The 1979 television special “Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales” marked the first time since the end of the Golden Age that the Warner Bros. animators created a genuine classic. Consisting of three new shorts with brief bridging sections, this holiday offering was rich with inventive laugh-out-loud comedy.
The production opens during the snowbound holiday season with Bugs leading a group of carolers (Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, and Pepe Le Pew) in a not-so-perfect rendition of “Deck the Halls.” This leads to a Friz Freleng-directed short “Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol” that truncates Dickens into a zany slapstick romp with Sam as an ornery Scrooge, Porky as Bob Cratchit, and Tweety as Tiny Tim. Sylvester is on hand as Scrooge’s pet cat. Bugs is a holiday-loving observer who gives Scrooges some yuletide comeuppance by shoveling snow into his hot bath and dressing up as the Ghost of Christmas and waking him from his slumbers with a drum.
The second segment is Chuck Jones’ “Freeze Frame” and it continues the Wile E. Coyote-Road Runner chase into a snowy mountain terrain. The coyote still relies on those wonky Acme products, including a snow-making machine that constant dumps snow on him and a crate with 12 sled dogs that nearly devour him. It’s a fun cartoon that is marked improvement over the dull shorts that were churned out after Jones was forced out of Warner Bros.
The third segment, “Fright Before Christmas,” brings back Bugs’ nephew Clyde, although he looks more like a miniature Bugs rather than the blue-eyed and chubby cheeked rabbit from the Golden Age cartoons. Also returning is the Tasmanian Devil, who through convoluted circumstances winds up at Bugs’ home on Christmas Eve dressed like Santa Claus. Freleng directed this short, which matches the Golden Age romps for wild sight gags featuring an unflappable Bugs tormenting his ravenous foe. Speedy Gonzales is also here in a cute cameo appearance.
The special ends with Taz pulling a sleigh featuring Bugs and the carolers singing “Jingle Bells.” The closing gag is wholly unexpected and hilarious.
“Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales” turned up on CBS on November 27, 1979, and would be repeated during the holiday season a few times before heading to home video. Today, the three segments are usually broadcast separately along with the classic Looney Tunes shorts. And while they work fine as standalone pieces, they were truly a magical set when combined for this excellent show.