Reviews by JxSxPx

A few months after Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Chuck Jones once again returned to the world of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book with this version of “The White Seal.” Two-thirds of his Kipling trilogy consists of the more obscure tales from that classic tome, and that’s partially why I appreciate them so much. There’s also the simple fact that The White Seal is just a beautifully animated, completely engaging work.

These Kipling adaptations feel different from much of Jones’ more popular work, as they’re more mature and slower paced, less reliant upon physical humor and filled with palpable moments of dread and tension. The first one in The White Seal comes from watching a young Kotec chased by a shark, but a vast majority of the tale is occupied by his venture to find a new home where they’ll be free of the humans.

Naturally, he encounters several underwater denizens, both friendly and cruel. None of these encounters are as cruel as the ones with mankind. A scene of Kotec staring in horror as the humans hunt down and kill many of his fellow seals shies away from showing the act itself, but through clever visual choices and Kotec’s expression we still get the intensity of the moment.

And I haven’t even begun to describe the look of the piece. The character animation is fluid and dynamic, with personalities evident in their movements. A scene where a young Kotec meets a whale is a small marvel, as bubbles distort his face as they float across the frame. What’s even more interesting is how Kotec goes from cute and cuddly, looking like the big eyed critter you’d find in any children’s cartoon to a more realistic representation, so too does the rest of the piece. Kotec ages before our eyes by repeatedly leaping out of the water, appearing larger and fuller with each joyous dive.

The backgrounds point towards Jones’ love of abstract, as Nova Scotia is all geometric patterns of white and blues, and ocean waves are green lines under the water. The island paradise that Kotec discovers is made up of large chunks of colors, with little detail work. These bright colors and simplistic shapes give The White Seal a buoyant feeling that is quite effective for the piece. Same can be said for Roddy McDowell’s airy vocal work as both Kotec and the narrator. A slight step-down in artistic achievement from Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, The White Seal is still a wonderful work in Jones’ extensive output.

1975 ended the Cricket series, but it also launched the three Rudyard Kipling adaptations that Chuck Jones made between 1975 and 1976. These three specials are among the best of Jones’ work, capturing both the darkness of the original stories and providing a template for Jones’ artistry to go wild.

The first of these three specials, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, is twenty-five minutes of sheer excellence from top to bottom. The simplicity of backgrounds and shapes jettisoned here in favor of a more realistic animation style. I never knew traditionally animated cobras could be so frightening, but between the menace of Orson Welles and June Foray’s vocal intonations and their ominous, supple animation, that’s exactly what I thought in these moments.

Even better is the stylistic choices to display Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’s swiftness, as his entire body transforms into elongated lines, stretching and shrinking back to its natural size. It’s a hypnotic effect, and put into great effect during the numerous scenes of tension and danger in which Rikki fights with the snakes antagonizing his adopted family. This body warping effect is also used in moments of mischief and discovery, used for more comedic effect in these moments, but working just as well.

Jones perfectly captures of feeling of Kipling’s work, bringing out both the charm and the danger lurking beneath the surface. Much of Welles’ narration is straight from the text, and Welles’ voice wraps around the lines beautifully. His origins in radio drama makes him a perfect voice actor for animation, and this only makes one wish he did more of it. Jones was smart to bring him in, just as he was smart enough to know when to play the story straight and when to get flashy in his artistic choices.

Introducing the villain, Nag the cobra, as an inky black blob undulating against the bright sun alerts us to the stakes that will unfold as the story progresses. We begin in simplistic, cutesy methods, with Rikki playing cute and sweet and getting more ferocious as we go along. Even better is the shock of colors (red, yellow, and white) that flash across the screen during Nag’s death scene with only the pattern of his hood remaining clearly visible. The tensest moment comes late in the story as Nagaina, the female cobra, threatens to strike against the human child that Rikki has befriended. No flashy animation tricks here, just still human characters, a patient cobra, and Foray’s disturbed voice work that sounds like her chords were sandpapered heavily before she walked into the recording booth.

