by Pat Perry
By sheer, happy coincidence, I come today to sing the praises of a legendary Looney Tunes short on the 100th birthday of its creator – Charles M. “Chuck” Jones.
I can clearly recall a time in my childhood when most of what I knew about classical music I’d learned from Bugs Bunny.
Like so many kids who grew up watching Chicago television in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Looney Tunes were once an integral part of my early morning routine. From Channel Nine’s Ray Rayner and Friends show, we got a daily, before-school dose of Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote… and, of course, the “wascally wabbit” who forever outran hunter Elmer Fudd.
During those formative years, I was introduced to Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Bugs’ enthusiastic performance of it in Rhapsody Rabbit, and to conductor Leopold Stokowski by Bugs’ impersonation of him in Long-Haired Hare. In Rabbit of Seville, Bugs escaped the gun of Elmer Fudd by leading him into an opera house and subjecting him to a variety of tonsorial torments set to the rhythms of Rossini’s Barber of Seville overture. And from today’s countdown honoree – What’s Opera Doc? – I learned unforgettable lyrics to Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” – to this day, I cannot get them out of my head when I hear that music. C’mon, sing ‘em with me now: “Kill da wabbit! Kill da wabbit! Kill da Wa-a-a-a-bit!!!!!”
What I couldn’t fully appreciate as a youngster was that, in What’s Opera Doc? director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese brought their musical tomfoolery to a new level of artistry and ambition. They essentially filtered Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung opera cycle through Elmer and Bugs’ well-worn shtick while incorporating gentle swipes at Disney’s Fantasia and the conventions of both opera and classical ballet as they were typically staged in that era.
In other words, there was more going on than initially met the eye.
Take the opening scene for example. We see the shadow of some great, horned being against a tall, blue cliff. Is it a god or a monster? We’re not sure. He’s conjuring a storm into being, seemingly pulling dark clouds, lightening and thunder down from the skies with a few sweeps of his enormous arms. His movements silhouetted against the cliff clearly evoke the opening of the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence from Fantasia, yet his ability to create storms raises the possibility that he may be Donner, the storm god of the Ring Cycle operas.
Then comes the laugh. The camera pans down to reveal that this ominous being is just a very small Elmer Fudd, in armor and “magic helmet,” casting a very big shadow.
What’s Opera Doc? is filled with these kinds of multi-layered, comedy-plus-cultural-reference moments. Elmer and Bugs, for example, aren’t just enacting their usual escapades with a classical music soundtrack. They’re actually playing Wagner’s most iconic characters, Siegfried and (for most of the running time, anyway) Brunhilde. The incongruity of the casting provides the comedy. (Tubby little Elmer with his softly croaking voice and too-big helmet constantly falling down over his eyes; the lean and limber Bugs, applying his nasal-ly squawk to Wagner’s music and coquettishly cavorting through a role stereotypically played by a portly, powerhouse soprano.) But they’re also performing against a flat, stylized landscape which has been carefully crafted to evoke the kind of scenic design common in opera productions. And when they dance a deliriously silly pas de deux, their movements are actually very precisely executed and true to the movements of actual dancers – no accident as Jones had his animators spend time sketching actual ballet dancers at work before putting together this sequence. As Jones himself says in the short documentary Wagnerian Wabbit: The Making of What’s Opera Doc?, it’s not what the characters are doing, but who they are that makes it funny.
Incidentally, this was not the first time that that Bugs had appeared in Brunhilde drag. Frtiz Freleng’s Herr Meets Hare, a World War II propaganda piece, put Hermann “Fatso” Goering, in the Elmer Fudd role, matching wits with Bugs in a Black Forest rabbit hunt. At one juncture, Bugs rides in on a horse, sporting braids and a Nordic helmet, to the strains of the Pilgrim’s Chorus from Tannhauser, the same tune which would be used for the “Return My Love” duet in What’s Opera Doc? Goering, depicted as a corpulent, lederhosen-clad buffoon, then appears in Siegfried garb, ardently pursuing and swooning over the disguised Bugs – much as Elmer would fall instantly for the tarted-up Brunhilde/Bugs.
What’s Opera Doc? is a brilliant mash-up of highbrow grandeur and lowbrow lunacy, a deliciously funny blend of the sublime and the ridiculous. It’s been claimed (most notably by Bugs himself, while introducing the short on a Looney Tunes collection DVD) that the film “squashes” the entire eighteen-hour Ring Cycle into seven minutes of cartoon. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but the film does actually touch on a number of elements and themes that are essentially true to Wagner, yet also define his operas for middlebrow audiences without extensive direct experience of them. (I include myself in that group, by the way.)
