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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Water, Water Every Hare (1952)

Water, Water Every Hare (1952)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Ben Washam, Ken Harris, Phil Monroe, Lloyd Vaughan, Richard Thompson, Harry Love
Music by Carl Stalling

Comedy horror movies rarely work, if only because they devolve into the obvious buffoonery of having the funnymen go into unamusing spasms of anxiety when confronted by ghouls, ghosts, creepy beings, and other unpleasant entities. The 1952 cartoon “Water, Water Every Hare” clicks because it doesn’t sink into the standard nonsense of the comic (in this case, Bugs Bunny) being endlessly frightened by the stock villains. Instead, it offers some brilliantly inventive segments that take the comedy horror genre to a new dimension.
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever – Operation: Rabbit (1952)

Operation: Rabbit (1952)

Directed by Charles M. Jones
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Lloyd Vaughan, Ben Washam, Ken Harris, Phil Monroe
Music by Carl Stalling

Prior to the 1952 “Operation: Rabbit,” Bugs Bunny’s foes could be classified in one of four categories: the dimwitted hunter, the hotheaded loudmouth, the pompous authority figure, and the smart-ass who consistently played Bugs for a chump – Cecil Turtle and the gremlin in “Falling Hare” were among the rare detractors who kept getting the best of him.
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Rabbit Fire (1951)

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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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Rabbit of Seville (1950)

Rabbit of Seville (1950)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Michael Maltese
Animation by Phil Monroe, Ben Washam, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris, Emery Hawkins
Music by Carl Stalling

In my humble opinion, the 1950 “Rabbit of Seville” represents the apex of the Bugs Bunny animated shorts. The film is both laugh-out-loud hilarious and an artistic triumph that creates a slapstick masterpiece on the foundation of symphonic greatness – in this case, the overture to Rossini’s opera “The Barber of Seville.”
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The Bootleg Files: Hare-Breadth Hurry

BOOTLEG FILES 656: “Hare-Breadth Hurry” (1963 animated short with Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote).

LAST SEEN: On DailyMotion.com.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It seems to have fallen through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It’s not a priority.

I wasn’t expecting to do another Bugs Bunny-related column after covering “Rabbit Every Monday” a few weeks ago, but I stumbled over the 1963 “Hare-Breadth Hurry” by accident and felt that this deserves a second look.
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The Bootleg Files: Inki and the Lion

BOOTLEG FILES 631: “Inki and the Lion” (1941 animated short by Chuck Jones).

LAST SEEN: On DailyMotion.com.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: VHS and LaserDisc only.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It is not politically correct.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

Everybody knows about the notorious Censored Eleven animated shorts produced by Warner Bros. that were taken out of circulation in 1968 and have never been made available for television broadcast and home entertainment release. However, the studio had other lesser-known shorts with politically incorrect content that have also been quietly removed from release. Among these withdrawn films are five shorts created by Chuck Jones featuring the unusual characters Inki and the Minah Bird.

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The Bootleg Files: The Wizard of Id

BOOTLEG FILES 619: “The Wizard of Id” (1970 animated short based on the long-running comic strip).

LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube and the Internet Archive.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nope.

For every “Peanuts” or “Garfield” that made the successful transition from newspaper comic strip to film and television productions, there are plenty of other comic strips that failed in their efforts to get off the printed page. This is not difficult to understand: what can be charming and droll in a three-panel strip is often labored and contrived when voices are added and stories are stretched out to greater lengths.

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