I remember watching this several times as a child, and it still holds up. It’s one of Chuck Jones’ late-period masterpieces, and one of the best Jungle Book adaptations. As scary as it is enchanting, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is a wonderful piece of work.

Between 1975 and 1976, much of America’s pop culture ephemera was drunk upon the upcoming bicentennial. Don’t believe me? Well, then look no further than the third and final installment in the Cricket specials, Yankee Doodle Cricket. Purporting to tell the unknown truth about the American Revolution, this special finds Chester, Tucker, and Harry recast as Revolutionary players helping the cause along.

The special opens with Tucker in the library reading a book called Oddities in American History, and that about sums up this installment, an oddity. While A Very Merry Cricket lacked the sophistication and general overlooked nature of the first one, this one feel reasonably slept on. It’s hopelessly dated as a relic of the bicentennial fever striking the country.

There’s still plenty of chuckles to be found here, but the surrounding narrative is weak. Let’s focus on the jokes for a moment, a rattlesnake with a head cold asks Tucker to not tread on him, inspiring the infamous drawing and slogan. Or Harry giving his opinion to Thomas Jefferson about the first lines of the Declaration of Independence, a flurry of quotes from future Presidents can be heard as they’re discarded.  Yet Jones feels somehow disconnected from much the material here, with the bright spots shining brighter than the fussiness surrounding them.

Picking up right where The Cricket in Times Square ends, A Very Merry Cricket reunites us with Tucker the Mouse and Harry the Cat on a story that’s part road trip and part lukewarm variation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. New York City, introduced through a nightmare hallucination of location zooms and disembodied voices, is filled with anxiety and anger about the Christmas season, and these two think Chester’s magical musical abilities are just the remedy the city needs.

Subtle in its emotional manipulations this is not, taking the same morale as The Grinch but delivering with chainsaw-through-Jell-O nuance. A Very Merry Cricket is far more fun when it’s plotting is shaggy, and we simply hangout with Harry and Tucker in their misadventures. Jones’ humor shines in some of these gags, and an alley cat character feels like a more regulated cousin of a Looney Tunes character.   

Luckily, most of the special is taken up by their road trip adventures, and the anti-commercialism of the holidays is regulated to the very beginning and the very end. Not quite as overlooked or even-handed as the prior installment, A Very Merry Cricket is still a highly enjoyable romp.

Between 1973 and 1975, Chuck Jones produced three specials based upon The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden. This first entry plays the story straight, complete with an ending that feels somehow rushed upon given the leisurely pace of the rest of the piece.

There’s a quietness and gentle spirit at work here, something you just don’t find any longer in children’s entertainment. The story is a simple urban fairy tale, a family’s newsstand in the subway near Times Square is having trouble generating business, and a cricket from the countryside accidentally gets transplanted there. The cricket befriends the young son of the family, along with a streetwise mouse and urbane cat, and the three critters plot to help the family’s fortunes. The cricket it revealed to have a wonderful gift for music, and this proves the key to changing the family’s financial woes.

That’s it, that’s the entirety of the story, no cynicism, no snark, just heartfelt lessons about how music can be a bridge between different people and helping others. The art is more sophisticated here than your typical Jones work up to this point, which human figures looking more realistic, and animals appearing more grounded than the elongated shapes and loose limbs of his more famous work. Jones also made the choice to hold back on showing the human character’s faces until late in the running time, using their wide-eyed wonder and expressions of joy primarily in the climax, which finds the cricket performing his final concert and all of Times Square pausing to take in the beauty of the music. It’s a wonderful bit of flourish in this urban fairy tale.

Shame then that right after this ebullient moment the story quickly winds down with the next scene being one in which the father takes the cricket on the train to Connecticut to release him back into the wild. This thread, of the cricket yearning to go back home, is introduced early, then quickly brushed aside in favor of Mel Blanc’s Tucker the Mouse cracking jokes alongside Les Tremayne’s haughty purrs. It’s not a fatal flaw, as everything that came before it is strong, but it’s just a weird bit of pacing. Still, of the three Cricket specials, this is the strongest and most satisfying.

