FILM REVIEW : Bugs Bunny Festival Draws the Line at Surprises

The Bugs Bunny Film Festival, a collection of Warner Bros. cartoons opening today at the Edwards South Coast Plaza Village, provides a hilarious reminder that these classic shorts were made to be seen by large audiences on big screens in theaters, rather than by isolated individuals on 23-inch television sets.

However, the 13 cartoons in the program constitute an odd assortment that doesn’t really offer much of an overview of the studio’s output, a particular director’s style or the development of an individual character.

The only real surprises are two black-and-white films that have dropped out of circulation in recent years, due to the refusal of many TV stations to show anything but color cartoons. “Porky’s Preview” (1941), directed by Tex Avery, centers on a cartoon-within-a-cartoon of stick figures supposedly drawn by Porky. The stuttering pig dismisses the praise his work receives, saying, “It wasn’t hard because, shucks, I’m am artist.” Porky and Daffy discover just how hard it can be to sneak out of a hotel without paying the bill in Frank Tashlin’s “Porky Pig’s Feet” (1943).

Foghorn Leghorn, Robert McKimson’s Southern blowhard rooster, and an unnamed barnyard dog continue their never-ending series of violent practical jokes in “Leghorn Swoggled” (1951). As a talent agent, Porky auditions a rogue’s gallery of entertainers in Friz Freleng’s “Curtain Razor” (1949), including an operatic grasshopper, a flea circus, a disastrous pigeon act and a pesky fox who has a stupendous finale but can only do it once. (Freleng reused many of these gags to better effect when he had Daffy try to upstage Bugs Bunny in “Show Biz Bugs” (1957), not included here.)

Seven films by Corona del Mar’s Chuck Jones showcase the Oscar-winning director’s redoubtable brand of sophisticated character animation, elaborate verbal gags and split-second timing. The deft animation of Marc Anthony’s expressions in “Feed the Kitty” (1952) have made this story of an improbable alliance between the huge bulldog and Pussyfoot, a tiny kitten, a favorite among young animators.

Bugs Bunny assumes the role of a fast-talking flimflam man to outwit Daffy in “Rabbit Seasoning” (1952): Daffy tries to get Elmer to shoot Bugs, but ends up getting his beak blown off again and again. When Mel Blanc delivers the immortal line “Aha! Pronoun trouble!” he manages to infuse it with all the eagerness of Daffy’s second-rate intellect seizing what he imagines is the solution to all his troubles.

Three other Jones films, “Duck Amuck” (1953), “Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century” (1953) and “One Froggy Evening” (1955), rank among the most popular and widely discussed of the more than 1,000 cartoons produced at Warners. All three are hilarious, but is there really any need to show them again, rather some of the lesser-known gems?

The Bugs Bunny Film Festival continues through July 30 at the Edwards South Coast Plaza Village, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana. (714) 540-0594. See the Orange County Movie Guide, F24, for screening times.