There is trouble brewing at QTTV – up on the top floor of the network’s skyscraper headquarters, the latest president was fired for failing to turn around dismal ratings. His dismissal was a tad extreme – he was thrown head-first out of a window and into a street-level fountain, with his desk thrown after him! The network then hires Bugs Bunny as the new president. While Bugs is reviewing the new shows that brought to the network, Yosemite Sam keeps pestering him for a job. After Porky Pig buys QTTV, Bugs steps aside and Sam becomes president – only to have Porky immediately fire him and toss him out of the window and into the street-level fountain.
As a spoof of the television industry, this 1982 primetime television special presentation is not at the same level of acidic satire as “Network.” But it is an amusing riff on this corner of the entertainment world, with the cartoon characters acknowledging the medium that brought them to successive generations.
The presentation harvests several show business-focused Warner Bros. gems for its classic animation segments, most notably “What’s Up Doc?”, “The Ducksters” and “Wideo Wabbit.” (“The Ducksters” gets a few new lines on the soundtrack that switch its setting from radio to television.) The quality of the new animation is an improvement over the offerings in previous primetime specials, and the bridging gimmick of having Bugs (in the new segments) review the network’s shows (the classic cartoons) is a clever way to integrate animation from different eras.
This production marked the 16th television special from the Warner Bros. animation unit since the studio revived the cartoon franchises in 1976 with “Bugs and Daffy’s Carnival of the Animals.” All but two of those specials centered on Bugs, with a pair of offerings focused on Daffy Duck. After this special aired, the studio took a breather and would not be back in primetime with Bugs and his pals for another four years.