In honour of Bugs Bunny's fiftieth birthday in 1990, a television series of 65 half-hour instalments composed of Warner Brothers cartoons was released in syndication, that is directly to individual television stations, by Warner Brothers Domestic Television, to supplement the ABC television network's Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show. The 65 instalments were intended to be run 5 days per week over a 13-week time period from September 17 to December 14, 1990 and then aired an additional 7 times until September, 1992.
This television series was given the name of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends because the more familiar Looney Tunes title had become the property of the Nickelodeon specialty cable television channel. Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends' format differed from that of Looney Tunes On Nickelodeon in that one Bugs Bunny cartoon was featured in every three-cartoon instalment. Most post-1948 Bugs Bunny cartoon shorts not in the Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show cartoon package between September, 1990 and September, 1992 were to be seen on Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends. Exceptions were "Rabbit Every Monday", "Knights Must Fall", "Bedevilled Rabbit", "Backwoods Bunny", "Rabbit's Feat", "Bugsy and Mugsy", "A Witch's Tangled Hare", "Pre-Hysterical Hare", and "Which is Witch". Those Bugs Bunny cartoons were to be televised by Nickelodeon from September of 1990 to September of 1992.
Before the third cartoon in most of the Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends instalments was a clip from one of the cartoons in other episodes in the television series. So that all instalments of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends would be of uniform length, these clips varied from 30 seconds to as long as 2 minutes depending on the length of the three cartoons composing each episode. All clips were introduced with the Tasmanian Devil coughing from his mouth the letters that spelled "Another Hip Clip". There were no "Hip Clips" in Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends instalments 2, 19, 21, 35, 38, 55, and 56.
The package of cartoons allocated to Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends included a number of Bugs Bunny cartoons that for censorship or other reasons never were in the offering for Saturday morning U.S. television network broadcast, including "Bugs and Thugs", "Rebel Rabbit", and "Bushy Hare". Also in the Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends cartoon package were most of the Rudy Larriva-directed Road Runner cartoons and nearly all of the Tweety cartoons that between September, 1990 and September, 1992 were not part of The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show. A quite large amount of the cartoons assembled for the Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends television series were those of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig.
Openings to the 65 episodes of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends were directed by Darrell Van Citters and showed Bugs jumping out of the Warner Brothers' concentric circles and producing a square containing a classic cartoon scene with a particular character or characters. The character or characters shown would vary from episode to episode. Some of the clips used were of Yosemite Sam (from "14 Carrot Rabbit"), Porky Pig (from "Dog Collared"), Sylvester and Sylvester Jr. (from "Pop 'im Pop!"), Daffy Duck (from "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!"), and Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk (from "The EGGcited Rooster"). Always, Daffy Duck would appear beside Bugs and jealously try to replace the pictured character in the square with himself or to remove the square from the camera's view, only to be defeated either when the pictured character retaliates, or when the square strikes Daffy in the face or propels him upward.
Most cartoons shown would keep their original title card and crew and director credits, but not their Warner Brothers introduction, original Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies logo, or "That's All, Folks!" ending. One exception in the latter regard was "Stop! Look! And Hasten!", which did retain its closing visuals of the Road Runner's cloud trail composing the "That's All, Folks!" line.
A number of cartoons on Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends were only titled, not credited, them being some of the cartoon shorts from the late 1940s ("Daffy Dilly", "Scaredy Cat", "The Foghorn Leghorn", "You Were Never Duckier"), which had had their crew and director credits removed when reissued for theatres in the late 1950s, and the retitled "Prince Violent", now "Prince Varmint", for which the revised title was printed on plain, brown background (the titling utilised for that cartoon in its appearances in episodes of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show in the late 1970s and early 1980s).
The 65 syndicated episodes of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends boldly contained several cartoons that have since then disappeared from circulation due to racial or ethnic stereotypes. Cartoons like "Caveman Inki" and "Wise Quackers", now for all intents and purposes banned from television, were distributed between 1990 and 1992 on Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends with little or no cutting. However, cuts for violence were standard procedure, as they were on The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show. The censors for Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends were not squeamish about electric shocks or head-pounding producing lumps, but gunshot scenes in the Rabbit-Season/Duck-Season trilogy and several other cartoons were excised using still-frame cutaways at the time of gunfire. Cannon gags in "The Rebel Without Claws", "Captain Hareblower", and "This is a Life?" were trimmed. And "Big House Bunny" underwent major revision to eliminate the scene in which (Yosemite) Sam Schultz hangs in a noose.
Below is an episode guide for the 65 episodes of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends that were run in syndication between September, 1990 and September, 1992. "Hip Clips" are only provided for those episodes in which they are clearly remembered by this writer.
Season 1Cartoons in episodes of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends do not correspond in the same way as those in weekly (i.e. one show per week) television series like The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show. Shared elements are seldom within same or consecutive episodes. They are spread over the instalments comprising a week or in episodes in consecutive weeks. A cartoon in a Monday episode may have things in common with a cartoon or cartoons in an episode on the succeeding Monday, or a cartoon on a Tuesday may contain aspects of association with one of the same week's Thursday or Friday episode. Hence, this article will not do an episode-by-episode analysis and will be rather sporadic in noting cartoon similarities.
The first week of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends was composed of the following
cartoons: "High Diving Hare", "Claws For Alarm", and "Fast and Furry-ous" of Show 1; "Often an Orphan",
"Mouse Wreckers", and "The Hasty Hare" of Show 2; "Bully For Bugs", "Tweet and Sour", and "Henhouse Henery"
of Show 3; "The Scarlet Pumpernickel", "My Bunny Lies Over the Sea", and "One Froggy Evening" of Show 4;
and "From A to Z-z-z-z", "Gee Whiz-z-z-z!", and "Hillbilly Hare" of Show 5. Included in the preponderance
of Chuck Jones-directed classics in this first week of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends
were the inn motif in "Claws For Alarm" (the forsaken Dry Gulch Hotel) and in "The Scarlet Pumpernickel"
(Elmer Fudd's olde English lodgings), the incidence of Scotland in Charlie Dog's conveyance by mail to that
place's Highlands and return as a jovial bagpiper to Porky Pig's Stateside farm ("Often an Orphan") and
in Bugs' shenanigans on a golf course near Loch Lomand in "My Bunny Lies Over the Sea", and the yokel
implication of Angus McCrory's bullet that has, "been in (his) family for ye-e-e-r-r-r-s," ("My Bunny Lies
Over the Sea") that accords with the Ozark Mountain men who declare a feud with a square-dance-calling Bugs
in Robert McKimson's "Hillbilly Hare".
