I know everybody has got to have their favorite moments from Looney Tunes.
For example, my favorite moment for Yosemite Sam is during the cartoon where he’s a pirate and Bugs is aboard his ship. There’s a moment where Bugs keeps throwing lit matches into the hold filled with explosives. After each match Yosemite yells “Nooooooo!” and runs in after it. The way he yells “Noooooo!” cracks me up every time I see it.
Second for Sam would be his introductory speech “I’m the rootin’-tootin’-est, dad-burnedednest. . .” I don’t know the rest.
Duck Dogers turns towards his eager young Space Cadet and says “Wipe that smile off your face!” So eager young Space Cadet puts his hand on his forehead and proceeds to wipe his entire face right off his head.
Bugs Bunny’s masterpiece was the cartoon with the Irishman Steve Brody. We witness Bugs systematically dismantling a man’s sanity, until he jumps screaming off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Welcome to my shop
Let me cut your mop
Let me shave your crop!
Daintily! Daint-til-ly!
Best Bugs from possibly the finest Looney Toon ever, The Rabbit of Seville.
I also love Foghorn Leghorn’s “Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency”, and Marvin the Martian’s “Mutiny makes me very angry, very angry indeed”.
There is the delightful moment when Marc Anthony discovers the kitten wasn’t baked into a cookie (the payoff to a sequence so good that Pixar ripped it off entirely in Monsters, Inc.).
Any of the shots of Michigan J. Frog when he isn’t singing crack me up.
I also like the song in “I Haven’t Got a Hat.” (Best known for the first appearance as a minor character of a stuttering pig. )
Bugs(in full mantilla drag): Whaaat would you want with a wabbit?
Can’t you see that I’m much sweeter,
I’mmmmm yer little senoriter.
You are my type of guy!
Let me straighten yer tie,
then I will dance for you!
“Oh, yeah, I like a LOTTA lumps!” Thank God for the lesser-known characters. We can argue Daffy’s greatest hit for hours, but there’s been a surfeit of Daffylove in the past few years. Here’s a few more stars in need of promotion:
Claude Cat - Poor Claude had to deal with insane barking puppies and abusive mice, but had a neat trick to make up for it: after shooting to the ceiling to cling by his claws, he’d drop, stop about a foot off the ground, and swing his legs around to land on his feet. Sounds like nothing to describe, but the ease of movement and the sardonic expression make it.
Miss Prissy - Yup, ol’ Square-Britches. She’s taught generations how to say “Ye-E-es!” to maximum effect. Her best moment is teasing the dog with exotic dance and a cassava melon. Also prompts one of the dog’s better cracks: “This chick’s off her onion!”
Sniffles - Poor little shlub gets no respect! Sometime in the next month or so, Cartoon Network will trot out a charming short where this babyish mouse stays up to meet Santa Claus. The whole thing’s a delight, but the silent final half clenches it. It’s the early proof of what Chuck Jones could do with facial expressions. That bed is just mean.
How about the Playboy Penguin from Hoboken? (I just call him Hoboken.) At the end of Frigid Hare Bugs complains about only having four more days of vacation left, so how will he get to the beach and enjoy it? (He was trying to get to a beach - I think Pizmo,wherever that is - but took a wrong turn at “albakoikee” - I can’t say Albequerque without trying to be Bugs Bunny - and ended up in the Antarctic.) Anyway, little Hoboken tugs on Bugs until he leans an ear down, and the wee penguin whispers something (I didn’t realize he could talk until then). Bugs gets all excited - “The days down here are six months long?!? I won’t have to be back at work until July 14th, 1953!” And Bugs puts on a tux and he and Hoboken toddle away wing-in-paw.
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