Elmer’s magic helmet may be a reference to the helmet created for the dwarf, Alberich in Das Rheingold. Bugs’ horse is surely meant to evoke the horse that Brunhilde rides into Siegfried’s funeral pyre in Gotterdamerung – although the horse is so fat, it’s a wonder it’s able to go anywhere. Apparently Jones felt that he couldn’t alter Bugs’ physical dimensions to those of a typical Wagnerian soprano, so the horse was given the imposing physique instead. As in the actual operas, there is certainly the ecstasy of romantic love (the “Return My Love” duet and subsequent ballet), the sense of betrayal by characters that are disguised then revealed (Brunhilde is just Bugs in a wig and makeup), and dramatic moments of loss, grief and regret (Elmer succeeds in killing Bugs, then immediately mourns him, crying “What have I done?”)
(On that last point, however, fear not- the story does not get irretrievably dark. In the final shot, even as Elmer tearfully carries Bugs’ limp body up a winding cliffside, we get one last moment of comic relief. Bugs, suddenly alert, raises his head and asks the audience “Well, what did you expect from an opera? A happy ending?” As ever, the rabbit gets the wise-ass curtain line.)
What’s Opera Doc? was the first cartoon short ever voted into the National Film Registry of “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” films, and the first of three Chuck Jones shorts to be so honored. That the others – Duck Amuck and One Froggy Evening – have already been featured in this countdown seems entirely appropriate.
How What’s Opera Doc? made the Top 100:
Frank Aida No. 3
Sam Juliano No. 8
Jason Marshall No. 27
Dean Treadway No. 40
Bobby McCartney No. 46
Pat Perry No. 49
As in the actual operas, there is certainly the ecstasy of romantic love (the “Return My Love” duet and subsequent ballet), the sense of betrayal by characters that are disguised then revealed (Brunhilde is just Bugs in a wig and makeup), and dramatic moments of loss, grief and regret (Elmer succeeds in killing Bugs, then immediately mourns him, crying “What have I done?”)
Pat this could not have been scripted better! WHAT’S OPERA DOC? appearing at the site on the birthday of animation icon Chuck Jones coinciding with a celebration of his work. It’s no secret that WHAT’S OPERA DOC? is widely regarded as the greatest cartoon ever made, and that an interview with Jones himself revealed that it took roughly six times the time, effort and cost of other cartoons to pull it off. Hyperbole like “creme de la creme,” “magnum opus,” and supreme masterpiece do not ring shallow when it comes to this model of expressionist design, a cartoon that deftly satirizes the Buggs and Elmer chemistry and the great Wagner himself. While Jones tackled opera and composer Rossini brilliantly in RABBIT OF SEVILLE, there can be little question that the intricate design and arresing use of some of the most cathartic music ever written results in a short that brings the viewer to another realm. This is the cartoon that on a five-star rating gets six stars. The lines are all memorable, perfectly timed and a model of economy, As you so aptyly note Pat, it’s a blend of the “sublime” and the “ridiculous” and while I would hardy describe your own exposure to this supreme form as “middlebrow” I agree that Jones is aiming neither for the neophyte nor the hardened fan, but somewhere in the center. You are quite on the mark methinks to discuss the ambition here in tackling one of world culture’s greatest achievements, a marathon opus that by it’s very essence would seem to b thelst subject for a seven minute cartoon, but this is precisely the deceit tha elevates it. Laughter and sublimity have never been more aptly wedded and it’s a real joy to see this timeless work appear on this countdown.
Fantastic review Pat!
Sam –
Thank you.
It really is a work of art, and I didn’t fully appreciate that till I started looking more closely. In the documentary I mentioned, the animators talked about how the studio expected a certain of number of cartoons per year, with an exact number of weeks spent on each, and how Jones fudged the animators’ time cards so that they knocked out a couple of simpler cartoons in fewer weeks and dedicated the extra time to WHAT’S OPERA DOC?
“What’s Opera Doc?” was one of my favorites cartoons that I constantly watched in the before mentioned VHS tape (talked about it in my commentary on the piece on “Duck Amuck”) and I also remember that it was always one of the final ones, it always came in the screen minutes away from us having to go away back to our mom’s house. I remember laughing with my brother all the way through and always singing the parts, moving and dancing, feasting our young eyes on the drag-queen Bugs, the opera momentum and the overall wackyness of the effort. Great essay that manages to mention the one thing that always made me laugh: the fat horse, every time I watch it, I crack up.
