Edgar Allan Pooh
. . . to under seven minutes in WHAT'S OPERA, DOC? That's right, when the Warner people took ALL of Dick's screeching marathons and extracted to Anti-Semitism, they were left with 6 minutes, 53 seconds of material that was suitable for American audiences. Yet these seven minutes match the quality of the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment from Disney's original FANTASIA feature cartoon, and surpass the rest of FANTASIA's padding. WHAT'S OPERA, DOC? resonates particularly with my family, since we had an adult relative who wove his own "Wild Weasel" Mythos around the "Ride of the Valkyries" song. Instead of Elmer Fudd singing, "Kill the Wabbit, kill the Wabbit, kill the Wabbit," as he chases Bugs Bunny here, our relative would sing, "Chase the toddlers, chase the toddlers, chase the toddlers, Weasels attack!" as our young ones ran for their lives under a sun setting across Sunday Lake. I don't recall much lightning striking then, as in WHAT'S OPERA, DOC?'s tragic finale, and certainly there were not any earthquakes--or, Heaven forbid!--"Smog!" which Elmer uses to effect the "Wabbit's" demise.
Hitchcoc
Elmer Fudd becomes the hero of Siegfried as he woos Brunhilde (played by Bugs Bunny in drag--if a rabbit can be in drag). This is a classic animated feature with full orchestration. It integrates the eternal effort of Elmer to kill the wabbit while repeatedly falling for the smart alecky rodent. The singing, of course, is quite horrible, but great credit to Mel Blanc for carrying on and staying in tune. What a remarkable talent Blanc was, carrying on the careers of all those Warner Brothers figures, from Yosemite Sam to Daffy Duck. Anyway, this is a gem of a cartoon. As a kid, I hated this use of classical music. Now, we can see the ingenious melding of the two forms.
Neil Doyle
Another hilarious spin on opera as Bugs and Elmer (Siegfried and Brunhilde) go through their paces with bursts of operatic grandeur until they reach the tragic conclusion. Nevertheless, Bugs raises his head and says to the audience, "What did you expect in an opera?" Dazzling combination of music and animation, it's definitely high on the chart of best animated Chuck Jones films.Synchronization of music and animation is spectacular, and the voices of Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan do much to lift the cartoon into the highest category for this sort of thing.Fun to watch, fun to listen to. Another essential from Chuck Jones.
ccthemovieman-1
Every aspect of this cartoon is outstanding, and that's coming from someone who hates opera! The illustrations in this are fantastic, the direction super and the dialog in this "opera" is hilarious. Kudos, too, to Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny) and Arthur Q. Bryant (Elmer Fudd) for their outstanding voice-work having those two characters sing and talk in this opera. I appreciated their work in here more than about anything, although the direction by Chuck Jones and that artwork is really tremendous. All of them outshine the story in here.No, I still don't enjoy the "opera" but I will always enjoy this stunning-looking cartoon, which is part of Volume Two on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection.
AD
