The Timeless Pepper Gag

It goes back to Felix and Disney's knock-off version of the cat in the silent film days. The old pepper/sneeze gag (my guess is it was in comic strips before that).

Here is how it unfolds in Warners' Prince Violent (1961). Bugs Bunny is fed up with Viking Sam's elephant shooting boulders into his castle with his snout.



Dave Detiege's story has some other old favourites in the comedy. They all still work.

Here’s an inside gag on the opening title card: the Warners shield. Hawley Pratt had been moved up to co-director at this point; Willie Ito was the layout artist with Tom O’Loughlin painting backgrounds.



And here's a pun that some of you might not get.



Back in the days of network radio and pre-network television, watch companies sponsored time-checks. One was Gruen. Ages ago, E.O. Costello put up a site devoted to explaining dated references in Warners cartoons. It's a little dated itself, but still useful. You can find it by clicking here.