Bugs Bunny Superstar marked the first Looney Tunes feature length movie. The movie itself was part documentary and part a compilation film. The movie consisted of interviews with such notable Looney Tunes directors as Friz Freleng, Tex Avery and especially Bob Clampett, vintage footage of the studio when they were making the classic cartoon shorts, narration by no less than Orson Welles and nine full cartoon shorts. The movie itself came about because of a filmmaker named Larry Jackson. Jackson felt that those these cartoons were popular on TV in the 1970's, they should be put back in movie theaters (where they played originally). Jackson originally played on simply making a retrospective of these cartoons but as the film developed it turned into the part documentary we now have.
The cartoon shorts used in this movie are What's Cookin' Doc? (1944), The Wild Hare (1940), A Corny Concerto (1943), I Taw a Putty Tat (1948), Rhapsody Rabbit (1946), Walky Talky Hawky (1946), My Favorite Duck (1942), Hair-Raising Hare (1946) and The Old Grey Hare (1944), These are a wonderful selection of cartoon shorts. While there are a few obvious choices here and quite few less obvious choices, each cartoon is a winner and some of them even hold their own against the best Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts. My Favorite Duck is one of my favorite Porky and Daffy pairings and one of the highlights of the movie. If this film only consisted of these cartoons, it would still be a joy to watch.
The home movie footage of the animators at work and play are simply wonderful. They take up too brief of a time, but they are nicely employed, a lot of fun to watch and a treasure for classic cartoon fans.
While every Looney Tunes fan will agree that the cartoons and the home movie footage are wonderful, the interviews are much more controversial. Friz Freleng and Tex Avery barely appear and don't get to say much, while Bob Clampett takes up nearly all the screen time where cartoons are not being shown. This is not accidental. On his blog historian Thad Komorowski states, "In order to secure Clampett’s participation and access to the Clampett estate’s unprecedented collection of Warner history, Jackson had to sign a contract that stipulated Clampett would host the documentary and also have approval over the final cut." Clampet himself was reluctant to speak about the other Looney Tunes directors. While he doesn't directly take credit for too much here (as he did in a 1969 interview with historian Michael Barrier), he does imply that he was the main force behind these cartoons. Tex Avery was not happy about what he felt was Bob Clampett taking credit for creating Bugs Bunny. Chuck Jones, who famously had a fued with Bob Clampett, feeling that the Clampett took too much credit was unhappy with the movie as a whole. It is perhaps no coincidence that when Jones directed The Bugs Bunny-Road Runner Movie (1979), Bugs would list a group of his "fathers" and Bob Clampett would not be included. Friz Freleng told Jackson not to worry about the feud saying that the two were always “squabbling like kids with sibling rivalry more or less since they were kids, and if the shoe had been on the other foot when you were making your film, Chuck would have probably done the same thing to Bob and give him the short end of the stick if he had the chance.” Frankly this film can feel at times too much like Bob Clampett: The Movie and one wishes that more time could have been spent discussing the other creators of these cartoons. The main problem with Bob Clampett's hosting though is that he doesn't really give much information about these cartoons. He gives a few of the better-known facts and never goes into much detail. This especially stands out today, when so many great books about classic cartoons have been written and much information is also readily available on the internet. This can make his hosting scenes seem very fluffy today (not helped by the obviously very low budget filmmaking). However, they are very pleasant fluff and have a real charm to them.
Jackson wanted Robert McKimson, Mel Blanc and Chuck Jones to appear in the film. Robert McKimson turned this down as he didn't feel comfortable in front of a camera. Mel Blanc said that Clampett never reached out to him but that he would have declined as he was still frail from an auto accident fourteen years earlier. Clampett claimed to have talked to Jones secretary who said he was out of town that month. One wonders if any of them would have gotten much screentime or would have barely appeared in the final film the way Friz Freleng and Tex Avery did.
The movie reached theaters on December 19, 1975, and received a mostly positive reception from critics and audiences. It would find itself on VHS in 1988. It would strangely enough air once on the Disney Channel in 1989. Even stranger is that the Disney Channel did not edit the blackface gag in I Taw a Putty Tat.
Resources Used
Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to Warner Brothers Cartoons by Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald
https://www.whataboutthad.com/2012/11/28/bob-clampett-superstar/
https://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/classic/bugs_bunny_superstar.shtml
https://looneytunes.fandom.com/wiki/Bugs_Bunny:_Superstar
Not only does the film suffer from the absentees (particularly Robert McKimson, who died shortly afterward and arguably never got his due as a Warner Bros. cartoon creator), it also has inaccuracies. The Warner Bros. stars did not look in the windows of Termite Terrace and see their caricatures as Orson Welles claims. The original Termite Terrace wasn't on the Burbank lot, and the main animation room didn't even have windows. Why else would Porky have had to get in his car and drive to the main lot in "You Ought to Be in Pictures"?
ReplyDeleteGood points. While this movie is quite entertaining, it is not a great resource for those who want to learn the history of these cartoons.
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