The Lion's Busy

The Lion's Busy is a Looney Tunes cartoon made in 1948 but not released until 1950, written by Tedd Pierce and directed by Friz Freleng. It features Leo the Lion (who had previously appeared in The Lyin' Mouse, Hold the Lion, Please and Acrobatty Bunny) and Beaky Buzzard (who had previously appeared in Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid and The Bashful Buzzard), both voiced by Mel Blanc). This cartoon is the first time Blanc voices Beaky due to Kent Rogers' death in 1944, and the final appearance of Leo the Lion from Looney Tunes cartoons until Tweety's High-Flying Adventure in 2000.

Plot synopsis

Leo the Lion, on his tenth birthday, receives a book as a present, and after finding out that lions rarely live beyond ten years, a hungry Beaky Buzzard takes the chance to eat him for his meal. The dim-witted lion tries to escape to the moon by a rocket, but finds Beaky already there waiting to eat him.

Trivia

• This is the only cartoon to pair the dimwit characters Beaky Buzzard and Leo Lion. In this cartoon, a comparison is made between the two characters; proving Leo to be dumber than Beaky.
• Leo's voice here is different from his older cartoons; here he speaks with a Scottish accent, making him sound almost similar to Sylvester.
• This is the only Beaky Buzzard cartoon directed by Friz Freleng.
• At the end of the short, Leo and Beaky became elderly in 1958 on the moon.
• Bugs Bunny makes a cameo as a background character with other jungle animals in the beginning; here in this case his head has been superimposed on a small grey rabbit's body.