Knighty Knight Bugs (1958)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Warren Foster
Animation by Gerry Chiniquy, Arthur Davis, Virgil Ross
Music by Milt Franklyn
When you consider how many cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny are now celebrated as animation classics, it is bizarre to realize that only three cartoons featuring the top star of the Warner Bros. animation studio were nominated for the Academy Award. Even more peculiar was the fact the three cartoons that were nominated – “A Wild Hare” (1940), “Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt” (1941), and “Knight Knight Bugs” (1958) – were far from the best of the Bugs Bunny series.
“Knighty Knight Bugs” was the sole cartoon in this series to win the Oscar, but it should be noted that it had minimal competition that year – Disney’s “Paul Bunyan” and the Terrytoons romp “Sidney’s Family Tree” were the only other cartoons up for that grand prize. When the Oscar ceremony was held, producer John Burton noted the long-running failure for a Bugs Bunny cartoon to secure the Academy Award by stating, “Bugs Bunny has finally made the grade. He tried for 18 years, rabbit’s feet and all – finally made it.”
It was a victory, to be certain, but a bittersweet one considering that “Knighty Knight Bugs” is strictly a so-so work that repeats gags from previous and better cartoons.
In “Knighty Knight Bugs,” an elderly King Arthur summons his Knights of the Round Table to discuss the Black Knight’s abduction of the Singing Sword. The knights are terrified of this archfiend and are teased by the court jester (played by Bugs). The king is angry at the jester’s mockery and orders him under the threat of death to retrieve and return the Singing Sword.
The Black Knight (Yosemite Sam encased in a tight suit of armor) is based out of a castle where it appears he is the only human occupant. His companion is a large and not-very-bright fire-breathing dragon who has a cold – with each sneeze, he inappropriately exhales a flame. Bugs sneaks into the castle and locates the Singing Sword, but the weapon launches into a musical refrain that awakens the Black Knight. Sam and his dragon give chase, but Bugs winds up locking them out of the castle. Sam makes several attempts to gain reentry, but winds up being thwarted by Bugs.
When Bugs attempts to sneak out of the castle, he chased back into its grounds by the Black Knight and the dragon. Bugs traps them in a room at the base of a tower that is filled with dynamite and other explosives. The dragon’s fiery sneeze sets the tower skyward as a rocket to the moon, with Bugs waving farewell as the Singing Sword begins to perform “Aloha Oe.”
Fans of the Bugs Bunny cartoons will recognize the punny names of the knights Sir Loin of Beef and Sir Osis of Liver from “Rabbit Hood” and “Knight-mare Hare,” respectively, while the section of Sam trying to regain entrance into his castle is a medieval version of the “Sahara Hare” plot where Bugs repels Sam’s efforts to get into a desert fortress, also with a dynamite-powered closing gag.
But the big disappointment here is the Singing Sword, which doesn’t sing but only hums – once when Bugs identifies it (to the tune of “Cuddle Up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine”) and again when Sam and the dragon blast off to the moon. For most of the film, the sword is just carried about and serves no purpose except as a mute prop. This was truly a wasted gag – the sword’s vocalizing could have been used for all sorts of melodic mischief but instead is barely acknowledged.
Director Friz Freleng clearly liked the dumb dragon – a variation of that character, complete with inappropriately timed fiery sneezes, would turn up in the 1969 TV series “Here Comes the Grump” which the animator produced as part of the DePatie-Freleng Enterprises studio.