Just perfect...

A different way of telling a story

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A Corny Concerto, what can I say? Simply wonderful. Maybe not as hysterically funny as other Looney Tunes cartoons, but it is special to me for many reasons. A Corny Concerto isn't necessarily what you call hilarious, the funniest it comes to is Elmer's struggles with his loose fitting evening clothes though Porky and the pointer dog sobbing in Waltz time at Bug's "death" was funny too as was Bugs revealing his bra, tutu and pointe shoes and the stunned looks on Porky and Pointer Dog's faces. The animation though is wonderful, the wood in Tales from the Vienna Woods is beautifully rendered, but in terms of animation On the Beautiful Blue Danube was superior, with vibrant colouring particularly of the river itself. In terms of humour, Tales from the Vienna Woods is the better of the two, On the Beautiful Blue Danube is beautiful essentially but rather humourless in comparison. But what both segments have in common is that the music is outstanding. Johann Strauss II is rightly nicknamed "The Waltz King". Both pieces featured are fantastic and two of my favourite classical music pieces of all time, though I am more familiar with On the Beautiful Blue Danube. What impresses me most is how so much is fitted in in such a short running time without feeling bloated. This cartoon is fantastic, perfect for a classical music listener. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Nicely made Warner's Cartoon "Merrie Melody" from 1943. The Warners' Cartoon stable occasionally took a swipe at the far most prestigious Disney group across town. Here they decide to have a go at Disney's one attempt at grand art - his musical cartoon movie FANTASIA, which did episodes such as alligators and hippopotomi dancing ballet, or Mickey Mouse in the cartoon's most famous sequence: The Sorceror's Apprentice, or Moussorgski's A NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN followed by Schubert's Ave Maria.The Warners Cartoons never (at that time) expanded beyond nine minutes - usually they were seven to eight minutes. So there was no full scale spoof on the Disney masterpiece. But everyone could see the spoof by the appearance of the shadow on the podium (Leopold Stowkowski in FANTASIA - here it was Elmer Fudd). Elmer introduces the two segments (both Johann Strauss the Younger standbys: THE TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS and ON THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE). He too tries to uplift the cultural level of the audience, by explaining how the melody flows around and around, "and it comes out here". To people not around in the 1940s, it is a reference to a popular tune, "THE MUSIC GOES ROUND AND ROUND". Elmer's attempt at cultural awareness is undercut by his shirtfront, which keeps popping up and hitting him in the face. He eventually tears the shirt off. Later he strips even more.THE TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS is a ballet with Porky as the hunter (filling in for master of ceremonies Elmer), hunting Bugs. He has brought along his hunting dog, and Bugs (progressively more effeminate in this ballet than usual) is able to fool them. There is a bit of a knock at SWAN LAKE here, with Bugs disarming the hunters, only to enrage a squirrel by hitting him with the rifle. Then, for the first time in any Bugs Bunny cartoon, Bugs dies (briefly). His resurrection, involving a brazier, is also unique in his cartoons.ON THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE deals with a variant on the "ugly Duckling" of Hans Christian Anderson. Lonely baby Daffy wants to be accepted by a family of Swans (a mother and her three daughters), but he is obviously a duck. He proves himself when he bests a vulture who momentarily grabs the three baby swans. The avenging Daffy takes on the appearance of a U.S. Air Force fighter plane, while the vulture suddenly takes on a yellow coloring. The most subtle point in this sequence is when the mother Swan faints after failing to find her three children. She has fallen faint in the center of a pond or lake surrounded with water. A shocked Daffy runs off, gets a pail of water, and flings it on the Swan - without any effect whatsoever to the Swan.A delightful romp into cultural pratfalls, to the strings of Strauss.

A parody of a great many Disney films, this short is simply fantastic and yet another feather in the hat of Bob Clampett (I know I seem to say that a lot, by Clampett was indeed a genius of animation). The music is magical, the animation is great, and although it might not be nearly as hilariously surreal as most of Clampetts other works, it's still very VERY good and I remain captivated by the short every single time I sit down to watch it. This animated short can be seen on Disc 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 and also features an optional commentary by Micheal Barrier.My Grade: A+

From a story by the great Frank Tashlin, who would go on to make live action cartoons with the likes of Jerry Lewis, this is one of the best of the early bugs Bunnies. A parody of, ooh, everything from FANTASIA, BAMBI, the patronising populising of high culture, to an expression of genuine wartime anxieties, it proves how animation can offer truths more 'serious' films cannot.THe film is framed as one of those light classics concerts in which an inept conductor tries to explain the evening's programme, but is persistantly defeated by his cheap tux. His battle with his suit is slapstick fun, but also points to the ossification and impoverishment of music etc. by bourgeois respectability.Like FANTASIA in miniature, the short offers two pieces of animation, choreographed to classical music (both Strauss waltzes, nothing too heavy). THe first, Tales of the Vienna Woods, is the usual Bugs fiasco, where he is chased in a forest by Elmer and a big dog. THis is always fun, but is given added piquancy by the recreation of the forest, which has all the living richness of fairy tale illustrations, and by the film's movement, which is choreographed to the music's rhythm, and reaches delirious heights of hysteria.THe second, superior segment, The Blue Danube, features the young Daffy Duck, a lonely orphan bird who is rejected by a snooty family of swans. When the young chicks (or whatever) are abducted by a vulture, Daffy comes to the rescue, and is welcomed, if problematically, into the family.THese segments work on a number of levels. The pieces of music chosen are very famous sentimental impressions of nature - the cartoons reveal a vicious dog-eat-dog (or pig and dog eat rabbit) world of violence and terror. The vulture scenes are as chilling as anything in BAMBI.To say that nature is a self-generating abbatoir still lets us off the hook. But we must remember the year of the film's production, 1943. THe waltzes of Strauss might be among the most beloved fruits of the Teutonic imagination, but that imagination was currently engaged in the destruction of civilisation and nature across the continent. The scenes with the vulture rounding up the chicks have a very disturbing resonance. BUt when Daffy rescues them, he turns terrifyingly into a being half shark, half fighter airplane. Contemporary US propaganda films showed the belated war effort as a noble and necessary calling; the questioning films only came when it was safe. BUt here was a cartoon tacitly admitting that the defence of civilisation involves a certain loss of that civilisation, a descent into the barbarity it seeks to exterminate. It is a brief moment, and there is a happy ending, but Daffy's reintergration at the end is not complete - this brilliant cartoon is unerringly prescient.