The Bugs Bunny Show on DVD and Blu-ray

[Mark Y]

Has it been discussed why Porky Pig didn't seem to exist for this show? My theory is they might have been planning to give him his own show if this Bugs Bunny show had been more successful. There was a daytime Porky Pig Show later in the decade. I remember watching it before I went to school.

It's possible, but I never heard or read anything that said they were planning a Porky Pig show that early.

But what certainly did happen was that the Porky Pig cartoons which had been on the Bugs Bunny Show were pulled and moved to the Porky Pig Show in 1964. And interestingly, when the Porky Pig Show ended, the 78 cartoons which had been on that show (featuring Porky as well as other characters) were released into syndication (as opposed to something like the Sylvester & Tweety or Daffy Duck shows later, where those cartoons were folded into the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show).

As a result, Porky Pig was largely absent from the Saturday morning Warner Bros. cartoon shows after 1967.

In Chicago, we had the Bugs Bunny Saturday morning shows in various incarnations over the years, while other Warner Bros. cartoons were shown locally on WGN-Channel 9. It always annoyed me how in contrast to the variety of characters featured on the Saturday morning shows, when WGN ran them in a half-hour timeslot as "Bugs Bunny And Friends," they had three cartoons and 90% of the time, it was Bugs Bunny, then Porky Pig, then Daffy Duck (and the Daffy Duck cartoon often also featured Porky Pig). In fact, I even called the station once to ask what the deal was with that.

What I didn't know until many years later was, even though WGN had hundreds and hundreds of these cartoons in their library, when I finally reviewed lists of which ones were in these syndicated packages (the station had three different packages of cartoons, including the two Warner packages and the pre-1948s from United Artists), as far as starring characters were concerned, the overwhelming majority of the cartoons in their library featured Porky Pig. Other characters such as the Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzalez and Sylvester would pop up here and there, but there weren't that many in these TV packages which featured those characters.

There were a boatload of early 1930s musical Merrie Melodies, but eventually, those were relegated to an early Saturday morning timeslot along with Mel-O-Toons, old Hanna-Barbera cartoons and other castoffs and played essentially as a time filler.

Porky Pig was certainly much more of a "star" in syndication than on network TV.

 

[moviepas]

Disney Stories Matter Initiative Flags Classic Toons for Racist Imagery | Animation Magazine

Disney+ will be adding warnings to several classic films from the Walt Disney Animation and live-action catalog, shining a light on some of the problematic characters and racist depictions that have not aged well in the animation vault. The Aristocats, Dumbo, The Jungle Book, Lady and the Tramp...

www.animationmagazine.net

Dated Fri Oct 16 2020

Not knowing where to put the link from Animation Magazine, the article from Disney is a good case for them to consider now issuing Song of the South on disc?

 

[MatthewA]

Not knowing where to put the link from Animation Magazine, the article from Disney is a good case for them to consider now issuing Song of the South on disc?

Very little short of a court order would achieve that at this point with Disney trying to purge the characters from the parks. Intellectual consistency isn't their strong suit right now. WB, likewise still censors the Censored 11 (a holdover from the United Artists Television ownership days that only affected one actual Bugs cartoon) despite their own warning label covering other material they actually did release. Now, that label appears on Hanna-Barbera shows. Time will tell whether Disney relents or doubles down on it and goes after more movies and shows.

But that article forgot to mention one of the sponsors of Disney's "stories matter" program:

Hollywood, Health & Society

Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S) is a program of the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center that informs and inspires accurate storylines on topics including health and medicine, social justice, climate change and national security. HH&S’s scientific research sheds light on the critical influence of false and limiting narratives.

I recall hearing similar accusations of racism against him and his shows over the years, but those are somehow like teflon.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Very little short of a court order would achieve that at this point with Disney trying to purge the characters from the parks. Intellectual consistency isn't their strong suit right now. WB, likewise still censors the Censored 11 (a holdover from the United Artists Television ownership days that only affected one actual Bugs cartoon) despite their own warning label covering other material they actually did release. Now, that label appears on Hanna-Barbera shows. Time will tell whether Disney relents or doubles down on it and goes after more movies and shows.

But that article forgot to mention one of the sponsors of Disney's "stories matter" program:



I recall hearing similar accusations of racism against him and his shows over the years, but those are somehow like teflon.

I am worried that no more H-B cartoons will appear on DVD/BR or HBO Max if the suits go too far here...

~Ben

 

[moviepas]

Very little short of a court order would achieve that at this point with Disney trying to purge the characters from the parks. Intellectual consistency isn't their strong suit right now. WB, likewise still censors the Censored 11 (a holdover from the United Artists Television ownership days that only affected one actual Bugs cartoon) despite their own warning label covering other material they actually did release. Now, that label appears on Hanna-Barbera shows. Time will tell whether Disney relents or doubles down on it and goes after more movies and shows.

