Age cartoons, and it is a shame that he wasn’t used more frequently. There is a sweetness in the uncle-nephew relation when Bugs has Clyde for company, with the enthusiastic older rabbit offering shaky wisdom and unreliable stories to the impressionable child. But at least Clyde went off on a high note – the “Dunce” cap ending is one of the best closing gags in the series’ history.