Carrotblanca

The first thing I noticed in this Looney Tunes takeoff on "Casablanca" is the fantastic artwork. Man, this looks beautiful! The second thing quickly apparent is that this cartoon is going to include a ton of Looney Tunes characters, all congregating in the "Cafe Au Lait Americain" establishment in "Carrotblanca."

With Bugs Bunny playing Humphrey Bogart; Daffy Duck as Sam the piano man, Tweety as Peter Lorre, Yosemite Sam as a Nazi general, etc., this is a hoot - really fun to watch. Of course, the more you know the movie Casablanca, the more you'll laugh at this.

However, to be honest, I didn't find it hilarious, just mildly amusing and, of course, clever. With only seven or so minutes to work with, they had to rush the story so the ending is a bit goofy...but, hey, it's a cartoon, and they're supposed to provide us the unexpected!

Bugs Bunny in charge of Rick's café? This spoof of, of course, the 40s film 'Casablanca' sees our carrot-chewing hero as the fortune-hunting, love-sick exile who meets the love of his life again when she walks into his bar.

The strength of this cartoon isn't just in the details - they are a perfect reflection of the original film - but in the casting of well-known WB 'toon characters as the main players in 'Casablanca', for example Tweety Pie as Ugarte (the squeaky-voiced role originally played by Peter Lorre).

Better than 'Rabbit Hood', Bugs's take on 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'. These little shorts are inspired additions to the DVDs of the original films - keep 'em coming.

"Carrotblanca," parody of the classic "Casablanca," is a hilarious spoof of the latter. Just about everyone turns up for this funny film.

Bugs plays the Rick part, and Penelope (the cat persistently followed by Pepe le Pew) plays the Elsa part (although named Kitty.) Sylvester plays Laszlo, and Daffy plays a hilarious Sam (Not Yosemite Sam, but the piano-player. Yosemite's a Nazi soldier for this round.)

This mini-movie has many hilarious moments from Bugs' first line to the absurd part in which Tweety is cast. At some points it seems Daffy steals the show (try forgetting about the "I thought I told you never to play that song" section) but otherwise Bugs is the one to watch.

My only complaint is that it goes rather fast. Of course, all the Looney Tunes shorts run an average of 7 minutes, but you'd think a spoof of a 102 minute film would be worth at least a 30 minute episode.

You can view this animated short if you purchase the Casablanca 2-disc Special Edition DVD.

My only complaint about the short is that it is, well, too short. They could have extended the storyline to put in more gags and references. I'm also a little upset that they left out classic lines ("beautiful friendship") and a semi-important character (Ferrari, which could have been played by Elmer Fudd).

Otherwise, it's a fun little short that fans of the movie (and WB cartoons) will enjoy. It would have been interesting to see how the original WB artists/writers of the "Casablanca" era would have done it, compared to this 1995 version.

In Casablanca, Bugs Bunny runs an American bar and only looks out for himself. When he is given secret papers that will help defeat the rule of General Pandemonium. However when Bugs falls for Kitty, the wife of the leader of resistance, things change for him and he finds himself having to put himself on the line.

I have nothing against the updated Loony Tunes cartoons, but I do have something against cartoons that are unfunny, poorly developed and simply weak. Here the idea of a spoof on the film Casablanca sounds like it could be OK but it is a terrible, horrid mess. The plot copies the plot of Casablanca in a very condensed form but does nothing of merit with it. With so many little details to add in, the plot never stops long enough to be funny.

This is made worse by the sheer volume of characters crammed in with nothing to do. Only Tweety's impression of Peter Lorre is funny - but even that had been done better by a Loony Tunes character that used to be Lorre. None of the rest of the characters really work - their voice work is poor at best, horrid at worst. They rush past the screen with so little time that they never make an impression - it's like the film is expecting the recognition of characters to be enough to replace laughs or fun.

With barely a single laugh to it, a plot that is an uninspired mess and characters who don't sound like themselves or act like themselves this cartoon is about a bad a film from Loony Tunes as I have seen. It's not the fact that it is a modern cartoon that bothers me - it's the fact that it is a sh*t cartoon. Avoid this like the plague.