DUET FOR BUGS

Bugs Bunny and the Fabulous Elmer Fudd

STAGE DOOR CARTOON (1944). Director: Friz Freleng.
HERR MEETS HARE (1945). Director: Friz Freleng.

The DVD for Hollywood Canteen features two vintage wartime Bugs Bunny cartoons. In the first, Stage Door Cartoon, the "wascally wabbitt" is chased by Elmer Fudd into a theater, where the luckless hunter is forced to perform on stage for an audience, including a bit where he does a frightfully high dive into a very, very small glass of water. In Herr Meets Hare, Bugs takes a wrong turn at Albuquerque and winds up in Germany, where he encounters a Nazi hunter and even Adolf Hitler. At one point Bugs pretends to be a diva in a Wagnerian opera (recalling the classic What's Opera, Doc?). As usual, Mel Blanc does his brilliant voice characterizations.

The strange thing is that the latter cartoon features a disclaimer from TCM (which released the DVD) about ethnic and racial stereotyping, but the only stereotypes in the cartoon are of Nazis. Have we become so ridiculously politically correct that we have to worry about offending Nazis? Oy vey!

Verdict: Amusing, fluid, and well-done cartoons. ***.