Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special, on CBS
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streaming sites: iTunes
This special debuted in 1977, when I was just two years old. I wouldn't have seen it then, but it's possible I might have seen it at some point in my youth. Or not. Either way, I got a really cheap DVD of the special in 2014. It's actually comprised of several older Looney Tunes shorts from the 1950s and 60s, which have been chopped up and stitched together with some interstitial scenes that are meant to give the special some sort of cohesiveness or narrative flow or something. It fails utterly. Anyway, I'm sure I saw some of the shorts on The Bugs Bunny Show, when I was a kid, and they were definitely much better in their original forms. Watching it now, I found a few bits mildly amusing, but most of the time I was just cringing at how badly the cartoons were butchered (and some bits even had voiceovers altered to fit the narrative).
I should maybe try to explain the story, but it's hard to do. Mostly it's about Bugs visiting Witch Hazel on Halloween, and... beyond that I don't even know what to tell you, because the way it's all put together makes absolutely no sense. Even with the new bits between scenes, it all seems excruciatingly random. (I mean, I'm a fan of randomness when it's clever, but this is just plain shoddy.) It's a real shame, because if anyone watches this without having ever seen any of the original cartoons, they'll probably just think Looney Tunes are WTF terrible cartoons. (And there probably are some segments used here that I haven't seen and/or wouldn't like even if I did see the original, uncut versions.) But if you've seen some of the originals, then you know they're good, and watching this will just make you wish you were watching those, instead.
The DVD includes the 1946 short Hair-Raising Hare as a bonus feature. It is much better than the special itself, and if I ever put the disc in a player again, it will most likely be to watch the short instead of the special.