Wonderful anecdote Jaime! Ha!
Yes, Jaime, that’s a great recollection. I think the VHS tape your mention is the same collection I watched on DVD to prepare for this post. The wonder of the film is that it’s truly artistic, yet so silly that kids get a big kick out of it.
“BE VEWWY QUIET. I’M HUNTING WABBITS…”
And so begins the vocal brilliance that acts as a highlight to one of the most visually audacious, zanily penned and brilliantly scored of all the Warner Bros. “LONNEY TUNES” shorts.
What can one say, except that if there wasn’t a better illustration for why these cartoons shorts are valid entries into any polling of the greatest comedy films of all time I don’t know what is.
Start off with a lightning bolt of a script by cracker-jack parodist Mike Maltese (who also re-wrote the lyrics for much of Wagner’s RING cycle here: “Oh Bwoon-Hilder you’re soooooo wuvv-wee!” “Yes, I know it. I can’t help it !”). Then mix it with the off-the-wall backdrop designs by the legendary Phillip DeGuard that reach into the skies and a vocal tour-de-force for the late, great Mel Blanc and you’d think you have a recipe for an instant success???
But, wait, that’s not enough?
Add to it Chuck Jones most inspired direction and character animation of all time. The moments that see Bugs Bunny dressed as the Nordic vision of female sexuality zig-zags between out-right everything-but-the-kitchen-sink humor to nervous homo-eroticism in the crash of a cymballed thunder crack. Frankly, I don’t know how people look at this masterpiece of cinema and don’t ask if Jones was dropping acid when he came up with some of the movement and asides his characters are putting on display here.
Then, to top it all off, the film tackles all 12 hours of Wagners epic opera in a truncated but gloious 7 minutes of screen time and you are left not only with your jaw on the floor, but totally beaten up by this cartoons breath-taking velocity. Literally, the ideas and gags never stop and pop off at the viewer like machine-gun fire. It’s almost as if a comedian had a gun put to his head and told he had 7 minutes to tell every joke he ever heard or die.
I could go on and on about Jones tackling of upper-class morays and dumbing them down for all to appreciate and understand but the film speaks for itself. Jones pokes fun as he eduacates and, this is the best part, may have even grabbed a few that never heard opera before and got them to suddenly want to seek it out and listen up. There’s a reason this one has been making the top slots in both animation and comedy polls for years. It’s just so good.
Chuck would have been 100 years old today. God bless him.
He was, easily, one of the great artists and directors the medium of film had in the 20th century.
And, that’s a fact.
Dennis –
You knock me out! Your comments say so much, so entertainingly, in so few words. You have a gift my friend! I can’t add a thing to your comment.
A very great comment by Dennis indeed, Pat!
Very nice job Pat in covering this great and very funny Bugs cartoon. I won’t belabor the points that I’ve already been making about including cartoon shorts on this countdown cause I am tired of the argument and it’s not really going anywhere. Bottom line is as far as cartoons go this is a rather inspired piece and very funny. I love Bugs in drag and find it terrifically funny and subversive.
Thanks, Jon.
If I had my ballot back I would have added this. How timely with Jones’ birthday. I am of the opinion that cartoons are viable selections for this countdown. Ms. Perry brings together all the artistry and the popular appeal. There’s a grandeur in this epic cartoon. It helps even more if you love Wagner.
Frank – Thanks for the kind words, and you are not alone in wishing you had your ballot back. There are a few films I’m embarrassed to have left off mine. I take it love Wagner, and so could probably add a lot of depth and detail to the rather high-level view I’ve taken. We have a good friend who is a passionate lover of the Ring Cycle, almost to the point of obsession, and though I’ve never seen the actual operas, I’ve learned a bit from him and from listening to his recordings.
Fantastic piece about a fantastic piece of animation. WHAT’S OPERA, DOC? and its predecessor, RABBIT OF SEVILLE, were my introductions to opera–as they were for many a child. And while it didn’t make me what you’d precisely call a “fan” of the genre, these toons did help give me a great appreciation for it. My favorite part has always been Bugs riding that hilariously fat pony and then sliding off its rump ever so gracefully and smoothly into Elmer’s arms: seamless, and funny as hell. And the background drawings are absolutely brilliant and beautifully detailed. Jones and crew didn’t miss a single beat with this one. Thoroughly enjoyed reading your thoughts on this unparalleled classic, Pat!
Pat – Thanks Brandie – I appreciate your comments all the more in light of .your recent, wonderful essay on ONE FROGGY EVENING.