But that article forgot to mention one of the sponsors of Disney's "stories matter" program:



I recall hearing similar accusations of racism against him and his shows over the years, but those are somehow like teflon.

Interesting reply. We are getting bad in my country with PC but we still have not come heavy on much, yet.

 

[MatthewA]

Cartoon Network got pretty scissor-happy in the 1990s with the Bugs cartoons they showed, just in a different way than the broadcast networks had been.

 

[darkrock17]

I am worried that no more H-B cartoons will appear on HBO Max if the suits go too far here...

~Ben

HBO Max would only put the known H-B series on there, if it wasn't released on DVD as either part of the Golden or Classic Collection it wont likely be there.

Doesn't that Boomerang app thing have a lot of classic H-B and Cartoon Network series on it?

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

HBO Max would only put the known H-B series on there, if it wasn't released on DVD as either part of the Golden or Classic Collection it wont likely be there.

Doesn't that Boomerang app thing have a lot of classic H-B and Cartoon Network series on it?

So I guess not a lot of us would want HBO Max, then?

~Ben

 

[Timothy E]

On October 25, 1960, the third episode of The Bugs Bunny Show aired with Bugs Bunny introducing Pepe Le Pew as host.

The theme of this episode, as one might expect with Pepe as host, was "love." First, Pepe introduced his appearance in "Wild Over You" being shown in a Parisian theater.

The next cartoon short with a "love" theme was "Go Fly A Kit."

This episode concluded with Claude Cat pursuing a couple of teenage mice with crushes in "Mouse Warming."

Chuck Jones and his animation unit produced the bridging sequences featuring Bugs and Pepe in this episode, which featured shorts directed by Jones exclusively.

The animation created specifically for The Bugs Bunny Show by Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Bob McKimson conveys all of the same style, beauty, and artistic merit as anything produced in the theatrical shorts. This episode even had an exquisitely created long pan shot as Pepe looked out from his balcony over a stylized background of Paris.

This original animation deserves to be seen and appreciated rather than remaining locked up unseen in a film vault.

 

[darkrock17]

This shot looks like it was made for theatrical viewing instead of being on a television screen.

 

[BobO'Link]

That image is made from three 4:3 frames stitched together. The original background *would* have been continuous as shown and they'd simply move it past the camera using a conveyor type device (there's a name for it but it escapes me at the moment) exposing a frame (or two), moving again, etc. to give the impression the camera was panning the image.

 

[Timothy E]

On November 15, 1960, the sixth episode of The Bugs Bunny Show aired with Daffy Duck asking Bugs if he could finally host the show, and Bugs reminding Daffy that his turn is next week, and this week is not next week, even though this week was next week last week. The verbal sparring between Bugs and Daffy was reminiscent of their wordplay in Chuck Jones' "Rabbit Fire", "Rabbit Seasoning", and "Duck, Rabbit, Duck."

Bugs dropped the names of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Ricky Nelson as he presented a musical number inspired by the three artists.

After his musical number was not received warmly by every member of the audience, Bugs recalled a similar situation that arose in "Long Haired Hare."

Sylvester went hungry while fishing and attempted to "rescue" Tweety in "Sandy Claws".

Yosemite Sam also popped up in the bridging sequences and Daffy finally had his opportunity for a drum solo. Hubie and Bertie drove Claude Cat out of his mind in "Mouse Wreckers".

 

[Timothy E]

On November 22, 1960, Daffy Duck finally had his chance to host the show in its seventh episode.
Bugs Bunny introduced Daffy, only to find that Daffy was temporarily missing.

Daffy reappeared dressed as a rabbit so that he could impersonate Bugs and host the show. Daffy found himself followed by a sheepdog mistakenly believing him to be a bunny rabbit, foreshadowing the dynamic played out in the following year in "The Abominable Snow Rabbit"(1961), with the sheepdog having the same voice as the later Abominable Snowman.

Bugs recalled the time he tried to tunnel to the Coachella Valley for its carrot festival, not its music festival, in "Bully for Bugs".

Sylvester attempted to get Tweety on a cruise with Granny in "Tweety's S.O.S".

An entrepreneur's doomed efforts to get rich off of a singing frog were introduced in "One Froggy Evening".

The bridging footage for this episode was produced by Chuck Jones and his unit.

 

[Jack P]

On November 15, 1960, the sixth episode of The Bugs Bunny Show aired with Daffy Duck asking Bugs if he could finally host the show, and Bugs reminding Daffy that his turn is next week, and this week is not next week, even though this week was next week last week. The verbal sparring between Bugs and Daffy was reminiscent of their wordplay in Chuck Jones' "Rabbit Fire", "Rabbit Seasoning", and "Duck, Rabbit, Duck."

View attachment 81919

I've been looking for that "last week you said I was going to entertain next week," "Yes, but this isn't next week" bridge for years!