“Step right up, you're doing fine I'll pull your beard, you pull mine Yank it again, like you did before Break it up with a tug of war."
“Step right up, you’re doing fine
I’ll pull your beard, you pull mine
Yank it again, like you did before
Break it up with a tug of war.”
These are some of the lyrics to the square dance that Bug Bunny sings to the two hillbillies in the Warner Brothers cartoon comedy classic, “Hillbilly Hare.” Bugs becomes a square dance caller and sings a song that makes the two hillbillies perform acts of violence upon one another.
“Now into the brook and fish for the trout
Dive right in and splash about
Trout, trout, pretty little trout
One more splash and come right out.”
Trust me, it’s howlingly funny.
If you’re like me, you grew up watching the inimitable Bugs Bunny and all his cartoon friends, Daffy, Elmer, Sylvester and Tweety, Porky, the Roadrunner and the Coyote, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, Speedy Gonzalez and yes, even poor love-struck Pepe LePew, yuck it up in brilliantly conceived ten minute animated pieces of modern art. (Although to be honest, I never really cared for the Roadrunner. I always rooted for the coyote.) Available on virtually every TV channel at one time or another, I mention Bugs and the Gang for one reason:
They don’t seem to be on TV anymore.
Hillbilly Hare
At least not on my cable system. Even the old reliable June Bugs, the annual Cartoon Network Warner Brothers cartoon marathon, seems to be a thing of the past. Now if you recall, there WAS a movie a couple of years back called “Looney Tunes, Back in Action” but apparently, it did poorly enough at the box office for Warner Brothers to shut down production of a series of planned future Looney Tunes shorts and features. According to various google results, the classic cartoons starring Bugs and the gang ARE still in syndication, but I can’t find them. Even if they are, they don’t seem as popular as they should be. I mean, these are classics!
Is it the violence that keeps these cartoons on the far back burner of television entertainment? Is it the legalities of corporate ownership? Or is it just that today’s entertainment industry movers and shakers simply have no taste or foresight, except for instant profit? I don’t know the answer, but none of these reasons are acceptable to me.
Sure sure, I can buy DVDs of all my favorite Warner Brothers animated classics. And I have, and they claim a prominent place in my DVD collection. But it’s not the same thing as experiencing them on TV. Am I simply pining away for a bygone era whose time has long since past? If so, I mourn its passing.
These are cultural icons, come on! They never get old. And today’s children are being bombarded by the entertainment industry’s reliance on cheaply-made, tame and largely unfunny cartoons along with prepackaged, preteen celebrities and derivative and tame children’s sitcoms. If kids are going to spend all their time in front of the TV (which I don’t is a good idea at all), why not give them quality? Let them grow up watching Bugs and Daffy exchange quips:
“Duck season! Wabbit season! Duck season! Wabbit season!”
It STILL makes me laugh. Let these kids learn what real comedy is all about.
Let’s get Bugs Bunny back on TV. And while we’re at it, let’s show cartoons at the movies again, but that’s a subject for a different column.
