What's Opera, Doc?
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What's Opera, Doc? is a short animated cartoon directed by Chuck Jones in which Elmer Fudd chases Bugs Bunny through a seven-minute operatic parody of Wagner's operas, particularly Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). While sometimes characterized as a condensed version of Wagner's Ring, it actually makes only loose borrowings from that cycle, woven around the standard Bugs-Elmer conflict. It was first released theatrically on July 6, 1957. Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan do the voices, including the singing. The short is also sometimes referred to as Kill the Wabbit after the line sung by Fudd to the tune of the Ride of the Valkyries.
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[edit] Story
The screen pans on the silhouette of a mighty viking arousing ferocious lightning storms, but the zooms in to reveal that it is only Elmer Fudd (as the demigod Siegfried). Elmer sings his signature line (in operatic style), before arriving at Bugs Bunny's hole. Bugs watches Elmer fruitlessly jam his spear into the hole to "Kill the wabbit!" Bugs sings his signature line opera style and challenges Elmer as to how he is to do this, prompting a display of Elmer-as-Siegfried's supposed "mighty powers" from his "spear and magic helmet. At that, Bugs flees and the chase begins.
Suddenly, Elmer is stopped in his tracks at the sight of the beautiful Valkyrie, Brünnhilde (Bugs in an obvious disguise), riding in grandly on a enormously fat horse. "Siegfried" and "Brünnhilde" exchange endearments:
- "Oh Bwunhiww-de, you'wuh so wuv-wee!"
- "Yes I know it; I can't help it!"'
and after the usual "hard to get" pursuit (including a brilliant set design of pink flowers by Maurice Noble), they perform a short ballet, capping it off with a classic rendition of "Return My Love." Bugs' true identity is then exposed when his headdress falls off, enraging Elmer and prompting him to command fierce lightning, torrential rain, hail, wind storms, earthquakes and finally “Smog!!” (independently voiced by Blanc) to "kill the wabbit!"
Eventually, a lightning bolt strikes Bugs dead. But upon seeing the bunny's corpse, Elmer as usual immediately regrets his commands and tearfully carries the bunny off, presumably to Valhalla in keeping with the Wagnerian theme. Bugs suddenly breaks character, raises his head to face the audience and remarks, "Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?" Thus, this cartoon marks one of the few times that Fudd actually succeeds in beating Bugs Bunny.
[edit] Wagner's music
The musical score to What's Opera Doc? is adapted from several operatic works by Wagner, including:
- the overture from The Flying Dutchman - opening storm scene
- the Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre - "Kill the wabbit"
- Siegfried's horn call from Siegfried - "O mighty warrior of great fighting stock"
- the overture and Pilgrims’ Chorus from Tannhäuser - "Return my love" and the closing scene
- the Bacchanal from Tannhäuser - ballet scene between Elmer and Bugs
[edit] A magnum opus
This cartoon is widely regarded as Chuck Jones’ masterpiece. In fact, many film critics, animation fans, and filmmakers (as well as Jones himself) consider this to be the greatest animation achievement of all the cartoons Warner Bros. released since the endeavour began in 1930. It has also topped many Top Ten lists of the greatest animated cartoons of all time. In fact, it was rated by Jerry Beck in his book The Fifty Greatest Cartoons as the #1 greatest cartoon. What's Opera, Doc? required about 6 times as much work and expense as any of the other 6-minute cartoons his production unit was turning out at the time. Jones has admitted as much, having described a surreptitious re-allocation of production time to completing the short. During the 6 minutes of What’s Opera, Doc?, Jones lampoons:
- Disney's Fantasia,
- the contemporary style of ballet,
- Wagner's perceived ponderous operatic style, and even
- the by-then cliché Bugs-and-Elmer formula.
What's Opera, Doc? marked the end of an era for Warner Bros. cartoons, for it was perhaps the last Bugs Bunny cartoon to truly capture the essence of WB's Golden Age of Animation. Fans have argued that no theatrical or made-for-TV cartoon has since done so.
The cartoon and lyrics were written by Michael Maltese, the music adapted from various operatic works by Richard Wagner, the impressive and unusual background work by Maurice Noble. It was the first cartoon short to be deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Duck Amuck and One Froggy Evening were also later inducted into the registry, making Chuck Jones the only animator with three shorts thus recognized.
[edit] Availability
What's Opera, Doc? is part of the compilation film, The Bugs Bunny-Road Runner Movie, together with Duck Amuck and other Chuck Jones shorts. In the linking material in this compilation, Bugs Bunny directly recognizes Wagner’s contribution to the operatic version of the “classic chase” (he loves opera), but has a difficult time pronouncing the title in his “Brooklynese”, finally settling on “The Rings of Nibble-lung.” He also says he “squashed” the Ring down to “seven minutes”, though this is a bit of a generous estimate.
The film is also part of the recently-released Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 DVD box-set (it’s on Disc Four), supplemented with two audio commentaries, optional music-only and voice-only audio tracks, and accompanied by a making-of documentary entitled Wagnerian Wabbit.
The cartoon was homaged in the Looney Tunes video game Bugs Bunny and Taz: Time Busters, in which Fudd-as-Siegfried is the boss of the Viking level.
[edit] References
- Beck, Jerry and Friedwald, Will (1989): Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Company.