Some other items of interest in the first week of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends are
the repeated letter Zs in the titles of "From A to Z-z-z-z" and "Gee Whiz-z-z-z!", the olde English scroll
found with Michigan J. Frog in "One Froggy Evening" by the hapless construction worker, which coincides with
the time period setting of "The Scarlet Pumpernickel", Bugs as an Indian in "High Diving Hare" foreshadowing Ralph
Phillips' imagined encounter with savage redskins in "From A to Z-z-z-z", and the frontier town backdrop to
the ordeals of Bugs in "High Diving Hare" and Porky and Sylvester in Dry Gulch in "Claws For Alarm". Two of
the Road Runner cartoons in Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends' first week involve Wile
E. Coyote dressing as a super-hero, Superman in "Fast and Furry-ous" and Batman in "Gee Whiz-z-z-z!". Feline
sanity is under question in "Claws For Alarm" and "Mouse Wreckers". An eager-to-please dog (Charlie, K-9) is
featured in "Often an Orphan" and "The Hasty Hare" respectively.
The cartoons of week 2 were "Mutiny On the Bunny", "Deduce, You Say", and
"Much Ado About Nutting" of Show 6; "Mouse-Taken Identity", "Rabbit Fire",
and "To Beep or Not to Beep" of Show 7; "Frigid Hare", "Kiss Me Cat", and
"Dog Collared" of Show 8; "Bill of Hare", "Lovelorn Leghorn", and "The
Hypo-Chondri-Cat" of Show 9; and "Daffy Dilly", "Stooge For a Mouse", and
"What's Opera, Doc?" of Show 10. "Mutiny On the Bunny" recalls Marvin
Martian's fussing about insubordination by K-9 (after Bugs suggests that
Marvin's faithful cohort may have mutinous intent) in week 1's "The Hasty
Hare". In "To Beep or Not to Beep" is a Greco-Roman catapult used by Wile E.,
preceding the ancient Rome scenario of "Roman Legion-Hare" in Show 11 in
week 3. Three cartoons in Show 8, "Frigid Hare", "Kiss Me Cat", and "Dog
Collared", all have a be-kind-to-animals theme. Both Bugs and Porky befriend
an affectionate animal (a penguin, a slobbering dog) that wishes for their
constant company, and Marc Anthony is obliged to protect little Pussyfoot
from an aggressive and unprincipled mouse (which whips Pussyfoot into
pulling a mini-chariot like a Roman slave, with hint to the coming of
"Roman Legion-Hare").
More second week peculiarities are a butler motif in "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat" as Claude Cat pretends to be butler to home-intruding rodents Hubie and Bertie: "Will there be anything else, gentlemen?" This motif recurs in "Daffy Dilly", wherein Daffy must combat the stodgy servant of a dying millionaire for access to the ailing magnate's bedroom, and in "Golden Yeggs" of Show 11, with Rocky's butler: "Your laundry, sir." Pill-popping Claude Cat's belief that he is terminally ill in "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat" also associates with the situation of the really sick millionaire of "Daffy Dilly".
The contents of the third week of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and
Friends were "Roman Legion-Hare", "Golden Yeggs", and "Scaredy Cat" of Show
11; "Little Boy Boo", "Dough Ray Me-Ow", and "Show Biz Bugs" of Show 12;
"Transylvania 6-5000", "Bear Feat", and "Zip 'n Snort" of Show 13; "Curtain Razor",
"Weasel While You Work", and "Bugs and Thugs" of Show 14; and "Robot
Rabbit", "Dog Gone South", and "Putty Tat Trouble" of Show 15. Week 3
contained the following things of interest: riches, the prospect thereof,
in "Golden Yeggs" and "Dough Ray Me-Ow", lions in "Roman Legion-Hare" that
succeed Sylvester's in-museum, stuffed-lion peril in Show 7's "Mouse-Taken
Identity", explosive concoctions in "Little Boy Boo" and "Show Biz Bugs",
Daffy and the show-business-eager wolf's mortal and hell-bound consumption
of explosives in an act that can only be done once, in "Show Biz Bugs"
and "Curtain Razor" respectively, and the motif of a circus in the Three
Bears' antics in "Bear Feat" and the high-diving dog's performance for
talent agent Porky in "Curtain Razor", involving a plunge into a drinking
glass, which Elmer Fudd will do in the following week's (Show 18's) "His
Hare-Raising Tale". Nocturnal stays in a spooky setting are a commonality
of "Scaredy Cat" and "Transylvania 6-5000". Afterlife is posited in the
climaxes of "Dough Ray Me-Ow", "Show Biz Bugs", and "Curtain Razor".
Also in week 3, gangster Rocky appears in two cartoons, "Golden Yeggs"
and "Bugs and Thugs". Ice and snow provide the background to the events of
"Weasel While You Work", "Putty Tat Trouble", and "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!"
(Show 16 in week 4), and Wile E.'s ice-making machine freezes him in Show
16's "Zoom at the Top". It is interesting that the first two Tweety
cartoons on Merrie Melodies, "Tweet and Sour" (Show 3) and "Putty
Tat Trouble" (Show 15), contest Sylvester with a one-eyed, orange tabby for
possession of the "itty birdie", and "Putty Tat Trouble" and the next
Tweety cartoon on the show, "Snow Business" (Show 25), are winter-timed and
contain scenes in which Sylvester uses a long-neck ashtray to extinguish his
smoking tail. Furthermore, "Scaredy Cat" in Show 11 is the second Porky Pig
and Sylvester cartoon to air on a Monday, "Claws For Alarm" having been in
Show 1.
The cartoons included in week 4: "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!", "Zoom at the Top", and "Wild Wild World" of Show 16; "The Slap-Hoppy Mouse", "Wholly Smoke", and "Sahara Hare" of Show 17; "Stork Naked", "Feline Frame-Up", and "His Hare-Raising Tale" of Show 18; "Broom-Stick Bunny", "A Sheep in the Deep", and "Jeepers Creepers" of Show 19; and "Feather Dusted", "Ready.. Set.. Zoom!", and "Rabbit's Kin" of Show 20. Week 4 contained cartoons having a tea scene, with Bugs (in disguise as an ugly sorceress) and Witch Hazel in "Broom-Stick Bunny" and Bugs and Pete Puma (in the goofy guise of Mrs. Rabbit) in "Rabbit's Kin". A carrot dangling on a string, from a fishing rod in two cases, is used to catch Bugs in "Broom-Stick Bunny" and in week 5's "Spaced-Out Bunny" (Show 22) and "Rabbit Romeo" (Show 23). In "Zoom at the Top", Wile E. Coyote attempts and fails to bear-trap the Road Runner, and a multiple amount of the same device is utilised by un-expectant father Daffy with intent of preventing a "sloshed" stork's delivery in "Stork Naked".
Week 5's content cartoons were "A Star is Bored", "An Egg Scramble", and
"Yankee Dood it" of Show 21; "Stupor Duck", "Spaced-Out Bunny", and "Caveman
Inki" of Show 22; "Strife With Father", "Highway Runnery", and "Rabbit Romeo"
of Show 23; "The Iceman Ducketh", "Of Rice and Hen", "Porky Pig's Feat" of
Show 24; and "I Gopher You", "Bowery Bugs", and "Snow Business" of Show 25.
