Author Archives: Phil Hall

post

Every Bugs Bunny Ever: The Dumb Patrol (1964)

Posted on by

The Dumb Patrol (1964)
Directed by Gerry Chiniquy
Story by John Dunn
Animation by Virgil Ross, Bob Matz, Lee Halpern, Art Leonardi
Music by Bill Lava

This cartoon takes place in France of 1917. World War I is still raging and Captain Smedley (Porky Pig) is chosen to confront the German pilot Baron Sam Von Shpamm (Yosemite Sam). But ahead of his mission, the captain in knocked out by his colleague Bugs Bunny, who tells the viewer he can’t allow Smedley to take the assignment because “he has a wife and six piglets.” Bugs takes to the air in his biplane and engages the baron in multiple dogfights that end with the German’s aircraft being destroyed. Ultimately, the baron’s luck finally expires and he dies in combat. As the baron ascends to Heaven wearing a devil’s costume while playing a harp, an astonished Bugs tells the viewer, “I’ve heard of Hell’s angels, but I never thought I’d see one.”
Continue reading →

post

The Bootleg Files: Pardon My Terror

Posted on by

BOOTLEG FILES 940: “Pardon My Terror” (1946 short comedy starring Gus Schilling and Richard Lane).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Maybe if someone does a DVD anthology of Schilling and Lane comedies.

Unless you are a truly dedicated scholar of the comedy films of the Golden Age of Hollywood, there is an excellent chance that you never heard of the team of Gus Schilling and Richard Lane. From 1945 to 1950, this pair of character actors were teamed for 11 short comedies produced at Columbia Pictures.
Continue reading →

post

Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Transylvania 6-5000 (1963)

Posted on by

Transylvania 6-5000 (1963)
Directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble
Story by John Dunn
Animation by Bob Bransford, Tom Ray, Ken Harris, Richard Thompson
Music by Bill Lava

Bugs Bunny is burrowing his way to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but winds up in Pittsburghe, Transylvania. After engaging in a brief conversation with a two-headed lady vulture, he ventures to an eerie castle (which he mistakes for a motel) in search of a telephone to call his travel agent. The castle belongs to the vampire Count Bloodcount, who convinces Bugs to spend the night. Unable to sleep, Bugs finds a book of magic phrases and begins to read them aloud, not realizing that he is changing Count Bloodcount into a bat and then back into his human form – always at the worst possible moment.
Continue reading →

post

The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954)

Posted on by

Comedy and horror inevitably overlap in films where funnymen find themselves in haunted houses occupied with a surplus number of ghouls, mad scientists and ectoplasmic mayhem. The Bowery Boys had already run amok in such creepy settings during the 1940s with “Spooks Run Wild” and “Ghosts on the Loose,” back when they were under the East Side Kids banner. But this 1954 offering takes the old haunted house comedy into a wild, almost Dadaist environment.
Continue reading →

post

The Bootleg Files: Putting on the Ritz

Posted on by

BOOTLEG FILES 939: “Putting on the Ritz” (1974 animated short by Antoinette Starkiewicz).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Perhaps as part of a collection of the filmmaker’s work.

Earlier this week, I did an essay on “International Animation Festival,” a PBS series that aired in the mid-1970s. That series, which was hosted by British actress Jean Marsh, introduced viewers to rarely-seen animated shorts from European, Canadian, and independent American animators.
Continue reading →

post

Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Mad as a Mars Hare (1963)

Posted on by

Mad as a Mars Hare (1963)
Directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble
Story by John Dunn
Animation by Ken Harris, Richard Thompson, Bob Bransford, Tom Ray, Harry Love
Music by Bill Lava

Marvin the Martian amuses himself by viewing the Earth through a telescope. He watches a rocket launch from the Florida peninsula – and within seconds, the spacecraft crashes through his observatory and lands on Mars. The rocket’s sole occupant is Astro-Rabbit Bugs Bunny, who claims the planet with a metal carrot-shaped canister that opens to wave a flag marked “Earth” and mechanized instruments that play “Yankee Doodle.” Marvin’s attempt to capture Bugs backfire when Bugs accidentally disintegrates him. Marvin tries again but uses one of his weapons incorrectly and turns Bugs into a behemothic “Neanderthal Rabbit” who crushes him.
Continue reading →