Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie

Friz Freleng's "Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie" is an excellent followup to Chuck Jones' "Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie" which itself was a surprisingly good feature. This film follows the same formula as the 1979 film: classic shorts are combined with new bridging material to create a new feature.

Freleng's film is even better than the Jones film. The structure is actually very clever for a cartoon. Freleng divides his film into three parts. The first part showcases Freleng's classic Yosemite Sam/Bugs Bunny shorts. The story is that Sam makes a deal with the Devil to bring Bugs to hell. Included here is Sam vs Bugs in Rome (with the classic scene where Sam crosses the lions pit on stilts and Bugs tosses tools to the lions)and the unbearably funny short where Bugs impersonates Granny to save her fortune from a lecherous Sam. This segment is so well edited and timed that it could work as an episode of a Bugs Bunny sitcom.

Part Two showcases Freleng's Rocky shorts, the small gangster who Bugs tangles with. It's funny, but a comedown from the previous segment. Still, as a spoof of "The Untouchables" and "The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg" (with Daffy Duck as the goose), it scores.

Part Three is the best of them all. "The Oswald Awards" is a vicious satire of the Oscars. The ceremony, undeserved wins, the false glamour, it's all here. Included here are four of Freleng's all time best shorts: Birds Anonymous (the best Tweety/Sylvester cartoon), Three Little Bops (in its' entirety), High Diving Hare and Show Biz Bugs, the definitive Bugs/Daffy showdown with a memorable finale.

This is an enormously entertaining movie. Kids will love it because of the onscreen antics of Bugs Bunny and his cohorts. Adults will love the hidden injokes and innuendos that are laced in these cartoons. True, while it is better to view them as individual shorts, this works extremely well for a compliation and it is better to see them this way than to not see them at all.

**** out of 4 stars

The first time I saw this movie was in the 90's, as a little kid. My dad saw it on TV and taped it so I watched it over and over many times. Needless to say, I loved it. In my opinion, it was everything that the Looney Tunes should be, and more. The new Looney Tunes show that is currently on Cartoon Network just does not compare to the classics. Even now, although I'm in my 20's, I still enjoy watching this movie (along with Quackbusters) any time I get the urge to watch Looney Tunes.

If you are a fan of throwback episodes of the Looney Tunes like Yosemite Sam/Bugs Bunny, Sylvester/Tweety or Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck, then I strongly suggest that you watch this movie if you haven't already. You won't be disappointed!

In a three-act presentation, Bugs Bunny presents some old stories in a modern film. Act I sees Yosemite Sam deep in Hell with Satan. His only way out is to replace himself with another victim - and he picks Bugs bunny. Satan lets him out of Hell for several attempts to capture Bugs. In act II we see crime waves at a new high and Elegant Mess (Bugs) trying to stop the activities of mobster Rocky. In act III, the Oswald Awards (Warner Brothers gave up on trying to win an Oscar and thus made these instead) are presented to the actors who have made the most difference in the world of animation - an award that Daffy would give his beak to get.

I love the Warner Brother cartoons a great deal and will use any excuse I can get to watch the cartoons if I'm around - whether it be a hangover cure or entertaining kids when babysitting, I'll generally give them a try and find them funny. With this being a `proper' movie I felt I needed no such excuse and decided to sit and just watch it. Very quickly I realised that this cartoon was a barely concealed attempt to just show about 8 or 9 cartoons that had been edited together to roughly fit within each act. Of these cartoons, 4 or 5 are worth seeing, 1 or 2 are pretty poor and 2 are really great so, for my money, the film was just about worth watching. I have seen most of these cartoons before and my reviews are up for them on their specifics pages so I won't review them aside from my last comment, however what spoils them is the modern touches.

Most of the linking stuff is poor at best and doesn't really work. The animation is of a noticeably lower quality and it is forced to fit the cartoons they had available. The `stories' are pretty poor and it would have been much better just to do this as a sort of flashback film where the cartoons are just honestly presented rather than twisted. The cartoons are trimmed to fit the story but, worse than this, there are points where they have been undated to get rid of violence. The worst is the bit where Bugs throws a can up to shot it and ends up shooting Sam in the face - here they remove that and have him shot the can full of corks. Rubbish.

Overall this is just about worth seeing because the majority of the cartoons are enjoyable. However the presentation spoils some of them and is really stupid and disrespectful to the material. If this is your only way to see these cartoons then it is worth it but the question would be why not just go out and rent any of the dvd/video compilations that already exist and enjoy them as they were rather than as part of this last compilation.

Looking back at all of these Looney Tunes movies that were just compilations, I am starting to wonder if a full animated movie with all new material would have worked. Unfortunately, we never got to see that. If it was anything like the Tom and Jerry movie, it wouldn't have worked. This film features roughly 14 minutes of new material. Someone should make a compilation showing all the new stuff. It's divided into three parts, the best easily being the third.

It features Bugs Bunny hosting an awards show. They give us the Oscar winning "Knighty Knight Bugs" right from the get go as it was the only Bugs Bunny cartoon to win one. It is odd how that isn't one of the more remembered "Looney Tunes" cartoons. Well, I personally don't think it's one of the best. Again, Leon Schelsinger was more prolific than Friz Freleng. Well, he was dead at this point. ***

The late and great Friz Freling was without a doubt one of Warner Brothers' best animation directors in the studio's history. With a total of 5 Oscars and 2 Emmys under his belt (according to the film) while working for the Warners, he has created some of the most memorable animated shorts in film history, such as the Oscar-winning short "Knighty Knight Bugs" and the incredibly jazzy "Three Little Bops". Since the success of Chuck Jones' "The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie" in 1978, it would only be fair if director Friz Freling had his own showcase film featuring some of his best work with the studio, thus the creation of "The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie" in 1981.

As I mentioned before, this film is a showcase of Friz Freling's best work while working for Warner Brothers Pictures. The difference however, between this and Jones' film is that story arcs are inserted in between the different shorts specifically chosen for this feature film. Because of this, the movie is split into three separate acts: "Satan's Waiting'", which focuses on Yosemite Sam's numerous failed attempts at catching/destroying Bugs, "The Unmentionables", which focuses primarily on shorts featuring the gangster Rocky, and finally "The Oswald Awards", which focuses on a fictional award ceremony specifically made for cartoon characters. In-between the shorts are animated story arcs made for the movie that are also directed by Freling, which is always welcome. However, a person who has viewed many a Looney Tunes short will notice that some of the shorts have been edited either for time constraints or to blend in with the current scenario, which I can understand. Thankfully, all of these shorts in their complete form can be found on numerous Looney Tunes compilation DVDs and Blu-Rays.

The main question is this, however, does this work in the movie's favor? The answer is a definite yes, because this is the studio's own special way of saying "thanks" to one of their own for their dedication and hard work that got them to where they're at today as a motion picture studio that specializes in entertaining audiences of all ages, and since Looney Tunes shorts are viewed by both children and adults all over the globe, this would work extremely well as a family feature. As a fan of animation myself, I really dug this flick. Anyone who is a dedicated fan of the Looney Tunes franchise will most likely enjoy this flick for what it is, and it is also a great addition for family movie nights.