"Rabbit Romeo", "The Iceman Ducketh", and "Snow Business" involve the onset
of winter. Prehistory is a shared time-setting of "Caveman Inki" and week
4's "Wild, Wild World" (Show 16). The Mynah bird of "Caveman Inki" and Beaky
Buzzard in "Strife With Father" are both black-plumed fowl of voracious
species, although Beaky is too bashful to be an aggressive hunter in
"Strife With Father". Egg-hatching occurs in "Strife With Father" and
"Highway Runnery". A hotel with a disagreeable proprietor in "Porky Pig's
Feat" is similar in its undesirability to Porky's predicament in "Dime to
Retire" (Show 27 in week 6) as guest of Daffy's troublesome inn. Bugs poses
as an Irish constable to Steve Brody in "Bowery Bugs", and
police-officer-on-patrol Porky in Show 27's "Riff Raffy Daffy" shouts with
an Irish accent when angered. Bugs, dressed as a damsel, plays "drop the
handkerchief" with Brody, as too does Miss Prissy with her beloved Foghorn
Leghorn in "Of Rice and Hen".
Week 6's instalments were as follows: Show 26 with "Ballot Box Bunny",
"Boulder Wham!", and "Gone Batty"; Show 27 with "Riff Raffy Daffy", "Apes
of Wrath", and "Dime to Retire"; Show 28 with "Strangled Eggs", "A Fox in a
Fix", and "Person to Bunny"; Show 29 with "Baby Buggy Bunny", "Out and Out
Rout", and "Pappy's Puppy"; and Show 30 with "A Bear For Punishment",
"Porky's Pooch", and "This is a Life?". "Gone Batty" and "Dime to Retire"
reference circuses in that Bobo the Elephant's appearance on the baseball
pitcher's mound as Sweetwater Schnooks' relief-hurler prompts members of
the opposing team to comment that, "This is a ball game, not a circus," and
Porky resists the attack of a lion by use of a chair a la big top lion
tamer. Elephants also appear in both cartoons. "Boulder Wham" further
suggests carnival feats in Wile E.'s attempt to walk, with a circus
balancing stick in his hand, across a rope and his use of a trampoline.
The very windy weather of "Out and Out Rout" thematically accords with the
ACME tornado seeds in "Whoa, Be-Gone!" (Show 33 in week 7), and these two
Road Runner cartoons were both in same episodes of The Bugs Bunny/Road
Runner Hour. "Person to Bunny" and "This is a Life?" are both television
show parodies, with celebrity Bugs as the centre of attention. Incidence of
Father's Day in "A Bear For Punishment" is reminiscent of Butch J. Bulldog's
parenthood in "Pappy's Puppy".
The cartoons included in the seventh week of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny
and Friends were "Wild and Woolly Hare", "Bell Hoppy", and "Rocket Squad" of
Show 31; "Quack Shot", "Captain Hareblower", and "The Leghorn Blows at Midnight"
of Show 32; "Tom Tom Tomcat", "Whoa, Be-Gone!", and "The Hasty Hare" of Show 33;
"The Prize Pest", "Bewitched Bunny", and "The Mouse That Jack Built" of Show 34;
and "Cracked Quack", "Roman Legion-Hare", and "Kiddin' the Kitten" of Show
35. Week 7's proximity to Halloween accounts for the presence in its
instalments of "Bewitched Bunny" (Witch Hazel's connection to the night of
ghouls is obvious), "The Prize Pest" (Daffy's Jekyll-and-Hyde act and
Porky's ghastly costume), the every-mouse's-nightmare scenario of "The
Mouse that Jack Built", and Bugs' assumption that Marvin Martian and K-9
are trick-or-treaters in "The Hasty Hare". "The Prize Pest" has a
relationship to "The Ducksters" of Show 39 in week eight: Porky is a
contestant in radio game programmes of which Daffy is the prize in the former
and the host in the latter. A marshland's large fish threatens trouble to
Elmer Fudd in "Quack Shot", and Yosemite Sam, carrying a black-ball bomb, is
swallowed by a huge fish in "Captain Hareblower".
The component cartoons of week 8 were "Rabbit Seasoning", "Stop! Look! And Hasten!", and "The Honey-Mousers" of Show 36; "A Fractured Leghorn", "Paying the Piper", and "My Bunny Lies Over the Sea" of Show 37; "The Super Snooper", "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bunny", and "Goo Goo Goliath" of Show 38; "To Hare is Human", "The Ducksters", and "Go Fly a Kit" of Show 39; and "Little Red Rodent Hood", "Shot and Bothered", and "Ballot Box Bunny" of Show 40. The use of mice to spoof a television show, The Honeymooners, in "The Honey-Mousers" accords with the same practice, The Jack Benny Programme being the spoofed subject, in Show 34's "The Mouse That Jack Built". Jack Benny was also a radio personality, thus further associating Show 34 with Show 39. "Paying the Piper" and "Little Red Rodent Hood" are based on fairy tales. Porky is a player of a pipe in "Paying the Piper", and Bugs meets bagpiper Angus McCrory in "My Bunny Lies Over the Sea". Youth or babyhood and childhood innocence are a shared theme of "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bunny", "Goo Goo Goliath", and "Go Fly a Kit".
Week 9's cartoons consisted of "Southern Fried Rabbit", "Double or Mutton",
and "Crockett-Doodle-Do" of Show 41; "Greedy For Tweety", "Gopher Broke",
and "Hillbilly Hare" of Show 42; "False Hare", "Beep Prepared", and
"Chow Hound" of Show 43; "Boston Quackie", "Bill of Hare", and "Porky's Duck Hunt"
of Show 44; and "Big House Bunny", "Rocket-Bye Baby", and "The Coy Decoy"
of Show 45. In this week are cartoons referencing crime ("Boston Quackie")
and incarceration ("Big House Bunny"), which accord with week 10's "The
Unmentionables" (Show 47). Cafes of Franco-European ambiance are elements of
"Bill of Hare" (Bugs' pretended Shish Kabob Emporium) and "Boston Quackie"
(the dining establishment patronised by Daffy "Quackie" and Mary). In
"Boston Quackie", there is a component of the Cloak and Dagger Express,
called "Electrique Chair Car", which appropriately precedes the electric
chair sequence of "Big House Bunny". An added note on the motif of the
European "eatery": "A Hound For Trouble" that transpires in an Italian
restaurant is featured in Show 49 on the following week. Also pertinent in
this regard is the Luigi's Diner coin-tossing scene of "Early to Bet" in
Show 47. Sylvester is hospitalised and medicated in "Greedy For Tweety", and
the Goofy Gophers' "psychological wearing-down process" results in the
barnyard dog's swallowing of "E-Z Doze It" sleeping pills. In "Chow Hound",
another animal requires medical attention: the "flimflam Fido" bulldog
who is the victim of his own excessive appetite for meat.
