The Wacky Wabbit

Series of comedy short films from 1929 to 1969 during the golden age of American animation, alongside its sister series Merrie Melodies.

Bugs Bunny first hopped onto the screen in 1940 and he’s been a pop-culture icon ever since. More than eight generations have enjoyed the timeless antics of the carrot-munching wise guy who always outsmarts his rivals. Cartoons, movies, TV, comics, music, sports and more – this wascally wabbit has done it all. Clever pranks and one-liners are here, along with interviews with today’s most renowned animators, historians and superstars. Enjoy the full range of his silly and smart-alecky personality with 60 theatrical shorts restored and remastered to their original 4x3 aspect ratio on Blu-ray for the first time. It's just what the doctor – er, doc – ordered.

Beany and Cecil first appeared as a hand puppet TV show in the late 40's created by Bob Clampett. It later became an animated cartoon series under the Warner Brothers aegis. The puppet show, entitled Time for Beany, originally aired in 1949, with the animated series first appearing in Matty's Funday Funnies in 1959, later renamed Matty's Funnies with Beany and Cecil and finally Beany and Cecil in the USA. Another season was produced in 1988. In its original form of hand puppets, the show conveyed a greater sense of personal communication than did the animated series which followed. The hand puppets were extensively marketed and did well as a merchandising function.

Daffy Duck convinces Porky Pig to quit the cartoon biz and try his luck in the features. Porky's adventures begin when he tries to enter the movie studio.

Failed hunter Elmer Fudd laments that he's never able to catch the rabbit (Bugs Bunny); just then a bolt of lightning strikes, and the voice of God takes him through a flash-forward to the year 2000. Elmer and Bugs, now both elderly, look back to when they first met as babies.

Porky is reading the Greek myth of the gorgon, who turned everyone she looked at into stone. Mother tells him it's bedtime; he dreams of being Porkykarkus, the hero that saves Greece.

Bugs challenges Cecil Turtle to race, only this time he's wearing an aerodynamic suit like Cecil's. Unfortunately, the gambling ring has bet everything on the rabbit, and Bugs now looks like a tortoise.

The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil was a revival of Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil. It was produced in 1988 by DIC Entertainment. Only eight episodes were produced, five which aired during its original run. This incarnation of the show was produced and directed by John Kricfalusi, who would later create The Ren & Stimpy Show.

Mama Buzzard wants her children to learn to bring back meat for dinner. One buzzardling is shy and has to be kicked out of the nest. He's told to at least bring back a rabbit.

Porky leads a wagon train into "Injun Joe Territory," and finally comes up against the fearsome Superchief. But Sloppy Moe, a survivor of a previous Injun Joe attack, knows something about him he won't tell... until the very end.

Two alley cats, Babbitt and Catsello, decide to make a meal out of Orson as he sleeps in his nest atop a telephone pole. The gullible (and loud) Catsello is repeatedly gulled into trying to "get the bird," earning a variety of thrashings from the casually murderous little canary. Catsello finally resorts to an air strike (with a pair of wooden boards for wings), but it's wartime, and Orson has the cat blasted out of the sky by anti-aircraft guns.

Police officer Porky is called to investigate strange noises at a house that might be haunted. Before he arrives, we tour the house and hear some evil-sounding cackles, which, it turns out, are coming from a radio – one that a ghost was listening to. The ghost then sings the title song while getting ready for a night of haunting, just as Porky arrives. The ghost invites him in with a woman's voice, then disappears. Porky comes in and gets spooked by some flapping curtains. When he comes back in, the ghost puts a couple of frogs into a pair of shoes and sets them loose; they collect a hatrack and a curtain, forming a sort of black ghost that ultimately scares Porky upstairs, right into the arms of the ghost.

Bugs is chased into a lake by a Russian Poodle who speaks with a thick Russian accent; the rest of the story unfolds under water.

While the rural town of Hicksville anticipates the arrival of one Miss Glory, the bellhop at her modest hotel falls asleep and dreams of paging her at a luxurious metropolitan high rise hotel.

Porky works at the Snappy Rubber Company. His dog, Flat Foot Flookey, is determined to follow him into the plant, despite the rules. And Flookey's clumsiness means he's not exactly going to be able to sneak in like when he falls into a vat of rubberizing solution, and molds his face into a number of then-popular movie stars, or makes Porky's boss (a walrus) drop a stack of tires.

Mrs. Duck sues Daffy for divorce in Judge Porky Pig's courtroom, charging her husband with losing their egg in an abortive magic trick.