The Bugs Bunny Show
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The Bugs Bunny Show was a long-running American television anthology series hosted by Bugs Bunny, that was comprised of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons made between 1948 and 1963. The show originally debuted as a primetime ABC program in 1960, with newly produced wraparound segments done by the Warner Bros. animation staff, including Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Robert McKimson. The wraparounds were produced in color, but the original broadcasts of the show were done in black-and-white.
The format and exact name of the show changed frequently after it began reruns on Saturday morning starting in 1962:
- The Bugs Bunny Show, 30 minutes, 1960 - 1968 (ABC), 1971 - 1973 (CBS), 1973 - 1975 (ABC)
- The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, 60 minutes, 1968 - 1971, 1975 - 1978 (CBS)
- The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show, 90 or 120 minutes, 1978 - 1985 (CBS)
- The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes Comedy Hour, 60 minutes, 1985 - 1986 (ABC)
- The Bugs Bunny/Tweety Show, 30, 60, or 90 minutes, 1986 - 2000 (ABC)
Most incarnations of the show feature the same theme song, "The Bugs Bunny Overture (This is It!)", and an opening title sequence featuring Bugs and Daffy performing the song in unison. Title sequences and some wraparound material (using color footage where available---the switches between color and black and white presumably reflecting cuts made for syndication) are included on each volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD collection. The song's fame is such that it has been used elsewhere such as in the Canadian province of Ontario where it was used in a TV commercial promoting the various performing arts tourist attractions where artists of various disciplines sing separate lines of the song.
This is the Bugs Bunny Show Overture, written by Mack David and Jerry Livingston:
Oveture, curtain, lights, This is it-- The night of nights. No more rehearsing and nursing a part. We know every part by heart.
(cane flip)
Overture, curtain, lights, This is it-- We'll hit the heights. And oh, what heights we'll hit. On with the show This is it.
(character procession)
Tonight what heights we'll hit. On with the show this is it!
(cane tap) (fade--out)
Most incarnations of the Bugs Bunny Show started with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck singing the song in unison while prancing around the stage. After the character procession (which consisted of Tweety, Speedy Gonzalez, Hippity Hopper, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester the Cat, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, and on some occasions, Porky Pig) the show would start. After commercial breaks, the show would begin again by displaying a picture of Bugs standing between two lights and a non-lyrical piece from the Oveture. Then at the end of each episode, the camera cuts back to the stage, and the character procession starts again while the music plays. Then Bugs and Daffy would come out and move like they had when they sang the song in the beginning. Subsequently, the curtain falls, and a limelight shines on the curtain as the credits pop on and off the curtain.
This show is credited for keeping the Warner Bros. cartoons of the Golden Age of Animation a part of the American consciousness. Indeed, the show ran for more than four decades, and helped inspire animators, comedians, historians, and just about anyone who watched Saturday morning television. The show was cancelled in late 1999, and, according to the writers of this article, there are no obvious plans to bring the show back on the air as of 2006.
External links
- [Lyrics to "The Bugs Bunny Overture (This is It!)"]
- [Looney Tunes on Television], a web page devoted to the various incarnations of the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies broadcasts on American television.
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