Tiny Toon Adventures (1990)

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Tiny Toon Adventures (1990)

Back in the eighties and nineties, many companies sought out to “youthify” their most popular properties and, presumably for the same reason, Warner Bros. gave their Looney Tunes brand a fresh new series… which made no sense considering one of the best shows on the ABC Saturday Morning Line Up for years was The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show. That said, rather than featuring just younger versions of the Looney Tunes the creators of Tiny Toon Adventures opted instead to present us with a line up of brand new, hip, “extreme” versions of the original characters.

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The Bootleg Files: A Night on the Town

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BOOTLEG FILES 879: “A Night on the Town” (1983 British television musical starring Ann Reinking, Eartha Kitt and Bobby Short).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Clearing the music rights is too expensive.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not in the U.S, although there was a U.K. release.

Musical comedy is, arguably, the most difficult genre to create. Not only is there the challenge of having on-screen talent who can sing, dance, and carry off light comic material, but there is the equal challenge of behind-the-camera talent involved in orchestrations, choreography, and the various production duties needed to create a magical world where people break into song and twirl about as if it was part of the daily routine.
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Red Riding Hood (2011)

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It’s hard to imagine but Hollywood just never seems to be short of attempts to re-think and re-imagine “Red Riding Hood. And surely enough they never seem to think of an interesting enough idea for a franchise of any kind. I wish they’d stop by now. “Red Riding Hood” is Catherine Hardwicke’s efforts to transform “Red Riding Hood” in to this Puritanical, Stephanie Meyer tinted romance horror film that never works as well as it wants to.

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The Hobbit (1977)

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Although not as good or edgy as Ralph Bakshi’s more adult interpretations of the “Lord of the Rings” novels, Rankin Bass’s “The Hobbit” is a very good animated movie that gets about as dark and edgy as possible. The movie is a nice and swiftly paced seventy seven minutes, allowing for this single adventure to go from point A to point B without ever missing a step. Unlike the bloated trilogy we saw from Peter Jackson, “The Hobbit” gets the job done significantly better, even if the pacing is particularly rushed.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Bunker Hill Bunny (1950)

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Editor’s Note: Cinema Crazed founder Felix Vasquez Jr. began the “Every Bugs Bunny Ever” series on January 3, 2023, with the goal of reviewing the cinematic output of the most popular star from the Warner Bros. animation studio. Felix passed away yesterday, and I will be inheriting the series and continuing with this weekly output in tribute to Felix’s legacy and his love for animated films.

Bunker Hill Bunny (1950)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Tedd Pierce
Animation by Ken Champin, Virgil Ross and Arthur Davis
Music by Carl Stalling

“Bunker Hill Bunny” takes place during the American Revolution – specifically, the Battle of Bagle Heights. As battles go, this was on the small side, with the red-coated Hessian mercenary Sam von Scham (our old pal Yosemite Sam) taking on patriot Bugs Bunny. The rivals are in adjacent forts, with Sam firing multiple cannons at once from a might stone structure while Bugs shoots off a single cannon by reaching out of his hole-in-the-ground residence and pulling a string attached to the weapon.
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Little Vampire (Petit Vampire) (2020)

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Based on the Children’s book series The Little Vampire, from German writer Angela Sommer-Bodenburg, the story from the author has been adapted before, most notably in the 2000 live action kid’s film. This version is directed by Joann Sfar with about as much competence as is humanly possible, and it’s sadly hindered by the poor American dub that sadly almost seems exclusively available. I wonder if there is a version with the original voice track, but sadly the movie isn’t so good that I will necessarily go and seek it out.

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