Le Monde fou, fou, fou de Bugs Bunny

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. ***

I do like these compilation films a lot, my favourites being QuackBusters and Bugs Bunny/Road-runner Movie. Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie is entertaining but it is rather uneven too, part of the reason why this is my least favourite of the Looney Tunes compilation films.

I admit I quite liked Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie's story structure, which is done in the equivalent of three acts. Act 1 involves Yosemite Sam and the Devil. I confess I dislike Devil's Feud Cake as a cartoon intensely finding it unfunny, unoriginal and little more than recycled material. However, it served perfectly as a premise and in the context of this film, and the result is actually is an entertaining, well-timed and in general well-edited segment, if rather high on predictability.

Act 2 focuses on Bugs and Rocky. For me this was the least effective of the segments making up the film's structure. Nothing's wrong with it as such, it is very clever and funny and less predictable than the previous segment. What lets it down, is that as an overall segment it is not as well-timed or edited. What elevates it though are the spoofs based on the Untouchables and the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, which were among the highlights of the film.

To coin the phrase save the best until last. That is the case with the last act. Using an Oscar awards ceremony as the premise of the segment, it is quite a vicious but overall hilarious satire. And also I think the best animation of the film is in this segment.

The animation is mostly good, more in the cartoons featured than in the links, but there are some inconsistencies. The links sometimes do look cheap and lack the feel of the original shorts, something they'd perfect later. While the cartoons are beautifully animated mostly, there is one exception, and that's Devil's Feud Cake, it does look cheap compared to the rest and in all honesty despite having a cool idea and that it has Bugs and Sam in it it is one of the main reasons why I don't like that cartoon.

The music however is absolutely wonderful, the writing funny and witty and the sight gags in general fresh and inventive. The cartoons(Devil's Feud Cake excepted) range to good to outstanding, High Diving Hare and Birds Anomynous belonging in the outstanding category, while the characters are delightful. Bugs is undoubtedly the star, but that is not to dispute Rocky and Yosemite who are both excellent as well. The voice acting especially from Mel Blanc is brilliant. All in all, nice and entertaining but it was lacking a tad for me. 7/10 Bethany Cox

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.

I personally wouldn't say that "The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie" was the best Looney Tunes compilation ever, but it's still pretty entertaining. It starts with "Knighty Knight Bugs" (in which Bugs tries to steal the Singing Sword from black night Yosemite Sam), and then Bugs explains that the cartoon was directed by Friz Freleng, who directed this movie. In fact, Friz got an Oscar, but Bugs only got a carrot.

Then, we go the compilations: Yosemite Sam tries to kill Bugs but keeps getting sent to Hell (Satan is only too happy about this); Bugs becomes a cop and busts gangsters Rocky and Mugsy; and then, an Oscars-style awards ceremony at which the characters arrive in the most ostentatious limos imaginable. Nominees include the wolf and three little pigs ("Three Little Bops"), Sylvester and Tweety ("Birds Anonymous"), and others. But sure enough, Daffy believes that he and only he can win...or can he? I guess that if I have a problem with what they portray here, it's that the whole thing seems sort of like self-congratulation. Then again, the Looney Tunes cartoons often made fun of Hollywood - just look at "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" - so they might be poking fun at the pomp and opulence inherit in the numerous award ceremonies every year.

Overall, I pretty much liked "TLLLBBM". As far as I'm concerned, as long as they still had Mel Blanc providing the characters' voices, it was worth seeing. Still, I can't help but wonder why they stressed Friz Freleng's cartoons; they should have had at least something about Chuck Jones's works.

All in all, pretty worthy.

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