Are you talking to me? Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the greatest times “Looney Tunes” peeled back the curtain. Some minor spoilers might be ahead.
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00:00 "Tortoise Beats Hare?"
00:02 [Tortoise Beats Hare]
00:03 "Tortoise Beats Hare?! What?! These spooky guys don't know what they're talking about!"
00:08 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the greatest times Looney Tunes peeled back the curtain.
00:15 "Ladies and gentlemen, there will be no further delays, so I shall attempt to entertain you in my own inimitable passion."
00:22 Some minor spoilers might be ahead.
00:24 Number 10. Cracking a joke to the audience at Daffy and Elmer's expense.
00:28 "Box Office Bunny."
00:30 "Let me make it easy for you, Sherlock. This is the rabbit!"
00:34 "Hey!"
00:35 When Bugs is ordered to leave the movie theater by Elmer Fudd for not paying,
00:39 he torments both Elmer and later Daffy through a picture-perfect plan.
00:43 He traps them inside one of the horror movies.
00:46 "Hey! We're in pictures!"
00:48 [Farting]
00:51 "Aaah! Let me out of here!"
00:54 And as they scream for their lives, Bugs turns to the camera and cracks a joke.
00:58 "It takes a miracle to get into pictures, and now these two jokers want to get out."
01:02 Bugs talking to the viewer during the scene is a fun way to wrap the comically bizarre sketch up.
01:08 But Bugs should definitely know better than to talk while a movie is still playing.
01:11 Come on, that's basic movie theater etiquette.
01:13 [Screaming]
01:15 "And that's all, folks."
01:17 Number 9. That pesky guy in the third row.
01:20 The case of the stuttering pig.
01:22 During the case of the stuttering pig, Porky and his family are tormented when their lawyer named Goodwill
01:28 turns into a foul monster out for their inheritance.
01:31 While scheming, our resident bad guy warns the viewers not to try and help out the pigs.
01:36 Goodwill doubles down by then specifically calling out one of the people in the crowd.
01:40 "Yeah! You in the third row! You big softy!"
01:46 There's nothing worse than an unruly member of the audience, but in this case, it was a blessing.
01:51 This pesky guy stepped in despite warnings and helped stop Goodwill for good.
01:55 "I'll do away with all of you."
01:58 [Pig snorting]
02:01 Not only was the fourth wall broken, but the pigs also ended up getting saved because of it.
02:06 "Who did that?"
02:08 "Me!"
02:10 "Who are you?"
02:13 "I'm the guy in the fourth row, you big sour puss!"
02:18 Number 8. Were we supposed to expect a happy ending?
02:21 What's Opera Doc?
02:22 "North winds blow! South winds blow! Typhoons! Hurricanes! Earthquakes!"
02:28 In What's Opera Doc, Elmer Fudd shockingly murders poor Bugs Bunny.
02:32 "Light the lightning! Strike the rabbit!"
02:35 [Lightning strikes]
02:37 Shortly after, he begins to show extreme remorse over his actions.
02:41 "What have I done? I've killed the rabbit."
02:47 As soon as Elmer begins to carry the fallen bunny away,
02:50 Bugs seemingly revives himself just to question the audience.
02:53 "Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?"
02:57 As far as fourth wall breaks go, it's another inventive yet slightly morbid one
03:01 given the circumstances of what happened.
03:03 While none of us would expect Elmer to get one over on Bugs,
03:06 maybe the bunny's right that we shouldn't be surprised by the grim ending.
03:10 After all, if there's one thing to be sure of, it's that operas are pretty sad.
03:15 Number 7. Tormented by a mysterious force.
03:18 Duck Amuck
03:19 "Now look, Buster. Let's have an understanding."
03:23 Sometimes people can be known for being divas,
03:26 but the mysterious individual in Duck Amuck might have to take the cake
03:30 as one of the most difficult people to work with.
03:32 Throughout the short, Daffy and his environment are torn apart.
