{"id":48283,"date":"2025-06-25T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=48283"},"modified":"2025-06-25T08:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:23:08","slug":"every-bugs-bunny-ever-this-is-a-life-1955","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/25\/every-bugs-bunny-ever-this-is-a-life-1955\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Bugs Bunny Ever: This is a Life? (1955)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a Life? <\/strong>(1955)
\nDirected by\tFriz Freleng
\nStory by\tWarren Foster
\nAnimation by\tTed Bonnicksen, Arthur Davis
\nMusic by\tMilt Franklyn<\/p>\n

This offering is a hilarious riff on \u201cThis is Your Life,\u201d a very 1950s popular program hosted by Ralph Edwards that surprised people with retrospectives of their life. The show was staged in front of a studio audience, and sometimes unsuspecting people would be taken from the audience and led to the stage. The concept of \u201cThis is Your Life\u201d had already been brilliantly spoofed on \u201cYour Show of Shows\u201d in 1954<\/a>, but screenwriter Warren Foster and director Friz Freleng opted to put their spin on the subject using the Looney Tunes characters.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For \u201cThis is a Life?\u201d, Elmer Fudd takes on the Ralph Edwards role for a show that the off-screen announcer declares is \u201cBrought to you by the Wishy Washy Washing Machine Company of Walla Walla, Washington.\u201d Elmer goes into the audience and comes to a row where Bugs is sitting between Daffy Duck and Granny. Daffy assumes he\u2019s the subject of the retrospective and is aghast when Elmer announces Bugs will be in the spotlight. Daffy loudly voices his disapproval several times, only to be silenced temporarily when Granny clubs him with her umbrella.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is a wonderfully bizarre moment when Elmer launches the retrospective by asking Bugs to \u201cstart at the beginning\u201d \u2013 and Bugs launches into a melodramatic declamation of the planet\u2019s violent evolution that resulted in a tiny pool of water that was home to \u201ctwo tiny amoeba, the start of life.\u201d Bugs\u2019 life is shown in clips from \u201cA Hare Grows in Manhattan,\u201d \u201cHare Do\u201d (where he gets the best of Elmer) and \u201cBuccaneer Bunny\u201d (where he gets the best of Yosemite Sam).<\/p>\n

While Bugs happily recalls how he one-upped Elmer and Sam, the men plant a bomb in a gift-wrapped box and offer it to Bugs as a tribute to his being the show\u2019s guest. Bugs quickly realizes the explosive contents and gives it back to them, creating a frantic tossing among the threesome until Daffy emerges from the audience, claiming that he deserved it. Daffy walks off and there is a huge explosion, followed by a defeathered Daffy stalking back to Bugs and hissing, \u201cYou\u2019re despicable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In watching \u201cThis is a Life?\u201d, it is curious to see Elmer and Sam together \u2013 I am uncertain why the Warner Bros. animators never paired them again. (The characters would later turn up in \u201cA Star is Bored,\u201d but not together in the same scene.) It is also a shame that Granny went back to the Sylvester and Tweety shorts and didn\u2019t have more input with Bugs \u2013 this short and the 1953 \u201cHare Trimmed\u201d benefited from her spunky and unexpectedly violent presence. June Foray took over the voice performance of Granny with this cartoon, replacing Bea Benaderet.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of \u201cThis is a Life?\u201d was having a theatrical short doing a parody of television programming. By 1955, television has secured itself so deeply into the American popular culture that the Warner Bros. cartoons could make fun of the stars and concepts of hit shows. This work was the first of multiple television parodies from the animation studio, most notably in two shorts that reimagined \u201cThe Honeymooners\u201d with a cast of mice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a Life? (1955) Directed by Friz Freleng Story by Warren Foster Animation by Ted Bonnicksen, Arthur Davis Music by Milt Franklyn This offering is a hilarious riff on \u201cThis is Your Life,\u201d a very 1950s popular program hosted by Ralph Edwards that surprised people with retrospectives of their life. The show was staged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":48285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3068],"tags":[3753,167,2523,2158,3633,3752,2077],"class_list":["post-48283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bugs-bunny-ever","tag-1950s-television","tag-bugs-bunny","tag-daffy-duck","tag-elmer-fudd","tag-granny","tag-this-is-your-life","tag-yosemite-sam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48283","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=48283"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48404,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48283\/revisions\/48404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}