Monday, October 31, 2016

From Out of the Recycling Bin: Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special (1978)

In order to produce holiday-themed specials for CBS, Warner Bros. would cobble together clips from a collection of older, classic shorts, and create a new, wraparound storyline.

Such was the case with 1978's Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special. Some of the shorts excerpted in this show had been used in edited form on The Bugs Bunny-Road Runner Show on Saturdays, so the challenge was on parents to recognize where they'd seen certain clips.

We've previously reviewed some of the shorts, such as "Hyde & Go Tweet". You try to figure what comes from where.

Edit, 9/14/23: Had to change the video. Here's a commercial promoting the show:



No rating. We didn't see this the first time.

6 comments:

Silverstar said...

I love Looney Tunes, but this special features one of THE single silliest segue-ways I've ever witnessed in one of these 'hodgepodge' specials: at one point in the 'story', Witch Hazel transforms herself into Count Bloodcount so they can use footage from "Transylvania 6-5000", only with June Foray reading all of Bloodcount's lines. The wha...? Why would a witch need to morph into a vampire? How hard would it have been to simply make a brief animated link in which Hazel calls Bloodcount on the phone and says "Hey, there's a certain rabbit heading your way. I want you to take care of him for me"? Boom. Done. I'm sorry, but that just didn't make any sense to me. Even as a kid I remember thinking, "So she changes into Count Bloodcount? Wow, that was dumb!".

hobbyfan said...

Apparently, whomever wrote the special wasn't thinking sensibly.

Chris Sobieniak said...

I never liked these specials. Purely an excuse for a bit of nostalgia sandwiched in between new footage produced by a staff that was already nearing retirement as it was.

hobbyfan said...

I guess they were commissioned by CBS for these evening shows, to complement Garfield and the Peanuts crew, and also because Bugs meant ratings.

Chris Sobieniak said...

Technically, these predated the Garfield specials by a half-decade when most of these specials were produced (The first was "Carnival of the Animals" in 1976, which featured all new animation BTW), so it was only the Peanuts specials they were contending with.

hobbyfan said...

Hmmm. Have to look up Carnival of the Animals some time.