The episodes of week ten: Show 46 with "Bonanza Bunny", "Chaser On the
Rocks", and "Cats A-Weigh!"; Show 47 with "You Were Never Duckier", "The
Unmentionables", and "Early to Bet"; Show 48 with "Pop 'im Pop!", "Frigid
Hare", and "Bugged By a Bee"; Show 49 with "Horse Hare", "Porky's Bear
Facts", and
"A Hound For Trouble"; and Show 50 with "Rebel Rabbit",
"Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner", and "The EGGcited Rooster". Beverages
with ice are referenced in "Bonanza Bunny" by Bugs' order of, "...a
straight shot of carrot juice, over the rocks," in the Dawson City Malibu
Saloon and in the title of "Chaser On the Rocks". Aboriginal Americans are
frequent figures in week 10: the attack on Fort Lariat in "Horse Hare",
Bugs' sale of Manhattan to the Indians in "Rebel Rabbit", Wile E.'s rain
dance in "Run, Run Sweet Road Runner", and Henery Hawk's "Injun" costume in
"The EGGcited Rooster". Cement is used to weight Bugs' feet by Rocky and
Mugsy in "The Unmentionables", and a construction worker is frustratingly
attempting to establish a newly cemented sidewalk in "Pop 'im Pop!".
More observations on the tenth week of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends: the gambling-by-cards between Bugs and Blacque Jacque Shellacque in "Bonanza Bunny" accords admirably with the effect of the Gambling Bug in "Early to Bet" and the antics of Bugs and Nasty Canasta in Show 51's (week 11's) "Barbary-Coast Bunny"; the wagering "profession" is also mentioned by Rocky ("Oh, yeah, well, I'm the bookie here, and I'll do the booking.") in "The Unmentionables"; Bugs is imprisoned in "Rebel Rabbit", echoing his predicament as an inmate at Sing Song Prison one week earlier in "Big House Bunny" (Show 45) and in "The Unmentionables" in this week's Show 47; "Bugged By a Bee", the tale of Cool Cat's timely athletic energy surges born of stings by a bee appears to be linked by thorny antagonist to the ill-fated honey-gathering endeavour of Pa and Junior Bear in Show 54's "The Bee-Deviled Bruin".
The cartoons included in week 11: "Barbary-Coast Bunny", "Lickety-Splat!",
and "Sleepy-Time Possum" of Show 51; "The Foghorn Leghorn", "Porky's Movie Mystery", and "A Star is Bored" of Show 52; "Tweet Zoo", "Wideo Wabbit", and "Don't Give Up the Sheep" of Show 53; "People Are Bunny", "War and Pieces", and "The Bee-Deviled Bruin" of Show 54; and "The Daffy Duckaroo", "Sock a Doodle Do", and "Lighter Than Hare" of Show 55. More savage Native Americans wreak havoc in two cartoons in week 11, "Wideo Wabbit"
and "People Are Bunny", both set in a television studio in which
Bugs respectively heckles Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck and in the guise of an
usher directs his hunting rifle-toting foes into a room wherein
a violent, historic confrontation with Indians is being reenacted. In
"Sock a Doodle Do", the barnyard dog tricks Foghorn Leghorn into looking
through a "telescopic" tube at a literal "flying saucer" propelled directly
into Foghorn's face, a gag that corresponds with the alien-invasion-of-Earth
premise of "Lighter Than Hare". A wildcat released by Ralph Wolf from a box
near to Sam Sheepdog in "Don't Give Up the Sheep" accords with Sylvester's
encounter with the untamed lion in "Tweet Zoo". Wile E. Coyote's use of
invisible paint in "War and Pieces" connects with Ralph Crumden's false
invisible ink in "Cheese it, the Cat!" (Show 58 in week 12). In "Barbary-Coast
Bunny", Bugs mistakes one of Nasty Canasta's gambling casino slot machines
for a "tele-o-phone", and in "Lickety-Splat!", a hammer falling onto Wile
E.'s head causes his eyes to roll like the symbols of a slot machine and
register, "Tilt".
Week 12's five instalments consisted of "Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol",
"Raw! Raw! Rooster!", and "Just Plane Beep" in Show 56; "Freudy Cat", "Baby
Buggy Bunny", and "The Lion's Busy" in Show 57; "Bushy Hare", "Porky and
Daffy", and "Cheese it, the Cat!" in Show 58; "The Slick Chick", "Apes of
Wrath", and "Puss N' Booty" in Show 59;
"Wise Quackers", "Clippety Clobbered", and
"The Windblown Hare" in Show 60. Foghorn Leghorn and Bugs Bunny endure the
misery of care taking what at first seems to them to be an innocent minor in
"The Slick Chick" and "Baby Buggy Bunny". Bugs is erroneously transported by
a drunken stork to a a maternal gorilla in "Apes of Wrath" and is
inadvertently delivered by the same bird (albeit not inebriated) to a mother
kangaroo in "Bushy Hare". Wile E.'s use of war surplus equipment in "Just
Plane Beep" is reminiscent of Bugs' construction of a robot from military
left-over materials in Show 55's (week 11's) "Lighter Than Hare". In "Bugs
Bunny's Christmas Carol", Yosemite Sam as Scrooge is stacking coins rather
like the money accumulated by Bugs in Canasta's place of gambling in
"Barbary-Coast Bunny" (Show 51) is piled.
The thirteenth and final week of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends was composed of the following cartoons: "14 Carrot Rabbit", "The Pest That Came to Dinner", and "Tired and Feathered" of Show 61; "The High and the Flighty", "Two's a Crowd", and "A-Lad-in His Lamp" of Show 62; "The Dixie Fryer", "Prince Varmint", and "Mouse-Warming" of Show 63; "The Rebel Without Claws", "Woolen Under Where", and "Rabbit Seasoning" of Show 64; and "Hare-Abian Nights", "To Itch His Own", and "Bye, Bye, Bluebeard" of Show 65. "A-Lad-in His Lamp" and "Hare-Abian Nights" have Arabian settings, and Daffy Duck is bottled like a genie at the end of "The High and the Flighty". Early Americana is referenced by the slavery theme and Daffy's Lincoln disguise in Show 59's "Wise Quackers" in week 12 and by the U.S. Civil War of "The Rebel Without Claws". The sword worn by the executioner in "The Rebel Without Claws" has the same belt attachment aspect as that of "Prince Varmint". "Mouse-Warming" and "Bye, Bye, Bluebeard" involve a mouse being swallowed and escaping the mouth of his wishful devourer through mouse-eater Claude or Bluebeard's front tooth or teeth, which are opened and shut like doors. Pierre, the mightiest termite, and Mighty Angelo, the World's Strongest Flea- two tiny insects with potent muscles, respectively bedevil Porky Pig in "The Pest That Came to Dinner" and a swaggering, irritable bulldog in "To Itch His Own".
