Friday 5 March 2021

Bully For Bullets

Chuck Jones is the master of subtle expression at Warner Bros.

There are all kinds of examples, but here are some in Bully For Bugs. The bull gets Bugs’ rifle attached to his tail and when he pounds it on the ground, bullets come out of his horns. He thinks. He looks. He realises.



He chases Bugs and shoots at him until he runs out of bullets. No problem. He chows down on Acme Elephant Bullets (Explosive Heads). He gets ready to shoot again. But Jones and writer Mike Maltese have other ideas. Jones waits just long enough before he caps things with the horns drooping to a slide whistle.



The animators are Ken Harris, Ben Washam and Lloyd Vaughn. The short was released on August 8, 1953. The initial story work was done and the first jam session run-through was on September 5, 1951.

4 comments:

  1. (Actually, I think the bull, in rushing past Bugs, swallowed the gun, and in the cartoon physics that's operable, it ended up in his tail. Hence why he had to swallow the bullets.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This made me sad and cry.

    ReplyDelete