The scene in a Roadrunner cartoon where Wile Coyote tries to catch the roadrunner by feeding him earthquake pills. The roadrunner eats all of them, but they have no effect. In anger and disgust, Wile tries a couple of pills. No effect. Then he downs the whole bottle. Still no effect. Acme has clearly let him down. But a split-second after he swallows the pills, Wile reads the fine print: Caution: has no effect on roadrunners. He immediately stands stock still, but it’s too late … he is soon overcome by earthquake convulsions so powerful that he shatters rocks. And throughout the rest of the cartoon, all his plans are screwed up by a new set of convulsions.
This exactly mirrors my experience of earthquake pills in the real world. Why must the fine print be so tiny?
Another good one from Excel Saga is the first Animal Episode. Some little kids got bored of throwing rocks at Menchi, so they started pelting a Puuchuu. Eventually they hit it with a great huge boulder. The Puuchuu lifts the rock and says (with the Golgo 13 face) “Taste divine retribution!” And then the gang of kids get smashed by an even larger boulder.
Also, Red Guy from Cow And Chicken and I Am Weasel never ceases to amuse me. Especially when he walks around on his butt.
There’s an episode of Dexter’s Lab that makes me laugh every time I think about it, and has for years. Dexter has created a robotic parrot that repeats things. He gets fed up and beats the crap out of it, sort of jumbling up the bird’s circuitry.
It escapes and goes through the house, jumping from room to room. At one point it listens to a television show about fishing - making Dad cry in the process. Then it hops into the kitchen while Mom is baking a cake.
She’s reading off the directions to herself. He starts to repeat things he’s heard, and she, absent-mindedly, puts them into the batter. The exchange goes something like this:
Parrot: “Quart of pepper.”
Mom: “Quart of pepper.”
Parrot: “Box of olives.”
Mom: “Box of olives.”
Parrot: “Worms and plastic minnows.”
Mom: “Worms and plastic minnows. Where am I going to find worms and plastic minnows?”
pause
Parrot: “The Florida everglades?”
The camera then cuts to the driveway, where Mom is driving off. NEVER FAILS to crack me up.
I named my first sailboat after a scene in an old Popeye cartoon. Olive Oyl had chased off Popeye and Bluto because neither was clean-shaven. They dash to a barbershop, but the barber has stepped out. They decide to groom each other. The boys do awful things to each other in the barber chair, of course. When Popeye sits in the chair, Bluto goes all Maurice Chevalier on us, and he sings, “Every little breeze seems to whisper Louise.”
So, the boat was Louise (my wife’s middle name.) When I told my dad’s final wife about it, she named her next sailboat Louise also (Her middle name is also Louise.) She did me one better, though. She went to a local university and she had a music prof write down the musical notation for the song. She thought he would have to look it up, but he grabbed a sheet of staff paper, and asked, “What key do you want it in?” Anyway, she copied the first line of notes on the stern, under the name.
Ah, Looney Tunes, how I miss thee. I’m so very tempted to drop the 150+ buckaroos it’d take to buy the various DVDs that’s been released.
A few favorite scenes:
*“Yoinks, and away!” from the Robin Hood parody starring Daffy Duck
*The disintegrating gun, when Duck Dogers was trying to stop Marvin Martian from blowing up Earth: “And when I say it disintegrates, it disintegerates!”
*Bugs Bunny massaging Elmer Fudd’s head to The Barber of Seville
And now, some obligatory Anime stuff:
*Kenshin vs. Soujirou, round two (Rurouni Kenshin)
*the crossdressing episodes in Slayers and Slayers Next
-Mace Windu in Clone Wars taking on an entire robot army barehanded.
-The Samuari Quack episode of Duck Dodgers which poked fun at Samuari Jack (Walking, walking, walking, walking…).
-The Highlander conversation from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
-A scene that never was drawn but sticks in my head: on Clerks: TAS there is a scene where Randall run through a mine where he was being held captive. In the commentary Kevin Smith mentions that they wanted to add a sequence where Randall had to get past Donkey Kong, but it was cut. I can so see that.
-Fullmetal Alchemist
Maes’s death. You knew it was coming, but he went out like a champ.
That, or the Roadrunner cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote discusses the history of his exploits in a cultured English accent. I can never remember the name of the episode, but I love it.
