{"id":47605,"date":"2025-05-14T08:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=47605"},"modified":"2025-05-13T18:41:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T22:41:39","slug":"every-bugs-bunny-ever-yankee-doodle-bugs-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/14\/every-bugs-bunny-ever-yankee-doodle-bugs-1954\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Yankee Doodle Bugs (1954)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yankee Doodle Bugs <\/strong>(1954)
\nDirected by Friz Freleng
\nStory by Warren Foster
\nAnimation by Arthur Davis, Manuel Perez, Virgil Ross
\nMusic by Milt Franklyn<\/p>\n

While few animation scholars would cite \u201cYankee Doodle Bugs\u201d as being among the finest of the Warner Bros. output, I freely admit this is one of my favorite cartoons in the Bugs Bunny series. Yeah, it is not an artistic classic, but it is a cute film that has good-natured fun with Colonial American history.
\n<\/p>\n

The film opens in Bugs\u2019 house, which is designed in the then-popular Mid-Century Modern style. Bugs is reading a comic book featuring himself as the star attraction while his little nephew Clyde is trying to memorize the dates from the American Revolution class. It is interesting that Bugs lives in a house when Clyde is part of the story, as opposed to residing in a hole in the ground when he has a solo existence.<\/p>\n

When Clyde admits having problems absorbing the story of America\u2019s birth, Bugs offers to tutor him. \u201cDo you know American history, Uncle Bugs?\u201d Clyde asks, and Bugs replies: \u201cKnow American history? Why we rabbits have made American history!\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, the film goes into a skein of mini-sketches based on seminal events in the nation\u2019s founding. Bugs recalls how the Manhattan skyline looked different when the Indians owned the island (we see skyscraper-sized tepees for a skyline) and stresses how \u201cthe Statue of Liberty was a little girl at the time\u201d (the majestic lady of New York Harbor is shown as a spunky child holding a large flame aloft). Bugs then relates how the Dutch bought Manhattan from the Indians \u201cfor a song\u201d \u2013 which is portrayed by a Dutch settler giving a piece of sheet music to a tribal warrior who happily declares: \u201cMe rich! Me rich chief! Me rich super chief!\u201d (For many years, the Indian\u2019s response was cut from television broadcasts out of concerns over racial insensitivity.)<\/p>\n

The cartoon fast-forwards to the mid-18th century where Bugs helps Ben Franklin with an experiment involving the flying of a kite in a lightning storm, and then it gets into the American Revolution by imagining King George III making a surprise visit to Boston to tax the local tea consumption \u2013 of course, that didn\u2019t happen, but it enables a wonderfully lousy pun with \u201ctacks\u201d becoming synonymous with \u201ctax.\u201d George Washington gets drafted and informs his wife that she will need to \u201crun the candy store alone\u201d while he\u2019s at war \u2013 a reference to the Martha Washington chain of candy retailers \u2013 while Bugs offers his input to Betsy Ross on the design of the new nation\u2019s flag.<\/p>\n

The war itself is depicted with the Redcoats storming Bunker Hill (they march stoically into a cannon that opens fire on them, forcing them to retreat in battered confusion) and the harsh winter at Valley Forge (with the freezing, snowbound soldiers opening fire on an anachronistic ice cream truck). The British fleet gets \u201cbottled up\u201d (literally, in giant bottles) and Bugs helps Washington cross the Delaware by manning an outboard motor. Bugs ends his history lecture and sends his nephew off to school for his history test. However, the little rabbit returns with a ferocious frown for his uncle \u2013 when asked how he did on the test, Clyde plops a \u201cDunce\u201d cap on his head and growls, \u201cDoes THIS answer your question?\u201d<\/p>\n

The background animation in \u201cYankee Doodle Bugs\u201d leans heavily into the limited style popularized by UPA. While that look doesn\u2019t always work in the Warner Bros. environment, the eccentricity of this presentation succeeds in capturing the silly fantasy elements of Bugs\u2019 version of history. It is interesting that Bugs\u2019 intrusion into the stories twice results in violence against him \u2013 getting electrocuted in Franklin\u2019s experiment and stepping on a rake and getting whacked with its handle at the Ross house.<\/p>\n

\u201cYankee Doodle Bugs\u201d is the second and final appearance of Clyde in the Golden Age cartoons, and it is a shame that he wasn\u2019t used more frequently. There is a sweetness in the uncle-nephew relation when Bugs has Clyde for company, with the enthusiastic older rabbit offering shaky wisdom and unreliable stories to the impressionable child. But at least Clyde went off on a high note \u2013 the \u201cDunce\u201d cap ending is one of the best closing gags in the series\u2019 history. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yankee Doodle Bugs (1954) Directed by Friz Freleng Story by Warren Foster Animation by Arthur Davis, Manuel Perez, Virgil Ross Music by Milt Franklyn While few animation scholars would cite \u201cYankee Doodle Bugs\u201d as being among the finest of the Warner Bros. output, I freely admit this is one of my favorite cartoons in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":47606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3068],"tags":[3692,3458,99,167,3529],"class_list":["post-47605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bugs-bunny-ever","tag-american-history","tag-american-revolution","tag-animation","tag-bugs-bunny","tag-clyde"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47605"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47670,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47605\/revisions\/47670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}