Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Rabbit Fire (1951)

Posted on November 6, 2024 by Phil Hall

Rabbit Fire (1951)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Ken Harris, Phil Monroe, Lloyd Vaughan and Ben Washam
Music by Carl W. Stalling

In the realm of the Bugs Bunny cartoons, “Rabbit Fire” is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing, of course, is the film’s contents – a fast, inventive serving of classic dialogue and innovative visual comedy that resulted in an animated masterpiece. The curse, however, involved the same issues that make it a blessing. “Rabbit Fire” is so remarkable that it created a lightning-in-a-bottle moment that could never be repeated with the same level of style and substance. And Lord knows the Termite Terrace gang tried endlessly to duplicate its brilliance, with results that ranged from almost perfect to dreadful.
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Goof on the Roof (1953)

Posted on November 4, 2024 by Phil Hall

Moe, Larry and Shemp receive a telegram from their roommate/landlord Bill that he just got married and they will need to move out. Rather than be upset by this abrupt eviction, the trio decide to surprise Bill and his new bride by cleaning the residence and installing a television that Bill ordered as a wedding gift. Needless to say, the best of intentions generates the worst possible results.
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The Bootleg Files: The Slim Whitman Commercials

Posted on November 1, 2024 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 884: “The Slim Whitman Commercials” (a series of television advertisements featuring the yodeling country singer).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No perceived re-release value.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

If you were watching American television in the 1980s, there’s a good chance that you’ll remember commercials for albums featuring Slim Whitman. These commercials resonated with audiences – mostly for the wrong reasons – but they managed to reanimate the career of a unique performer who was mostly forgotten in his own country.
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: The Fair-Haired Hare (1951)

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Phil Hall

The Fair-Haired Hare (1951)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Warren Foster
Animation by Ken Champin, Virgil Ross, Arthur Davis, Manuel Perez, John Carey
Music by Carl Stalling

When Yosemite Sam builds a cabin on top of Bugs Bunny’s hole-in-the-ground domicile, Bugs vows to sue Sam for damages. A judge rules that Bugs and Sam must share the newly constructed residence, with the knowledge that full ownership goes to the survivor if one of them should pass away. Sam opts to speed Bugs’ demise, but his homicidal schemes inevitably backfire. Furious at being outsmarted, he opts to fill Bugs’ subterranean home with explosives, but Bugs redirects the devices to the crawl space between the cabin’s floor and the bare ground. Sam winds up blowing his home into the clouds while declaring, “Well, whaddya know, I’ve got a cabin in the sky!”
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The Bat (1926) [Halloween Horror Month]

Posted on October 28, 2024 by Phil Hall

A half-dozen genres are merrily mixed together in “The Bat,” the wild and often zany 1926 silent feature based on a Broadway play written by Mary Roberts Rinehard and Avery Hopwood, which in turn was based on Rinehart’s novel “The Circular Staircase” (1908).
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The Bootleg Files: Let the Good Times Roll

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 883: “Let the Good Times Roll” (1973 concert film featuring Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Music rights clearance issues are a big obstacle.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

During the early 1970s, there was a wave of nostalgia for the music and pop culture of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Broadway musical “Grease,” the movie “American Graffiti” and the sitcom “Happy Days” were the most prominent examples of this retro celebration of the era, while Sha Na Na kept the old tunes alive with their kinetic stage and television appearances, but a series of concerts dubbed “The Rock and Roll Revival” brought a number of the prominent music stars from that period to perform their old hits for admiring audiences.
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Bunny Hugged (1951)

Posted on October 23, 2024 by Phil Hall

Bunny Hugged (1951)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Phil Monroe, Ken Harris, Lloyd Vaughan, Ben Washam
Music by Carl Stalling

During the early 1950s, professional wrestling enjoyed a flurry of popularity thanks to television. The Termite Terrace gang took advantage of this new wave of attention by dusting off the 1948 boxing cartoon “Rabbit Punch” and reimagining the action in a wrestling ring – with the musclebound pugilist Battling McGook brought back under the name Crusher.
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