03:36 Props get changed, scenery gets replaced,
03:38 and even Daffy isn't safe from the threat of more erasers and paintbrushes ruining everything.
03:43 "All of a sudden I don't quite feel like myself.
03:46 Oh, I feel alright, and yet I, I uh..."
03:49 "Hey! You know better than that!"
03:52 Eventually, the person messing around behind the scenes
03:55 is later revealed to be none other than Bugs Bunny.
03:58 Duck Amuck is a shining example of not just breaking the fourth wall,
04:02 but completely demolishing it with incredible creativity.
04:05 "Who is responsible for this? This...
04:08 I demand that you show yourself! Who are you? Huh?"
04:12 It goes to show that the ones who hold the most power in Looney Tunes
04:15 are the ones telling the story.
04:17 "Am I a stinker?"
04:19 Number 6. Tricking us all into thinking we have rabbititis.
04:22 Hair tonic.
04:23 "Quarantined for rabbititis.
04:26 No one may weave diplomacies.
04:30 Oh, this is terrible!"
04:33 Nothing to see here, folks.
04:34 Just good old Bugs Bunny gaslighting all of us.
04:37 To avoid Elmer Fudd cooking him,
04:39 Bugs manipulates him into believing that a disease called rabbititis is spreading.
04:43 But scaring Elmer away isn't the real kicker.
04:46 In the end, Bugs may have ended up scaring us, too.
04:49 "The people out there in the audience,
04:51 the lady there with the long ears,
04:53 they get longer all the time.
04:55 And the guy back there in the 17th row with the cute tomato,
04:58 he's getting all fuzzy!"
05:00 That's because when he describes the symptoms,
05:02 which include seeing yellow and red spots swirling around in your vision,
05:05 then they appear on the screen as the camera begins to fade.
05:09 "And then they start swirling and swirling around.
05:12 And then suddenly, everything would go black!"
05:17 There's no way anyone can actually get rabbititis.
05:20 But this cheeky attempt to pull the wool over our eyes
05:23 might have made us second-guess ourselves for a few seconds.
05:26 "I see spots before my eyes."
05:28 "Spots? Hmm, that's bad. Spots, hmm.
05:32 Voice symptom of rabbititis."
05:34 Number 5.
05:35 Another mysterious force gets up to no good.
05:37 Rabbit Rampage.
05:39 If Duckamuck sees Bugs tormenting Daffy,
05:42 then Rabbit Rampage sees the script getting flipped completely.
05:45 "Look, Buster, what's the big idea?
05:48 I said I wasn't working with you, and that is that!"
05:51 This time it's Bugs who becomes the tormented one.
05:54 He experiences a litany of wall-breaking changes,
05:57 like the usual backdrop alterations and wardrobe transformations.
06:00 But it also goes further by having the animator
06:03 try to put Bugs' job in jeopardy.
06:05 Or maybe brushes are more accurate?
06:07 While Bugs is pushed to his limit,
06:09 you can't help but feel like it's karma
06:11 considering he did the same thing to Daffy.
06:13 [Daffy's theme plays]
06:16 [Daffy's theme plays]
06:19 [Daffy's theme plays]
06:20 Not so fun getting figuratively and literally painted in a negative light,
06:24 is it, Bugs?
06:25 "I've got a good mind to tell the Warner Brothers on you.
06:28 You're a menace to society."
06:30 Number 4.
06:31 Animators abandon the story.
06:33 Write him, Bosco.
06:34 "The stage is robbed!"
06:36 [Bosco howls]
06:38 There are stories falling apart,
06:40 and then there are stories totally derailing in front of our eyes.
06:44 As Bosco the Talk, Inc. kid
06:46 attempts to rescue his girlfriend, Honey, from danger,
06:48 things take a turn.
06:50 Right at the height of the drama,
06:51 the short suddenly switches from the characters to the animators.
06:54 As Rudy Ising, Norman Blackburn, and Hugh Harman
06:57 debate how to resolve the plot,
06:59 they decide to just stop production.
