Tant qu'il y aura des lapins

The idea of a Bugs and Sam cartoon as a tribute to Friz Freleng was a worthy one. But this retread lacks everything that made the original Warner Brothers cartoons great. The jokes are tired; the story is hackneyed, and Yosemite Sam's voice is an abomination. Let's remember the good times instead.

Given that Warner Brothers shorts emphasized music, Friz Freleng was one of the best at the framing of a cartoon around music and this is a tribute to him, it's quite appropriate that Bugs and Yosemite Sam (supposedly, Freleng and his temper inspired the creation of Sam) sing light operetta, selections from Gilbert and Sullivan. Brilliantly done, it does justice to both G & S and Looney Tunes. Good to see it available. Well worth watching. Most recommended.

Reminder that just because you intend to pay your respects to your close friends and colleagues in a piece of art does not mean the final result will be all that great in the end. I can appreciate Chuck Jones making this short as a farewell tribute to Friz Freleng following his passing in 1995, but the sluggish timing, underwhelming slapstick and sub par performance of Frank Gorshin as Yosemite Sam all cause this cartoon to suffer so poorly in the long run.

Having said that, Greg Burson is pretty good as Bugs and the Buttercup Pie sequence by Eric Goldberg is well crafted for what it's going for. Plus, George Daugherty's music score is well orchestrated here, although the H. M. S. Pinafore influence feels out of place and isn't even lampooned enough to gain much momentum from.

As this marked Chuck Jones' final directorial effort shortly before his retirement, it was probably for the better that he stopped making cartoons altogether. Its bad enough that a lot of these cartoons he did during this time were commissioned for the sake of creating cels for publicity purposes, but Chuck's bloated ego had gotten to a point where he had fundamentally missed what made the short films he and his colleagues created work so well to begin with. The comedic timing was no longer zany enough to warrant much enthusiasm, too much dialogue was favored over actual jokes, the characters of Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam had long since run dry and this short did not do anything unique with them to justify its existence, and despite some great artistry onboard, Jones' style had gotten stale and uninteresting by this point.

Nobody can really determine what Friz Freleng would have thought of this short had he lived long enough to see it in existence. That being said, while this short was a nice gesture in some degree, there's not much else to really ride home about.

The first time I saw this was on last year's Cartoon Network special, "June Bugs" (the three-day marathon featuring every Bugs Bunny cartoon ever made, except for 12 cartoons that were considered racially offensive by today's standards), and I've got this to say: Chuck Jones still has that twisted, fractured humor that only his cartoons during the Golden Age of Looney Tunes (1939-1964) could provide. Sure, Bugs in women's clothing is something you'd find during the Golden Age, but the way Jones delivered it sends shockwaves and a reborn sense of what comedy is/was/should be/has always been through me. The one thing I still can't believe is that he outlived Friz Freleng by seven years (Jones was born in 1912; Freleng was born in 1905) and such comic genius from this incredible man could be transferred to other shows that aren't afraid to be politically incorrect, totally bizarre, and funny at the same time ("The Simpsons", "The Critic", the late, great, "Get A Life", etc).

Any cartoon dedicated to the memory of the late great Friz --as this is--would have to contain two things: music, and Yosemite Sam. So it's no surprise that this one is a classic seagoing squabble between Sam and Bugs (it's even set on board the good ship "H.M.S. Friz Freleng") with Gilbert & Sullivan parodies galore. Cross my heart, you haven't lived till you've seen Bugs sing "Sweet Little Buttercup" in sexy mermaid drag while flirting outrageously with the smitten Sam. More focused and funny than a lot of Jones' later work, and just plain sweet, besides.