Show # 1 Yosemite Sam high diving in a Wild West carnival, Porky and Sylvester staying for a night at the creepy Dry Gulch Hotel, and a chase by Wile E. Coyote of the Road Runner onto a freeway cloverleaf are aspects of this show. "High Diving Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Claws For Alarm" with Porky Pig and Sylvester "Hip Clip" from "Bye, Bye, Bluebeard" with Porky Pig "Fast and Furry-ous" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Show # 2 Happily canine-less farmer Porky is beset with pushy Charlie Dog seeking a master, rodents Hubie and Bertie contrive to trigger mental collapse in Claude Cat so that they can have carefree residence in Claude's house, and Marvin Martian and his assistant, K-9, come to Earth to obtain a living subject of study and hereby choose Bugs, who commandeers their flying saucer after enwrapping them in straightjackets. "Often an Orphan" with Porky Pig and Charlie Dog "Mouse Wreckers" with Claude Cat, Hubie, and Bertie "The Hasty Hare" with Bugs Bunny, Marvin Martian, and K-9 Show # 3 Bugs emerges victorious against his bovine foe in a bullfight ring, Sylvester acts to protect Tweety from an orange cat's hungry clutches, for Granny has threatened a violin string fate for Sylvester should any harm befall Tweety, and Henery Hawk is lectured by Foghorn Leghorn on the necessity of "starting small" in his quest for chicken flesh. "Bully For Bugs" with Bugs Bunny and the Bull "Tweet and Sour" with Tweety, Sylvester, and Granny "Hip Clip" from "Sahara Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Henhouse Henery" with Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk Show # 4 A construction worker discovers a frog that will sing only for him and thus frustrates his aim of attaining fame and fortune by exhibiting the tuneful amphibian, Bugs plays golf with a short-tempered Scot, and Daffy reads to Warner Brothers mogul J. L. the scripted Merry Olde English saga of the Scarlet Pumpernickel, played ineptly by Daffy. "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" with Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Henery Hawk, and Mama Bear "My Bunny Lies Over the Sea" with Bugs Bunny and Angus McCrory "One Froggy Evening" with Michigan J. Frog Show # 5 Ralph Phillips slips in and out of flights of daydream fantasy in the middle of school classes, Wile E. Coyote's Batman costume fails to enable him to grab the Road Runner, and a pair of hillbillies square dance with each other in compliance with the violent, yokel lyrics sung by Bugs. "From A to Z-z-z-z" with Ralph Phillips "Gee Whiz-z-z-z!" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Hip Clip" from "Lovelorn Leghorn" with Foghorn Leghorn and Miss Prissy "Hillbilly Hare" with Bugs Bunny and the Martin Brothers Show # 6 Bugs executes a one-rabbit mutiny against cruel Captain Shanghai (Yosemite) Sam aboard the Sad Sack, formerly the Jolly Roger, Daffy as sleuth Dorlock Homes visits a pub in Victorian London with overconfident intention of apprehending the notorious Shropshire Slasher, and a squirrel endeavours at high altitude to crack open a particularly stubborn nut. "Mutiny On the Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Deduce, You Say" with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig "Hip Clip" from "Tweet Zoo" with Tweety and Sylvester "Much Ado About Nutting" with the Nut-Collecting Squirrel Show # 7 Bugs and Daffy run from the rifle of hunter Elmer Fudd, who is confused as to whether it is rabbit season or duck season and is unsure that his "elephant gun" is suitable for killing rabbit or duck, Wile E. Coyote's catapult repeatedly drops a boulder on top of him, and Sylvester and Sylvester Jr. encounter baby kangaroo Hippety Hopper, which they mistake for a giant mouse, while they are in mouse-catcher Sylvester's museum workplace. "Mouse-Taken Identity" with Sylvester, Sylvester Jr., and Hippety Hopper "Rabbit Fire" with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd "To Beep or Not to Beep" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Show # 8 Bugs errs on his vacation route to Miami Beach and finds himself in Antarctica, where he protects a penguin from capture by an Eskimo. With a magnifying glass, bulldog Marc Antony proves that his kitten friend, Pussyfoot, is capable of scaring all of the infesting rodents from the house of Marc and Pussyfoot's master. Porky's kindness toward a big, slobbering dog results in his inability to lose the overly affectionate canine. "Frigid Hare" with Bugs Bunny and the Penguin "Kiss Me Cat" with Marc Antony and Pussyfoot "Dog Collared" with Porky Pig Show # 9 Rolling pin in hand, Miss Prissy seeks a husband- Foghorn Leghorn; the Tasmanian Devil, having broken loose from a crate on a pier, carnivorously pesters carrot-basting Bugs, who lures Taz on a quest for moose meat into a train tunnel- containing a train, of course; and two mice, wishing to have unopposed occupancy of Claude Cat's home, convince hypochondriac Claude Cat that he is seriously ill and in desperate need of an operation to be performed by them- an operation that they deceive Claude into believing to have killed him and resulted in his rise by balloon to Cat Heaven. "Bill of Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil "Lovelorn Leghorn" with Foghorn Leghorn and Miss Prissy "Hip Clip" from "A Bear For Punishment" with the Three Bears "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat" with Claude Cat, Hubie, and Bertie Show # 10 Daffy endeavours to gain entry to an ailing millionaire's mansion in order to provoke laughter in the wealthy one before his death and is blocked from entering the lavish house by the millionaire's stodgy butler. A mouse wishing Sylvester's removal from impeding his attainment of a block of cheese deceives Mike Bulldog into thinking Sylvester to be a provocative foe. Finally, Elmer's hunting of Bugs is parodied to the pretentiousness of Wagnerian opera. "Daffy Dilly" with Daffy Duck "Stooge For a Mouse" with Sylvester and Mike Bulldog "What's Opera, Doc?" with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd Show # 11 Emperor Nero commands Roman Legionnaire Yosemite Sam to obtain a victim, Bugs, to feed to the Colosseum lions, but the big cats maul and eat Sam and the Emperor; Daffy is content to accept responsibility and acclaim for producing the golden egg really laid by a goose, that is until Rocky the mobster abducts and orders Daffy by gunpoint to lay more such eggs; and murderous mice instill terror in Sylvester who is residing with blase Porky in an old, spooky house. "Roman Legion-Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Golden Yeggs" with Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Rocky "Hip Clip" from "Zoom at the Top" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Scaredy Cat" with Porky Pig and Sylvester Show # 12 Foghorn Leghorn shakes "boy genius" Egghead Jr.'s chemical concoction and is recipient of a violent explosion, Daffy, desperate to win against Bugs in a competition for theatre audience approval, swallows highly volatile fluids for a sensational act that can only be performed once, and a parrot connives to eliminate the stupid house cat with whom he shares his master's home and who precedes him in inheriting their master's affluent legacy. "Little Boy Boo" with Foghorn Leghorn, Miss Prissy, and Egghead Jr. "Dough Ray Me-Ow" with Louie the Parrot and Heathcliff the Cat "Hip Clip" from "Stupor Duck" with Daffy Duck "Show Biz Bugs" with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck Show # 13 A Transylvanian bloodsucker cannot better Bugs in a war of magic words, Papa Bear's aspirations to being a circus performer are ruined by his many-accident-causing son and by a decidedly out-of-date newspaper, and Wile E. Coyote's failed Road