07:01 "Say, how's Bosco gonna save the girl?"
07:04 "I don't know."
07:05 "Well, we gotta do something."
07:07 "Let's go home."
07:08 "Good idea."
07:09 That's right, they essentially abandoned Bosco.
07:12 You could say that this fourth wall break leaves things on quite the cliffhanger.
07:16 Not only that,
07:17 it's actually a wall break that has a lot of significance for Warner Brothers.
07:21 That's because this is their first short to have a mixture of both animation and live action.
07:26 It's creative and historic.
07:28 "That's all, folks."
07:30 "Due to circumstances beyond our control,
07:37 we are unable to continue with this picture."
07:39 As Daffy Duck and Porky Pig get into a scuffle,
07:42 their story begins to wind down a rocky road.
07:44 Near the end of the short,
07:46 the screen gets wonky,
07:47 and eventually, everything goes white.
07:49 Daffy then appears to the audience to let them know
07:52 that due to these technical difficulties,
07:54 they can't continue.
07:55 "I'll tell you how it came out.
07:57 Porky's chasing me around and around that tree.
07:59 He corners me, then he moves in for the kill.
08:02 Everyone figures me for a dead duck,
08:04 but I launch a counterattack."
08:06 Nobody likes it when a story is cut off abruptly.
08:08 Fortunately, though,
08:09 this wall break doesn't detract from the story too long,
08:12 because even though they're stuck in a white void,
08:15 Porky still manages to continue his beef with Daffy.
08:18 It seems like not even going completely meta is enough to distract Porky.
08:22 Remind us not to piss this pig off.
08:24 "He's pleading for mercy.
08:26 I'm killing him!"
08:27 "Now what's all this about a turtle beating a rabbit?"
08:34 One of the most notorious wall breaks in Looney Tunes
08:36 has to be from "Tortoise Beats Hare."
08:38 Within the opening credits,
08:40 Bugs finds the title card and happens to take great offense to it.
08:43 In his anger, he rips the title card apart
08:46 and searches for Cecil Turtle.
08:48 "Where's that turtle? Let me have it!
08:50 I'll show him! Where's that stupid?"
08:52 It's a wall break that doesn't just add a comical way
08:55 to move through the credits,
08:57 but also pokes fun at Bugs' anger and arrogance.
08:59 If you don't like the title so much, Bugs,
09:01 then maybe take it up with the studio.
09:03 Don't take your frustrations out on some innocent title cards.
09:06 "Why, you measly little frivolous dog!
09:08 You know damn well I can beat you any day in a week!"
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09:26 "You're just the right size.
09:33 It looks like I'll have to shoot you."
09:36 "Shoot me? Oh, oh, oh!
09:38 I'm scared unto destruction!"
09:40 "Ain't That Ducky" shows the importance of always remembering the right details.
09:44 As Daffy runs from a hunter,
09:46 he takes time to point out inconsistencies
09:48 with how the story is playing out.
09:50 Pulling out the script, Daffy calls the animator out
09:53 for forgetting to draw the barrel he needs to hide in.
09:56 "Hey, what's the idea? What's the idea?
09:58 There's supposed to be a barrel here for me to hide in.
10:00 It says so right here in the script."
10:02 How often is the fourth wall broken
10:04 just so a character can completely berate the animator?
10:07 That sure is an awful lot of confidence Daffy has
10:09 when talking down to someone who can destroy him
10:11 with the swipe of an eraser.
10:13 But despite that, Daffy's complaints ultimately work
10:16 as a barrel is soon drawn into the scene.
10:18 "That's more like it! Woohoo!"
10:21 Always stick to the script.
10:23 It could save your life.
10:25 "Did you see that nasty little duck around here?"
10:29 [Daffy whimpering]
10:33 Is there an infamous wall break we missed?
10:35 Let us know in the comments.
10:37 "But anything can happen in Texas."
10:40 Do you agree with our picks?
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10:48 [♪♪]