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The Big Snooze
Elmer Fudd walks out of a typical Bugs cartoon, so Bugs gets back at him by disturbing Elmer's sleep using "nightmare paint."
Release : | 1946 |
Rating : | 7.5 |
Studio : | Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Cartoons, |
Crew : | Background Designer, Background Designer, |
Cast : | Mel Blanc Arthur Q. Bryan |
Genre : | Animation Comedy |
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Excellent, Without a doubt!!
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Big Snooze, The (1946) *** (out of 4) Elmer Fudd, tired of being abused by Bugs Bunny, decides to tear up his contract to Warner and go on vacation. Bugs needs him back so the rabbit invades his dreams to cause a nightmare. This is certainly a wild short but I've never found it to be a funny one. What does work here are the amazing colors inside the "nightmare", which look absolutely stunning in their remastered form. The visuals are certainly the main reason to watch this film as there aren't too many laughs. The film starts off with a chase, which would normally end a cartoon but here the gag is somewhat funny. The best sequence is the famous one where Elmer is tied to the train tracks and a train of rabbits run over him.
Bob Clampett's final cartoon for Warner Bros. is an appropriately strange and crazy film, a fitting finale for the wackiest director the studio ever saw. 'The Big Snooze' begins unpromisingly with reused animation from an old Tex Avery short and a sequence in which Elmer Fudd quits his role as a cartoon dupe. Although the premise is strong, these early scenes are curiously ugly in both drawings and animation. However, the moment Bugs invades Elmer's dreams and splashes them with Nightmare Paint, 'The Big Snooze' becomes an absolute riot. Since the action is set in the world of dreams, Bugs is able to tear up the rulebook even more than usual. The pace and quality of the wisecracks increase immeasurably and the cartoon goes from ugly to positively sumptuous to look at. The jokes in 'The Big Snooze' are all extremely unconventional, with the closest to a traditional gag being an extreme reading of the old "walk this way" joke. Oddly enough, the cartoon reverts to being bizarrely unattractive the moment the dream sequence ends. Just look at Bugs as the iris closes on him at the end. Nevertheless, 'The Big Snooze' will always be remembered for the dream sequence rather than the clunky sequences that bookend it. While it doesn't quite rival Clampett's very best work, 'The Big Snooze' ends the man's career with Warners on a strikingly inventive note.
'The Big Snooze (1946),' a Looney Tunes short directed by Robert Clampett, is basically seven minutes of cultural references: the title is derived from Howard Hawks' classic Bogart-Bacall film-noir, 'The Big Sleep (1946),' and there are throwaway mentions of Bette Davis, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Damon Runyon and Mr. Jack L. Warner himself. The film's premise, in some eerie twist of Einstein's space-time continuum, even appears to reference Freddy Krueger and 'A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984),' though greater minds than mine could undoubtedly arrive at a more sensible conclusion. The opening sequence was recycled from the 1941 Bugs Bunny cartoon, 'All This and Rabbit Stew (1941),' with Elmer Fudd substituted for the black hunter from that film. 'The Big Snooze' wanders quite aimlessly through its scenario, but the idea itself is clever enough to last the total running time. As usual, Mel Blanc voiced the wabbit, but Arthur Q. Bryan (uncredited) is responsible the characterisation of Fudd.In a shrewdly self-referential twist on the usual formula, Elmer, after being outsmarted by the mischievous Bugs for the last time, angrily tears up his Warner Bros. contract and decides to spend the rest of his days fishing. Fearing for his own career, Bugs attempts to frighten Elmer back into acting, and does so by entering into his dreams and systematically turning them into a string of terrifying nightmares, plagued by horrific armies of annoying "wabbits." With the realisation that retirement isn't quite as peaceful as he'd anticipated, Elmer promptly returns to the film set and accepts that it is simply his duty to be consistently suckered by a rascally rabbit. Just as the classic 'Duck Amuck (1954)' derived humour from its self-referential nature, Clampett's film {ironically enough, the last that he made for Warner Bros.} has some fun with the conjecture that Elmer Fudd is a contracted actor on the studio's payroll. The dream sequence is colourful, chaotic and suitably threatening, and Bugs appears to get a lot of enjoyment from tormenting the hapless little hunter.
'The Big Snooze' is a surreal sequence inside a dream of Elmer Fudd. After Bugs Bunny is too smart for him once again Elmer wants to quit from Mr. Warner and shreds his contract. He says he will be fishing from now on and he will never try to catch a rabbit again. Bugs begs him to go on since it is also his career that can come to and end.Elmer falls asleep against a tree and Bugs sees that he is dreaming. Bugs makes himself dreaming and in his own dream he enters Elmer's dream. He changes that dream into a nightmare with all the surreal images as a result.The cartoon is interesting for its story and sometimes the animation but for simple entertainment it is not very good. The beginning is nice but too predictable and the idea of going into another one's dream is good as well but it feels like there are a lot of missed opportunities. There a couple of laughs so watching this is not completely wasting time.