post

The 10 Weirdest Star Wars Rip-Offs of All Time

Earlier this week, I saw a news item that said Mark Hamill considered moving out of the United States after Donald Trump was re-elected president last November. And my reaction was: Mark Hamill’s still alive? Oh, right, it’s his career that died.

Ever since Hamill toplined the original “Star Wars” in 1977, there has been no shortage of crazy works that try to fly with George Lucas’ imagination but inevitably take an Icarus-worthy plummet from heights where they could not travel. And while the 1982 Turkish film “The Man Who Saved the World” (a.k.a. “The Turkish Star Wars”) has gained cult classic status for its inane pilfering of “Star Wars” and a half-dozen other sci-fi classics, there are other films and television productions that are even crazier.
Continue reading

post

Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Barbary-Coast Bunny (1956)

Barbary-Coast Bunny (1956)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Story by Tedd Pierce
Animation by Abe Levitow, Richard Thompson, Ken Harris
Music by Carl Stalling

Bugs Bunny is burrowing underground to visit his cousin Herman in San Francisco when he bangs head-first into a giant gold nugget. The swindler Nasty Canasta tricks Bugs into believing he has a depository bank for storing the gold, and Bugs entrusts his new fortune with the miscreant. After Nasty violently waylays Bugs, the angry rabbit vows revenge. Six months later, he tracks down Nasty to the San Francisco casino that he built with Bugs’ gold. Bugs disguises himself as a naïve rural visitor, but this seemingly innocent façade enables him to casually drain the casino of its money by winning Nasty’s rigged games.
Continue reading