Bugs Bunny at the Symphony

photo by JT Lynch

A recent outing to my local symphony hall brought together two loves…classical music and classic cartoons.  Many of you have attended theatrical releases of classic films—particularly silent movies—with accompaniment by full orchestra, but this was my first experience with cartoons and a full orchestra, a traveling presentation that you may have seen in your area at some point in the last several years—Bugs Bunny at the Symphony.

My cartoon expert twin brother, John, and I head for the Springfield (Mass.) Symphony Hall to catch a matinee performance and really enjoyed it.  The technology of the melding of the full (and always excellent) Springfield Symphony Orchestra and the cartoons was fascinating, and the guest conductor, (and co-creator of the show) George Daugherty, was a delight.  He explained some technical aspects and the history of Hollywood orchestration, particularly the superior full orchestra at Warner Bros. at the time, and he was quite charmingly funny.  At one point on the screen in Baton Bunny (1968) when Bugs, standing at the podium as a conductor lifts his arms in an exaggerated manner in preparation to signal his orchestra, Mr. Daugherty did the same and mimicked him.

The program began with Rossini’s majestic Overture to Il Barbiere Di Siviglia with no cartoon accompaniment.  It was thrilling…and something else I didn’t expect.  It was funny.  Several of us in the audience began to chuckle in a way I’m sure Rossini, despite the opera’s being a comedy, didn’t intend, because those of us who were familiar with the Bugs Bunny cartoon The Rabbit of Seville (1950), were imagining the progress of the cartoon in our minds, especially the part where bugs splashes hair tonic and rubs it into the scalp of the unfortunate Elmer Fudd.  Later on in the program, Daugherty pointed this out and said this audience reaction to the overture was a common occurrence for that reason.  He ran into it many times.  We knew the cartoon from the music, and we knew the music from the cartoon--or at least, many people's introduction to classical music was through cartoons of that period.

He also gave credit to the woefully uncredited Arthur Q. Bryan, voice of Elmer Fudd (and so many old-time radio characters), which warmed my heart.  He pointed out several fascinating facts about orchestration and lauded the Warner Bros. music department.  (And some jaw-dropping stats on Wagner's music in What's Opera Doc? - 1957) If this traveling show visits your local symphony, it’s well worth catching a performance.

There were children in the audience, as to be expected, but not as many as I thought there would be.  Some were dressed down, even in pajamas—the publicity wing suggested wearing pajamas and even suppled cereal and milk before the show to emulate the old Saturday morning cartoons experience.

Other kids were dressed in their best, as befitting the symphony, and that was nice to see.  The conductor took a quick hands-up poll and revealed that most people in the audience had never been to the symphony before, and he expressed the hope that this would be a fun introduction for them and that they would return.  I hope so, too.  Especially the kids. 

One of the most wondrous revelations for them, and maybe even some of their parents, was to see that music on a screen, whether in a cartoon or a movie, doesn’t just happen.  A lot of people playing a lot of different instruments, mostly at the same time, is what makes the music, and in cartoons, much of the special sound effects come from the orchestra as well.  Maybe some of those kids might take up music after seeing all those people on stage playing all those instruments right in front of them.  How many eyes, I wonder, drifted down from the big screen to the violinists, to the percussion section (especially after so many failures of Acme products for Wile E. Coyote)?

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What's Opera, Doc? (1957)

“What’s Opera Doc?” (1957) achieved what few parodies can do, and that is to create something original on its own, a genius apart from the parody. Cartoons, especially classic Warner Bros. cartoons, featured a lot of classical music, and I don’t know how old I was before I realized this Wagner fellow, and his cohorts Franz von Suppé, Rossini, and the like did not write special music for the cartoons. I cannot hear “Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna” without thinking of “Baton Bunny,” (1959) nor hear Gioachino Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” without thinking of the immortal lines, “Yell and scream and rant and rave/it’s no use, you need a shave.”

Still, in “What’s Opera, Doc?” we go beyond popular culture to the heights of a Valhalla where Elmer Fudd as Siegfried, voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan, conjures supernatural forces in his spear and magic hewmet, “Be vewy quIET…I’m hunting WAbbits.” We know this is to be a special performance just by they way we hear the orchestra tuning up over the opening credits. Excitement builds.

Is there nothing so majestic, so savage, so telling of human passions as, “Kiwuh da wabbit, kiwuh da WABBIT, WIWUH DA WABbit?” My only regret is that there seems to be no film footage of Mr. Bryan, and Mel Blanc, who voiced Bugs Bunny, singing operatic duets in a sound recording studio. Did they not know they were creating magic that should have been documented? Or, was schlepping to the studio to lay down a few voice tracks about a hunter and a rabbit so ordinary that it was considered routine? Impossible.

The other dynamic duo, director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese, could have been filmed as well as they story boarded this cartoon. That, too, might have been magic.

Bugs makes his entrance in drag on an obese horse. Why Bugs Bunny in drag is always so funny, I have no idea, but it is. After Elmer falls in love with the ravishing Brunhilde, and after an impromptu ballet, the strains of “Retoin my wuv” are heard in Mr. Blanc’s Brooklyn tenor and Mr. Bryan’s front parlor baritone in perhaps the most romantic duet ever performed. Seriously. No, really.

Of course, this being an opera, the fates intervene and Elmer discovers his wovwey Brunhilde is only that rabbit, and his rage bears the fires of hell. He calls upon the very lightning to smite the rabbit, whom he carries, with remorse, in his arms to a peaceful eternal rest. As Bugs says, “What’d you expect in an opera? A happy ending?”

It is more than perfect parody, it is a perfect 6-minute opera.

I wish Wagner could have seen it. His rage would have been almost as spectacular as Elmer’s. He had no sense of humor.

That's all for this week. See you Monday.