#60) What’s Opera, Doc? (1957)

#60) What’s Opera, Doc? (1957)

OR “Wide of the Vawkywies”

Directed by Chuck Jones

Written by Michael Maltese. Songs by Maltese and Richard Wagner.

Class of 1992

This is the revised and expanded version of my original “What’s Opera, Doc?” post, which you can read here.

The Plot: After 17 years of their cat-and-mouse game (so to speak), Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd’s feud climaxes in a grand operatic fashion. Taking a cue from the operas of Richard Wagner, Fudd (voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan) is the Germanic legend Siegfried, who must “kill the wabbit” with his spear and magic helmet. Bugs (voiced by Mel Blanc) outwits Siegfried by dressing as the Valkyrie Brünnhilde and seducing him. In seven minutes, Chuck Jones distills Wagner’s epic Ring cycle for a mass audience, and in the process creates one of the most celebrated animated shorts of all time.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls it an “animation classic” that is “often considered to be [director Chuck] Jones’ cinematic masterpiece.” An essay by Chuck Jones’ grandson Craig Kausen is a tribute to the man as well as his three NFR inducted shorts.

But Does It Really?: Oh sure. As someone who grew up watching a lot of Looney Tunes on TV, “What’s Opera, Doc?” is one of their more iconic offerings. Watching it again, the short is still a visually stunning work that never forgets to be entertaining or funny. You get the sense that Chuck Jones and his team are doing this for themselves as artists rather than just cranking out another “product” to hit a studio mandated quota. “What’s Opera, Doc?” is one of the most revered and influential pieces of classic animation, so it’s no surprise that it made the Registry so early. That being said, I still think there is room for a more conventional Bugs vs. Fudd cartoon on the list, and for more Looney Tunes in general. How about those “Duck Season! Rabbit Season!” shorts? Those were great.

Shout Outs: One of the major influences on this cartoony stab at classical music was “Fantasia“, particularly the “Dance of the Hours” segment, which also played opera tropes for laughs.

Title Track: The title is of course a play on Bugs’ famous catchphrase “What’s up, doc?” which he does say (or more accurately sing) at the beginning of this short.

Seriously, Oscars?: Although “What’s Opera, Doc?” was on the Academy’s shortlist of potential nominees for Best Short Subject – Cartoons, it failed to receive a nomination. Warner Bros.’ nominees that year were the Speedy Gonzales short “Tobasco Road”, that year’s winner, the Sylvester & Tweety short “Birds Anonymous”. Chuck Jones would eventually win an Oscar for his 1965 short “The Dot and the Line”, as well as an honorary Oscar 30 years later for lifetime achievement.

Other notes

In the original version of this post, I wondered aloud what the difference was between Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, but never looked into it. After a deep research dive, the short answer is “Not much.” Initially created for Warner Bros. by independent studio Harming-Ising Productions (which later evolved into Leon Schlesinger Productions), Looney Tunes began in 1930 as a direct copy of Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies, with each Looney Tunes centering around a pre-existing song from the Warner Bros. catalog. Following the success of Looney Tunes, Warner Bros. commissioned a second unit of animated musical shorts called Merrie Melodies. Initially, Looney Tunes focused on recurring characters, while Merrie Melodies featured more stand-alone stories (Merrie Melodies‘ switch to color in 1934 also helped differentiate the two). The two series started to meld together in the early 1940s when Leon Schlesinger sold his production company to Warner Bros., and all their cartoons were produced exclusively in color. By decade’s end, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were so interchangeable even the animators didn’t know which title their shorts would be released under.
Early versions of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd had been appearing in various Warner Bros. shorts since the late 1930s, back when Bugs was an unnamed white rabbit and Elmer was an off-shoot of the character Egghead. The characters weren’t paired together until 1940’s “Elmer’s Candid Camera”, and another pairing three months later – “A Wild Hare” – marked the official debut of Bugs Bunny and is considered the first true Bugs/Elmer cartoon. Over the next two decades, Bugs and Elmer would go head-to-head in over 35 shorts. “What’s Opera, Doc?” would be one of their final confrontations during the initial Looney Tunes run, and the last to be directed by Chuck Jones.
Although Mel Blanc is the only credited voice actor in “What’s Opera, Doc?”, Elmer’s voice was provided by radio actor Arthur Q. Bryan. Bryan voiced the hunter starting in the late ’30s up until his death in 1959. Side note: Mel Blanc would occasionally supply the voice of Fudd over the years, typically a single line or vocal effect when Bryan was unavailable. Blanc can be heard as Fudd in “What’s Opera, Doc?” for exactly one word: “SMOG!”
I don’t have a lot to say about the short itself, hence the abundance of contextualizing in this post. This is another one of those NFR entries where my opinion of the actual film is “It’s good. It’s very good.” I will take a moment, however, to point out how much I love Elmer Fudd’s singing voice. I think it’s a combination of Arthur Q. Bryan’s very sincere performance and Fudd’s famous abundance of W’s in his speech that makes me laugh every time.
Dressed as Brünnhilde, Bugs Bunny continues his running gag of dressing in drag to confuse his antagonists, a trait of his even before he was officially Bugs Bunny. As with so many of Bugs’ shorts, “What’s Opera, Doc?” obeys the comedy rule of cartoon drag: No one notices it’s a disguise until the wig falls off. It’s also worth noting that Michael Maltese had previously dressed Bugs as a Valkyrie in the 1945 short “Herr Meets Hare”.
In a twist from the usual Bugs/Fudd cartoon (and from Wagner’s opera), Elmer actually defeats Bugs. This is one of only three shorts in which Elmer is victorious, though this is the only one where he feels remorse for his actions. But all is fine when Bugs addresses the audience with the great curtain line: “Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?”

Legacy

“What’s Opera, Doc?” was released in July 1957, and thanks to its frequent airings on television quickly became one of the best known of the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies. Reflecting years later in his autobiography, Chuck Jones called the short “probably our most elaborate and satisfying production.”
You’ll read in a lot of places (including the official NFR write-up) that “What’s Opera, Doc?” was the first animated short inducted into the National Film Registry. That’s all well and good, but are we not counting “Gertie the Dinosaur“, inducted the year before? I guess we can technically consider “What’s Opera, Doc?” the first fully animated short in the Registry, but let’s give Winsor McCay his due.
In 1994, animation historian Jerry Beck published “The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals”, now considered the animation equivalent of the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Movies list. “What’s Opera, Doc?” was voted the number one greatest cartoon in the book and is one of thirteen shorts on the list that have been inducted into the National Film Registry so far.
Surprisingly, several accomplished opera singers (including Elizabeth Bishop and Jamie Barton) have cited “What’s Opera, Doc?” as their introduction to the artform and their inspiration to make it their career.
But of course, this short’s biggest legacy was and is Elmer Fudd’s iconic new lyrics to “Ride of the Valkyries”: “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit”. You cannot hear that music without hearing Elmer Fudd singing his heart out. Heck, I rank it above that one scene in “Apocalypse Now” as the definite use of that music in a movie.