Another year (1980 in this case), another Looney Tunes special centered on a unifying theme, this time it’s springtime. Once more, this special features three new cartoons with a wraparound segment hosted by Bugs Bunny.

All of these specials feature animation that’s a step down from the glory days, but never is this more apparent than in the first segment. A bit of kitsch that finds Bugs and Elmer feuding as child versions, and feels more like a trial run for Tiny Toon Adventures than anything else. A cameo from Wile E. Coyote asking Elmer to move out of the way for a proper demonstration in falling from great heights elicited a guffaw from me, but the rest is a bit limp.

Next up, Bugs gets kidnapped by Marvin the Martian as a playmate for his pet, Hugo the Abominable Snowman. I wonder how many people get that Hugo’s vocal mannerisms and gullibility is based on Lon Chaney Jr.’s performance in 1939’s Of Mice and Men. It’s an obscure reference, and much of this segment is spent with Bugs conning Hugo into doing his dirty work and not enough of it with Bugs harassing Marvin. Too much wasted potential here.

The ending of the first sequence hints at the final one, as Bugs wonders if he and Elmer started their lifelong chase at an early age, only to find a coyote pup chasing a roadrunner egg. Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff or smacking into a large rock never fails to amuse me. It’s stupid to be sure, but I never claimed my funny bone was entirely sophisticated or too demanding. This is easily the best segment, and a strong way to close out the show.

Bugs Bunny’s Bustin’ Out All Over is undoubtedly the weakest of the four TV specials I could get my hands on. A weak affair that’s more miss than hit. Temper your expectations with this one, as even the weakest of Looney Tunes properties from the old masters can still provide some easy laughs. 

Not only do we get Chuck Jones’ involvement in 1979’s Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales, but Friz Freleng, another one of Termite Terrace’s genius directors. Usual suspects and big names like Bugs, Daffy, Poky, and Yosemite Sam are here, but the presence of Foghorn Leghorn, Taz, and Speedy is most welcome.

The anthology structure of the short means its filled with highs and lows, but at least we get the lows out of the way quickly. A Christmas Carol has been adapted straight, sideways, parodied, and reinvented every which way that it’s hard coming up with fresh jokes or angles into the story. You’d think Bugs Bunny playing merry prankster against Scrooge (here embodied by Yosemite) would be a laugh riot, but it merely raises a few mild laughs. It starts strong but quickly fizzles before rushing to the well-known climax.

The second segment features Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner running through a typical yarn, this time with the desert covered in snowfall and pockets of ice. These two never fail to make me laugh, and this is a good enough run through for the two. But it’s the final segment, a variation of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” featuring Taz dropping in on Bugs and his nephew, Clyde. Watching Taz eat everything in sight and Bugs continually outsmart him is one of my simplest pleasures in life.

There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but that doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining. Spending time with these characters is always entertaining. There are infinitely better Christmas specials out there, but watching Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales is still a perfectly solid way to spend thirty minutes come December. Or whenever you need a quick laugh and a pick-me-up.

The first special of all-new Looney Tunes material was Bugs and Daffy’s Carnival of the Animals, a live-action/animation combination that premiered in 1976. This plays directly into a long-established tradition, the never-ending rivalry between Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, with a backdrop of classical music and poetry. All of the ingredients are there for a successful reunion.

Bugs and Daffy’s Carnival of the Animals is a strange mixture, playing like a screwball variation of Fantasia’s Mickey Mouse and Leopold Stokowski’s brief time together. Whereas Disney took its classical pieces as a vague impression for their imagination and artistry to takeover, Carnival of the Animals takes its title literally, presenting a series of shorts animating the various animals mentioned.

The lions look like a young child’s drawing come to life; the chickens like a country kitchen’s artwork in movement, and the kangaroos are blocks of solid colors leaping across the frame. It never feels particularly like a Looney Tunes product, despite the presence of Bugs, Daffy, and Porky Pig, but it’s still hypnotic in its oddities. The “Birds” section is a particularly surreal highlight allowing Chuck Jones to engage in something that wouldn’t look entirely out of place in Yellow Submarine.

