{"id":54700,"date":"2026-09-02T07:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=54700"},"modified":"2026-08-29T09:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:32:27","slug":"every-bugs-bunny-ever-bugs-bunnys-howl-o-ween-special-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/02\/every-bugs-bunny-ever-bugs-bunnys-howl-o-ween-special-1977\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Bugs Bunny&#8217;s Howl-O-Ween Special (1977)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One month after \u201cBugs Bunny in Space\u201d premiered on CBS, another prime-time special with the Looney Tunes crew turned up: \u201cBugs Bunny\u2019s Howl-O-Ween Special.\u201d I was 13 when it premiered on October 26, 1977, and at the time I was appalled by the haphazard sloppiness of the presentation. I just watched it again for the first time since that initial viewing and my negative opinion has not changed.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This production centers around Witch Hazel, a delightful character who was featured in three Golden Age Bugs Bunny cartoons \u2013 \u201cBewitched Bunny\u201d (1954), \u201cBroomstick Bunny\u201d (1959) and \u201cA Witch\u2019s Tangled Hare\u201d (1959) \u2013 plus a late entry with Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzalez from 1966 called \u201cA-Haunting We Will Go.\u201d The character had a tiny cameo appearance in \u201cTransylvania 6-5000\u201d (1963).<\/p>\n<p>Rather than present these animated shorts in their entirety, \u201cBugs Bunny\u2019s Howl-O-Ween Special\u201d erratically stitches together the Witch Hazel cartoons with new footage created for the special. This resulted in a visually bizarre patchwork where the quality of animation varies significantly from sequence to sequence. Witch Hazel\u2019s skin tone is constantly changing, while the new footage with Bugs looks like it was taken from the video box art of the cheapo VHS tapes from the 1980s that recycled public domain cartoons.<\/p>\n<p>Even worse, the connections between the footage are ridiculous without being funny. For example, when Bugs declines to drink Witch Hazel\u2019s spiked tea from \u201cBroomstick Bunny,\u201d there is new footage with a decidedly different looking Bugs announcing he can get better tea from his doctor. This leads to Bugs walking out on Witch Hazel and abruptly appearing in footage from \u201cHyde and Hare\u201d (1955).<\/p>\n<p>Also included is footage from three shorts with Sylvester that have no connection to anything involving Witch Hazel. This only added to the confusion.<\/p>\n<p>David Detiege was credited as the director of this special. He was a talented animation director whose credits included the \u201cThe New 3 Stooges\u201d cartoon series and the delightful 1971 animated feature \u201cShinbone Alley.\u201d Sadly, this was one of his clinkers.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/ok.ru\/videoembed\/1943637264939?nochat=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One month after \u201cBugs Bunny in Space\u201d premiered on CBS, another prime-time special with the Looney Tunes crew turned up: \u201cBugs Bunny\u2019s Howl-O-Ween Special.\u201d I was 13 when it premiered on October 26, 1977, and at the time I was appalled by the haphazard sloppiness of the presentation. I just watched it again for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":54701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3068],"tags":[99,167,441,3688],"class_list":["post-54700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bugs-bunny-ever","tag-animation","tag-bugs-bunny","tag-halloween","tag-witch-hazel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54700","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=54700"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54703,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54700\/revisions\/54703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}