This is also high on my list. I can’t hear the Rossini music without thinking of it.*
Also, the Brunhilda sequence in What’s Opera, Doc?, especially when the humongous white horse comes riding down the stairway with Bugs on its back.
Another Bugs & Elmer cartoon–the title of which I don’t remember: Elmer has gone mad and thinks he’s a rabbit (and is romping around in a bunny costume); Bugs, conversely, has been brainwashed into thinking that he is “Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht.” The high point of the 'toon is when Bugs goes out hunting dressed in Elmer’s standard outfit, turns to the audience, and says: “Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits…”
*As a matter of fact, I was in one of my co-workers’ offices on Friday; he had the radio on the local classical station, and the overture to The Barber of Seville came on. At the appropriate point in the music, I did the head-massage thing (but did not climb on his head). It is my belief that most American children are introduced to classical music via cartoons, and that association never, ever goes away.
Rabbit of Seville is my all time favorite. Anybody else watching June Bugs on Boomerang? It’s amazing how many of the posts involving Bugs Bunny I’ve seen in the last 24 hours.
Another favorite Bugs moment is from the one where he’s in the castle of the mad scientist who looks like Peter Lorre. Bugs is being pursued by the big hairy red monster and he runs up a flight of stairs. Suddenly, before the monster can follow him, Bugs runs back down and says, “Don’t go up dere. It’s dark.”
I wish they’d do something similar to June Bugs with all the Roadrunner/Wile E cartoons. I seem to recall a cartoon where the Roadrunner was on vacation and Bugs was filling in for him. I haven’t seen that one in years.
I could go on and on and on with this one… I find overwhelmingly, Bugs, et al and “Tom and Jerry” get my laughs (with the exception of some Hannah and Barberra).
But the ones that immediately sprang to mind were:
-Bugs and Pete Puma-- the “how many lumps” transactions
-this one Looney Tunes with this dog that basically enslaved a cat to get him meat (“What no gravy?”). The ending of the dog just saying “no no” slays me
-Bugs with the aborigine (“unga bunga binga bunga”)
-Tom and Jerry when Jerry and his pal decide to make Tom think he crazy. Tom’s horrified reactions are comic
-the final line of a Foghorn cartoon with an ostrich “Where did everybody go? They left me all alone. ostrich sound”
AND
-as unPC as it sounds, ANY scene where Bluto shakes the living spit out of Olive Oyl. I hate that bandy-legged wench. Don’t know what that says about me.
Oh, Hamish: Evangelion is for punks. My anime club wrote and performed “Eva: The Musical” at a recent con, and it still sucked in its abridged form.
I was never a Loony Toons fan, so I’ll have to pass on those.
However, for action cartoon scenes, it has to be Transformers: The Movie.
The Autobots are getting killed at their earth base, they’ve sent out a distress call, but don’t know if it made it through the jamming…and then Optimus Prime arrives.
(cue Van Halen’s ‘You’ve got the Touch!’)
The POV is from right in front of his bumper, where he proceeds to mow down the Decepticons…then it switches as he transforms while in motion, leaps, and while inverted, rains fire from his laser rifle down on the bad guys. Then he lands, braces his gun on his hip, and keeps firing.
This was one of the first of many ‘Holy Shit!’ moments in the film.
So, you think the series sucked. Fine. However, do you disagree that that particular scene Hamish mention was not a particularily good scene? I don’t see how you can. Unless you do, I don’t see what the point of your insulting his choice of anime, save for the fact that you simply like to pick apart other people’s interests.
Oh, and
I loved when all Dexter could say was omelette du fromage (It actually should be “omelette au fromage”?)
“You’re despicable!” (delivered with that classic Daffy lisp)
My all-time favorite is “Bully For Bugs” - where Bugs encounters the bull in the corrida. The look on the bull’s face as it flies through the air, the Hat Dance…
I was just about to nominate the Bugs/bull episode. Doing whatever that Mexican song is … bum ba ba bum ba ba bum slap slap. Then he gets that bull flying through the air over his Rube Goldberg bull destruction device- it paints glue on his belly, then attaches sandpaper, then the bull’s sandpapered belly lights a match, which ignites the gunpowder trail, leading to a powder keg which explodes just as the bull flies over it.
So, you think the series sucked. Fine. However, do you disagree that that particular scene Hamish mention was not a particularily good scene? I don’t see how you can. Unless you do, I don’t see what the point of your insulting his choice of anime, save for the fact that you simply like to pick apart other people’s interests.