Sticking with an animated theme this weekend, I went with two different offerings that feature the Warner Brothers stable of Merrie Melodies / Looney Tunes cartoon characters.
Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol 1979
First up is Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol from 1979. This little number is only 8 minutes long and was actually only one of three shorts bundled into the original half-hour special Looney Tunes Christmas Tales. It was produced for television. As old as I was during its original airing, doing an ACC spoof with Warner Brothers cartoon characters was good enough excuse to justify watching it without one being labeled “immature.” (Or not too much, at least.) The special was released on VHS in the ‘80’s which is what I still rely on as the DVD release is swallowed into a larger compilation.
Eight minutes and Looney Tunes obviously mean this is a spoof, not a true adaptation of A Christmas Carol. We got Yosemite Sam as Scrooge, Porky Pig as Bob Cratchit, Tweety as Tiny Tim, … you get the picture. Bugs Bunny takes on the nephew Fred type role and serves as the foil that decides Scrooge needs to be taught a lesson for his mistreatment of Bob Cratchit. Because it is a very short spoof, major deviation is expected. After secretly annoying Scrooge with some typical Bugs Bunny antics, Bugs decides “Now it’s time to play ghost” and scare Scrooge as the “Ghost of Christmas.”
My favorite bit has always been when a collector shows up the Cratchit home: He knocks on the door and says, “Light Company. Sorry, you’re past due.” He walks into the house, takes the burning candle off the table and leaves with it.
I still laugh at Scrooge (Yosemite Sam) stating as he gets into bed, “I’m a gonna sleep all through Christmas. That way, I won’t hurt muh eyes lookin’ at all them ugly decorations!”
Although Chuck Jones (producer of the great 1971 animated version of ACC) directed one of the three shorts in this block, he didn’t do the Bugs Bunny Christmas Carol segment. It was directed by another WB animation great, Fritz Freleng, and voiced, of course, by the incomparable Mel Blanc.
This isn’t really ACC but it stands well on its own. Even back when this was made in 1979, the great, golden age of WB cartoons was long over, never to be matched again. But this is worth the watch if you’re a Looney Tunes fan and even better if you’re also an A Christmas Carol fanatic.
Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas
Next up is Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas. Also a spoof, not an actual ACC, this was a 2006 direct to video offering.
The Daffy Duck character is the equivalent to Ebenezer Scrooge as the owner of a massive department store where he mistreats his employees. Unlike the limited time of its predecessor above, the runtime of 47 minutes takes advantage of the large range of Looney Tunes characters; the larger percentage in cameo parts, many of them gratuitous. This one doesn’t use the Dickens characters. Instead the Looney Tunes gang appear themselves as Dickens equivalents: Sylvester (Marley), Porky Pig (Bob Cratchit), Petunia Pig (Tiny Tim). Marvin the Martian has a bit of a unique role as a secondary, Cratchit like character that wants to go home to Mars for Christmas, but as Daffy’s employee cannot because he has to work. Like the 1979 short, Bugs Bunny once again takes on the comparable role of Fred. Unlike the ’79 one, we get actual ghosts. Granny and Tweety play the Ghost of Christmas Past. It’s played as a single spirit entity but appearing as two beings with one mind! (Bravo to the creators for that one). Yosemite Sam is the Ghost of Chrismas Present while Yet to Come spins in via the visage of the Tasmanian Devil. It goes through the general template of the ACC story with the individual character quirks of the Looney Tunes characters meshed in.
This is a good attempt catering at the family audience, and when I say family, I don’t mean stuff falsely marketed as family but only really meant for young children. There’s a fair attempt at humor for the older crowd without having to rely on double entendre or blue humor.
Many of my favorite lines are delivered by Daffy. Here are a couple:
“I’m not afraid of ghosts. In fact, I’m not afraid of anything. Except perhaps low quarterly profit projections and personal intimacy.”
“You have a firm grasp of guilt Mr. Ghost but you just don’t understand the first thing about greed.”
For whatever reason, I find funny the exchange when Daffy is visited by the “Marley ghost” of Sylvester the Cat aka “Sylvester the Investor”:
DAFFY: You were my idol! My inspiration! Say…you’re…?
SYLVESTER: Deceased? A Spirit? A ghost? Why yes I am. I have been so since last Christmas Eve when a disgruntled employee squashed me with a forklift……nine times. (Think about it!)
When Sylvester tries to warn Daffy he is headed for a similar fate, Daffy replies, “Not a chance! I’d never be stupid enough to buy my employees a forklift!”
All-in-all, these are good fun and diversions whether you want to consider them true member of the A Christmas Carol family or not.
25 Days of A Christmas Carol 