As a Looney Tunes piece, it’s heavily disappointing and a bit of a bait-and-switch. Taken as something else entirely, a freestanding work in which these characters merely cameo, it’s a beautiful thing. The music is well performed and orchestrated, the animation is kooky and inviting, and gives Jones a chance to go experimental in his choices. It’s worth a look both for curiosity’s sake, and for the visual strength. Just don’t expect any of the typical anarchy associated with Bugs and company.

Warner Brothers had ceased production on new Looney Tunes material by the mid-60s, but classic characters never die. Through repeated viewings on television, a series of compilation films highlighting their greatest directors, and the occasional lone out to other studios for limited use, the characters maintained their popularity. A series of TV specials began rolling out in the late 70s/early 80s, bringing back titans like Chuck Jones to take the characters out for original productions.

More commonly known as Bugs Bunny in King Arthur’s Court as subsequent airings gave it a brand new title, but no matter what you call it this is a solid thirty minutes of laughs. Here we find Chuck Jones taking Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court as building blocks for Bugs Bunny to let loose with his smarmy humor, with Daffy as the king, Elmer as a knight, and Yosemite Sam as Merlin. That’s quite a few stooges for Bugs to cause havoc upon, and so he does.

While there’s nothing here that’s anywhere near as funny as the heyday, but still worth a viewing for a series of good chuckles to be had. These guys really knew how to take some recycled jokes and material and make it play successfully. Bugs using his modern knowledge to trick everyone into thinking he has magical powers play right into his smartass charm. A scene during a knightly duel where he comes barreling out on a tiny horse plays like an inverse joke of the obese horse in “What’s Opera, Doc?” And Porky as a babbling squire is charming, as his stammering allows Bugs plenty of chances to deliver wry zingers and fourth-wall breaking humor. The joints may be a little stiff, but A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur’s Court still charms.

Beginning life as a failed TV pilot, Adventures of the Road Runner was eventually released as a theatrical short, before finally getting chopped up into three further shorts. Taken individually, everything here is a wonderful piece of animation, filled with smart gags and a frantic go-go-go pacing. All of it taken together without the benefit of commercial breaks leaves a certain feeling of a padded out running time.

This becomes most obvious when the Adventures of the Road Runner goes meta-textual in its humor. We pull back to see that the cartoons we’re watching are part of a TV show watched by two young boys. One of them is Ralph from “From A to Z-Z-Z-Z,” a little daydreamer with a rich imaginary life, and the other his unnamed friend who tries to psychoanalyze him. This leads to “From A to Z-Z-Z-Z” being spliced into the proceedings as an example of Ralph’s inability to concentrate leading him to identify with the Road Runner’s constant buzzing about.

“From A to Z-Z-Z-Z” is an absolute delight, a charming blast into an elementary school child’s fervid imagination, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the exploits of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. It’s inclusion feels like narrative padding, try as the writer’s might to throw in a reason behind it.

Where Adventures of the Road Runner excels is in the newly created shorts. The revelation that Wile E. Coyote videotapes all of his exploits with the Road Runner in an effort to strategize and analyze weaknesses in his plans is a fun joke, sold by Mel Blanc’s tongue-in-cheek egg headed vocal intonations for Wile E. Coyote.  The presence of reused footage from older cartoons feels more organic here, and the effect overall works far better.

The gag where the Road Runner barrels across a bridge so fast he warps it in his wake, dragging several cacti along for the ride, and setting up a bit of physical violence-as-punchline that the Looney Tunes do so damn well is a solid chuckler. This is what can be said for this elaborately constructed collage-as-TV pilot as a whole work. It’s filled with solid chuckles that the film-makers know how to do well, it’s just a shame that the middle feels unnecessarily padded out with extraneous bits that don’t fit in with the whole.