O Abominável Coelho das Neves

Bugs and Daffy are headed to Palm Springs but take a wrong turn and wind up in the Himalayas. Before they can leave they run into the Abominable Snowman. He's a hulking white creature with a blue nose who delivers bonecrushing hugs. Despite how dangerous he is, I found him terribly cute. In typical Looney Tunes fashion, the Snowman is modeled after Lenny from "Of Mice and Men." Daffy's reactions when this big brute manhandles him are hilarious. It's a simple but very funny short from Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble. This was the last original theatrical Daffy Duck short Jones did. The animation is nice and the script is a hoot.

"I told you to turn left at East St. Louis," yells a shivering Daffy Duck to Bugs Bunny after the latter made another wrong turn in another long underground excursion. This time, the two Looney Tunes characters wind up in the Himalayas (a tiny bit off their destination!).

Daffy heads back to Perth Amboy and leaves Bugs to become a "snow shoe bunny." However, our duck hero doesn't go far, running into the "Ambomniable Snow Man," who is anything but scary. He's just a big dumb oaf, modeled after "Lenny" of the novel "Mice and Men." You know that because he calls daffy "George" and the little duck is a rabbit and adopts him as his pet.

The cartoon turns out to be a familiar story in a lot of LTs when Bugs and Daffy are together, meaning each other tries to foist off the other to an unwanted character. Many times it was Elmer Fudd, the hunter; this time, an "abominable snowman."

The best gag, I thought, was the last minute when all of the characters wind up in Hawaii- type island.

One can point to this short as proof that Chuck Jones shorts could succeed without his frequent writing partner Mike Maltese. Here, Tedd Pierce (who at the time was mostly working for Robert McKimson) takes over the reins, and it has a lot of funny dialogue. In particular, he nails Daffy's self-centered personality: "It was me or him, and, obviously, it couldn't be me. It's a simple matter of logic. I'm not like other people. I can't stand pain. It hurts me." Classic!

The animation and music is still full of personality, even though budgets in both departments were slimmer by 1961. The snowman character, a take-off on Lennie from Of Mice and Men, is a fun "antagonist"- I say it in quotes because he's not really a bad guy, he just doesn't know his own strength and is a constant impediment to Bugs and Daffy's vacation.

It definitely holds up; give it a watch, especially if you're convinced Looney Tunes had no bright spots after 1960.

In their tradition of coming up with any crazy plot, the Termite Terrace crowd sticks Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in the Himalayas, where the two characters run into the Abominable Snowman (named Hugo). The big guy immediately tries to adopt Daffy as a pet rabbit, and Bugs helps with this. "The Abominable Snow Rabbit" brings up an interesting point. It seems like for years, our stereotype of the Himalayas was the Yeti - it's anyone's guess as to whether or not such a being really exists. Nowadays, there's of course the issue of the Dalai Lama. I wonder whether or not the cartoon's creators knew about the Dalai Lama.

Oh well. That's just what I notice. The point is, this is a pretty funny cartoon. It's not abominable at all.

As Bugs and Daffy head for Palm Beach, they make a wrong turn at St. Louis and end up in some snowy climate. Bugs heads out but Daffy, who has some kind of scarf that looks like rabbit ears, is grabbed by the Abominable Snow Man and caressed like Lenny in "Of Mice and Men." This character was frequent in Warner Brothers Cartoons.