Runner-procurement ploys include a hand grenade in a toy aeroplane, a cannon positioned on the edge of a cliff, and axle grease rubbed onto his feet. "Transylvania 6-5000" with Bugs Bunny and Count Bloodcount "Bear Feat" with the Three Bears "Zip 'n Snort" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Show # 14 Bugs hails a taxi in the city and unwittingly enters the getaway car of bank robbers Rocky and Mugsy, who bring Bugs to their hideout where Bugs impersonates a policeman to dupe the villains into hiding inside a gas oven, which Bugs explodes, and Rocky and Mugsy surrender to the real police to avoid further injury by Bugs. Talent agent Porky views several oddball acts, including a wolf's self-destruction by ingesting a variety of explosive substances. Foghorn Leghorn frolics in winter ice and snow while engaging in a war of pranks with the barnyard dog and avoiding the "greedy, little choppers" of a foraging-for-food, hyperactive weasel. "Curtain Razor" with Porky Pig "Weasel While You Work" with Foghorn Leghorn and the Weasel "Bugs and Thugs" with Bugs Bunny, Rocky, and Mugsy Show # 15 Modern technology fails to facilitate farmer Elmer Fudd's elimination of the rabbit raider of his carrot patch, Charlie Dog proposes a pet-and-master relationship to an uninterested and fiery Southern Colonel, and in the wintry city, Tweety flees Sylvester and an orange putty tat onto a frozen park pond and cuts the ice around the cats so that they fall into frigid water and become flu-stricken. "Robot Rabbit" with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd "Dog Gone South" with Charlie Dog and Colonel Shuffle "Hip Clip" from "To Itch His Own" with Angelo the Mighty Flea and Bulldog "Putty Tat Trouble" with Tweety and Sylvester Show # 16 Elmer Fudd stalks rabbit and duck in a winter wilderness, uncertain of what particular animal that it is the season to hunt, Wile E. Coyote succeeds only in freezing, bear trapping, and boomeranging himself while endeavouring to stop and eat the Road Runner, and a filmed record of the "modern" Stone Age lifestyle is shown and narrated by Cave Darroway. "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!" with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd "Zoom at the Top" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Wild Wild World" with Cave Darroway Show # 17 The loading of gunpowder into a rifle is problematic for Sylvester, particularly with Hippety Hopper pulling the rifle's trigger, Porky receives a surrealistic anti-smoking message, and Bugs' arrival by mistake in the middle of the Sahara Desert is greeted by animosity by Saharan land baron Riff Raff (Yosemite) Sam. "The Slap-Hoppy Mouse" with Sylvester, Sylvester Jr., and Hippety Hopper "Wholly Smoke" with Porky Pig "Sahara Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam Show # 18 Daffy resorts to any means to prevent a drunken stork from delivering another bothersome baby to his home; Claude Cat's attempt to implicate innocent and gentle bulldog Marc Antony in the dropping of their fellow house pet Pussyfoot into a vase provokes righteous indignation in Marc Antony, who forces a confession of the despicable deed from Claude to their master; and Bugs remembers for his nephew some of his most extravagant escapades. "Stork Naked" with Daffy Duck and the Drunken Stork "Feline Frame-Up" with Marc Antony, Pussyfoot, and Claude Cat "His Hare-Raising Tale" with Bugs Bunny and Clyde Rabbit Show # 19 Wearing a sorcerous Halloween mask, Bugs poses a threat to Hazel's vanity that she is the "ugliest one of all", it is another violent day on the job for Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog, and policeman Porky encounters a playful ghost in a haunted house. "Broom-Stick Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Witch Hazel "A Sheep in the Deep" with Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog "Jeepers Creepers" with Porky Pig Show # 20 Foghorn Leghorn plays croquet and pirates with precocious intellectual chick Egghead Jr., who defeats him with applied mathematics in the former and perforates and sinks him with use of tiny gunboats in the latter, Wile E. Coyote's dynamite, elastic band, and heavy weight schemes to capture and feast upon the Road Runner miscarry, and Bugs protects a younger bunny from the hungry clutches of addle-brained Pete Puma. "Feather Dusted" with Foghorn Leghorn, Miss Prissy, and Egghead Jr. "Ready.. Set.. Zoom!" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Hip Clip" from "Mouse Wreckers" with Claude Cat, Hubie, and Bertie "Rabbit's Kin" with Bugs Bunny and Pete Puma Show # 21 Daffy serves as Bugs' stunt double in the hope of proving his mettle as a leading character for being granted a series of acclaimed cartoons all his own, Miss Prissy's chases the market truck carrying her presumed egg, snatches the egg from a woman preparing to boil it, and finds herself in the hideout of notorious criminal Pretty Boy Bagel, both of them about to be apprehended by police, and Elmer Fudd, the King of the Elves, instructs an outmoded mercantile shoemaker on the importance of the modern industrial technique of mass production, while Sylvester plots to use the magic word, Jehosophat, to transform Elmer into a mouse for him to eat. "A Star is Bored" with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and Yosemite Sam "An Egg Scramble" with Porky Pig and Miss Prissy "Yankee Dood it" with Sylvester and Elmer Fudd Show # 22 In a clever spoof of television's Superman, Daffy, in cape and not-so-tight-tights, embarks upon a high-flying, battle against the non-existent evil incarnate Aardvark Ratnik; a baby lion craves the bone in the hair of a caveman Negro boy, who hunts a wily Mynah bird, and Bugs is captured by Marvin Martian as a pet for Marvin's captured Himalayan companion, the Abominable Snowman, but Bugs persuades the snowman to instead adopt Marvin as the mechanism for his "Mickey Martian" wristwatch. "Stupor Duck" with Daffy Duck "Spaced-Out Bunny" with Bugs Bunny, Marvin Martian, and the Abominable Snowman "Hip Clip" from "The Pest That Came to Dinner" with Porky Pig and Pierre Termite "Caveman Inki" with Inki and the Mynah Bird Show # 23 Bumbling bumpkin Beaky Buzzard is adopted by a pair of English sparrows, Wile E. Coyote is the impacted victim of an old jalopy conducted by the Road Runner, and Bugs evades the advances of a fat, uncomely, lovelorn female bunny from Slobovia. "Strife With Father" with Beaky Buzzard "Highway Runnery" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Rabbit Romeo" with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd Show # 24 Daffy is a Klondike hunter for animal hides- and his quarry amid the ice, snow, and irascible polar bears, is Bugs' regal pelt, Miss Prissy aspires to lure complacent bachelor Foghorn Leghorn to the altar as her mate, with the aid of the barnyard dog, and Porky and Daffy are captives of the formidable owner of the Broken Arms Hotel pending their payment of a ponderous bill. "The Iceman Ducketh" with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck "Of Rice and Hen" with Foghorn Leghorn and Miss Prissy "Hip Clip" from "Crockett-Doodle-Do" with Foghorn Leghorn and Egghead Jr. "Porky Pig's Feat" with Porky Pig and Daffy Duck Show # 25 The Goofy Gophers enter a food processing factory with determination to reclaim their vegetables confiscated by "vandals", Bugs tells to a wizened man the story of what prompted a ruffian gambler desiring a lucky rabbit's foot to leap off of the side of the Brooklyn Bridge, and Sylvester and Tweety are snowbound in a cabin where the larder only contains bird seed. "I Gopher You" with the Goofy Gophers "Bowery Bugs" with Bugs Bunny and Steve Brody "Hip Clip" from "Lickety-Splat!" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Snow Business" with Tweety, Sylvester, and Granny Show # 26 Bugs contests Yosemite Sam in a small-town mayoral election, Wile E. Coyote's scheme to hypnotise the Road Runner into walking off the edge of a cliff is thwarted when Wile E. entrances himself with his own swaying watch and the Road Runner then provides with signs the instructions for Wile E. to walk into the deep chasm, and Bobo the Elephant is recruited to play all positions for the underdog team in a championship baseball game. "Ballot Box Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Boulder Wham!" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Gone Batty" with Bobo the Elephant Show # 27 Nighttime winter constable on patrol Porky finds vagrant Daffy loitering inside of the cosy display window of a closed- for-business department store and acts to remove the duck from the establishment. An inebriated, feathered bringer of a baby gorilla to expectant parents loses his tiny bundle and selects Bugs as a replacement for the infant simian, and the father ape is violently agitated by the rabbit son that he neither wants nor loves. Porky's stay at Daffy's hotel is hampered by a succession of rest-disturbing pests deposited in Porky's room by Daffy- with an ever-increasing fee requisitioned by Daffy for their removal. "Riff Raffy Daffy" with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig "Apes of Wrath" with Bugs Bunny and the Drunken Stork "Hip Clip" from "Claws For Alarm" with Porky Pig and Sylvester "Dime to Retire" with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Show # 28 Foghorn Leghorn's plan to marry well-to-do Miss Prissy to avoid a long, cold winter in his own squalor is complicated by Prissy's adoption of lost-and-foundling Henery Hawk, who persists in succumbing to his innate urge to eat chicken and chewing the flesh of Foghorn's arm, a fox pretends to be a dog to gain the friendship and confidence of the bulldog guarding the succulent chickens which the hungry fox wants to filch, but the bulldog is not fooled for a second by the fox and claims to be imparting to his "brother dog" a lesson of watchdoggery in throwing a stick of lit TNT for the fox to fetch and endure in his mouth the explosion. Lastly, Daffy bristles jealously at the attention given to Bugs by Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person television show. "Strangled Eggs" with Foghorn Leghorn, Henery Hawk, and Miss Prissy "A Fox in a Fix" with the Scheming Fox "Person to Bunny" with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd Show # 29 A diminutive, baby-disguised bank robber acts to retrieve his "dirty money" after the sack thereof accidentally falls into Bugs' subterranean abode, Wile E. Coyote, in pursuit of the Road Runner, ties to his feet doves that pull him through cacti and weird rock formations, and Butch J. Bulldog's scrappy, little son is a pain in the leg for Sylvester. "Baby Buggy Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Baby-Faced Finster "Out and Out Rout" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Pappy's Puppy" with Sylvester and Butch J. Bulldog Show # 30 Father's Day for Papa Bear is a harrowing affair when his lummox of a son tries to shave him with a broken razor and light his pipe in his mouth with gunpowder and a match, Porky is selected as a "soft touch" by a mongrel intently seeking a master, and Bugs' prior years are reviewed in a parody of television's This is Your Life. "A Bear For Punishment" with the Three Bears "Porky's Pooch" with Porky Pig "This is a Life?" with Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, and Granny Show # 31 Bugs deftly opposes dreaded fast gunslinger Yosemite Sam in a pistol-firing contest in a Wild West saloon and strives with success to prevent Sam from plundering a train; Sylvester's initiation into the Loyal Order of Alley Cats involves him placing a bell around the neck of "giant mouse" Hippety Hopper- a task easier described than executed; and Daffy and Porky are poker-faced, Space Age gumshoes on the jet exhaust trail of the infamous thug, Mother Machre. "Wild and Woolly Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Bell Hoppy" with Sylvester and Hippety Hopper "Rocket Squad" with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Show # 32 High seas pirate Yosemite Sam finds fierce opposition to his attempted seizure of a ship by a stowaway in said ship's carrot cargo, Daffy and Elmer wage war in a marshland when Elmer comes thereto to hunt ducks and Daffy indignantly objects to Elmer's intent, and Foghorn Leghorn deceives Henery Hawk into selecting the barnyard dog as fowl quarry- pheasant under glass. "Quack Shot" with Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd "Captain Hareblower" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "The Leghorn Blows at Midnight" with Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk Show # 33 Tweety and Granny, while travelling across a prairie, are attacked by a tribe of Indian cats (all Sylvester or Sylvester variants), find shelter in an abandoned fort, and with guns, explosives, and pluck adeptly fight the Native American felines. Wile E. Coyote's failed Road Runner capture schemes include a dropped barrel rimmed with sticks of lit TNT, dynamite detonated beneath a bridge, and ACME tornado seeds mixed with bird seed. Marvin Martian's abduction of Earth creature Bugs as a living subject of study, is foiled by Bugs, who enwraps Marvin and Marvin's assistant, K-9, in straitjackets and hence attains control of their flying saucer. "Tom Tom Tomcat" with Tweety, Sylvester, and Granny "Whoa, Be-Gone!" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Hip Clip" from "Weasel Stop" with Foghorn Leghorn and the Weasel "The Hasty Hare" with Bugs Bunny, Marvin Martian, and K-9 Show # 34 Halloween show consists of Daffy's Jekyll-and Hyde split personality ploy to frighten his grudging house host Porky into providing for Daffy's every whim for fear of evoking Daffy's monstrous alter-ego, Bugs' battle against Witch Hazel, who wants to cannibalise Hansel and Gretel, and Jack Benny's dream that he and Mary Livingstone are mice lured into the maw of a cat that is disguised as the Kit-Kat Club where mouse Benny aims to play his violin. "The Prize Pest" with Porky Pig and Daffy Duck "Bewitched Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Witch Hazel "The Mouse That Jack Built" with Jack Benny Mouse Show # 35 Daffy's sneaky choice of winter quarters is the cosy dwelling of Porky Pig and Porky's intruder-sensing-and-hating dog; Emperor Nero commands Captain of the Roman Guards Yosemite Sam to find a victim to feed to the Colosseum's hoard of lions- and though Sam selects Bugs as the meal for the big cats, the lions instead opt to dine upon Sam and the Emperor; lazy, fat, pampered pussy Dodsworth, ordered by his mistress to "round up" all of the mice in their home, deceives a kitten into doing the work on the pretence that he is giving to the kitten valuable instruction and practicum in the catly art of rodent capture. "Cracked Quack" with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig "Roman Legion-Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Kiddin' the Kitten" with Dodsworth the Cat Show # 36 Daffy has "pronoun trouble" when trying to convince Elmer that it is rabbit season rather than duck season for hunting, Wile E. Coyote's Burmese tiger trap, intended to capture the Road Runner, spawns a real tiger, and Ralph Crumden, his wife, Alice, and his friend, Ned Morton (all mice) try with such insufficient contrivances as Ralph inside of an empty can and Ralph and Ned within a mechanically propelled "Trojan dog", to pass an orange cat in order to acquire food from a refrigerator, until spunky Alice shows to the male mice how feline impediments can be eliminated with feminine bravado and a single punch. "Rabbit Seasoning" with Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Daffy Duck "Stop! Look! And Hasten!" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "The Honey-Mousers" with the Honey-Mousers Show # 37 A worm is desired as food or as bait for food by both Foghorn Leghorn and a cat. Porky's pied piping purpose of ridding Hamelin of its infesting rodents infuriates the town's cats, whose leader endeavours in the guise of a giant mouse to prove Porky incapable of completing this job and to hereby preserve feline relevance and honour in Hamelin. Lastly, Bugs tunnels into the northern British Isles and there plays golf against an irritable Scottish clansman. "A Fractured Leghorn" with Foghorn Leghorn "Paying the Piper" with Porky Pig "My Bunny Lies Over the Sea" with Bugs Bunny and Angus McCrory Show # 38 Bugs remembers his youth, an intoxicated stork brings a giant baby to normal-sized parents, who try to cope with the enormous bundle of joy, and Daffy is a private investigator responding to reports of mayhem and murder at a lavish estate and encountering a ravishingly beautiful lady mallard. "The Super Snooper" with Daffy Duck "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd "Goo Goo Goliath" with the Drunken Stork Show # 39 Wile E. Coyote's electronic brain advises him on how best to capture Bugs, and each time, the elaborate schemes fail, with explosive or crushing results for Wile E.; a radio game show is wretched for Porky, who must suffer the punishments for incorrect answers to questions posed by sadistic host Daffy; and a flying cat, whose tail acts as a propeller, defends a female feline from a belligerent bulldog. "To Hare is Human" with Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote "The Ducksters" with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig "Go Fly a Kit" with Bulldog and the Flying Cat Show # 40 A young mouse dreams that he is Little Red Riding Hood and that Sylvester is the Big Bad Wolf, with their confrontation occurring inside of a house and Sylvester being defeated by the mouse's cunning and hurriedly constructed contraption- a miniature Army tank. Wile E. Coyote's ploys to stop and catch the Road Runner with a tennis net, dynamite suspended on a rope, and a bomb which the helium-inflated Wile E. tries to drop from high altitude, are all complete failures. Violence escalates as virtuous Bugs and dishonest Yosemite Sam electioneer as rival candidates for mayor in a small town. "Little Red Rodent Hood" with Sylvester "Shot and Bothered" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Hip Clip" from "Easy Peckin's" with the Scheming Fox "Ballot Box Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam Show # 41 Yankee bunny Bugs is blocked for a time from reaping the record carrot crop in Alabama by ornery Confederate soldier Yosemite Sam, who guards the Mason-Dixon Line 90 years after the end of the American Civil War. Foghorn Leghorn escorts genius boy chick Egghead Jr. to the forest to teach him about scouting and woodcraft- real Davey Crockett stuff, but it is Foghorn who learns lessons of creating whistles and smoke signals, starting fires, triggering rainfall, and setting traps, from the prodigious Egghead. Ralph Wolf in the guise of Little Bo Peep, succeeds at tricking Sam Sheepdog into permitting him to claim possession of one of Sam's lambs, but Ralph has an unpleasant surprise when his planned mutton dinner removes its carcass to reveal a certain irate canine. "Southern Fried Rabbit" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Double or Mutton" with Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog "Hip Clip" from "High Diving Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Crockett-Doodle-Do" with Foghorn Leghorn and Egghead Jr. Show # 42 Sylvester, Tweety, and a bulldog are all hospitalised with broken legs and under the care of Granny, who is a nurse; the Goofy Gophers move to reacquire vegetables plucked from the farm garden beneath which the gophers live and believe all growing legumes to belong to them, by covertly giving to the barnyard dog guarding the harvested vegetables cause to doubt his sanity; and Bugs loves mountain music, particularly when it is he who sings the lyrics, for a square dance pitting his enemies, two hillbillies, violently against one another. "Greedy For Tweety" with Tweety, Sylvester and Granny "Gopher Broke" with the Goofy Gophers "Hillbilly Hare" with Bugs Bunny and the Martin Brothers Show # 43 Big Bad Wolf and his nephew try to lure Bugs to his doom and to their hungry bellies on the pretence of Bugs joining Club del Canejo, a club for rabbits, with Big Bad and his young kin disguised as bunnies in brotherhood with Bugs and scheming in vain to impale Bugs in an iron maiden and to fire him out of a cannon. A gluttonous bully bulldog will resort to any deception- with a cat and a mouse as his intimidated stooges- to acquire meaty foodstuffs- until such time as he has eaten so much cow flesh that he is obesely in need of immediate medical attention. Wile E. Coyote's items of unsuccessful use in his chase of the Road Runner: an extended tripping foot, a portable hole, a magnet, and a rocket sled on a railroad track. "False Hare" with Bugs Bunny and the Big Bad Wolf "Beep Prepared" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Chow Hound" with Bulldog Show # 44 Daffy is an American detective living in Paris and in pursuit on a train of a slinky East Bloc operative wearing a green hat and who has stolen a briefcase with top secret contents; Bugs delivers a scuttled Australian fright ship's cargo, the Tasmanian Devil, to a zoo; and Porky ventures to a marshland to fallibly hunt duck- Daffy Duck, to be precise. "Boston Quackie" with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig "Bill of Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil "Porky's Duck Hunt" with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Show # 45 Bugs is jailed- but not for long- by Sing Song Prison guard (Yosemite) Sam Schultz; a disturbance in a cosmic force results in a Martian baby being delivered to Earth parents, while an Earthling infant starts its born days on Mars; and Porky and Daffy are inhabitants of books that come to life by night in "Ye Book Shoppe". "Big House Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Rocket-Bye Baby" with Mot the Infant Martian "The Coy Decoy" with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Show # 46 Bugs wins in a Dawson City saloon squabble with gold claim usurper Blacque Jacque Shellacque, Sylvester is hired to be a ship's resident mouse-catcher, and Wile E. Coyote is more thirsty for water than hungry for Road Runner beneath the hotter-than-usual desert sun. "Bonanza Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Blacque Jacque Shellacque "Chaser On the Rocks" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Cats A-Weigh!" with Sylvester, Sylvester Jr., and Hippety Hopper Show # 47 Daffy disguises himself as a rooster in order to be eligible to win $5,000 but did not expect to be the selected dinner for a father-and-son feast by Henery Hawk on behalf of his "esteemed" father, George K. Chickenhawk; Bugs fights organised crime- and Rocky the gangster and Rocky's bumbling henchman, Mugsy- in the 1920s; the Gambling Bug's bite fosters gambling fever in a cat, who plays cards for penalties with a bulldog, loses every game, and must suffer the consequences. "You Were Never Duckier" with Daffy Duck and Henery Hawk "The Unmentionables" with Bugs Bunny, Rocky, and Mugsy "Hip Clip" from "Snow Business" with Tweety and Sylvester "Early to Bet" with the Gambling Bug Show # 48 Baby kangaroo Hippety Hopper escapes captivity in a circus and jumps into a yard where Sylvester is bragging to his son about his alleged mouse-fighting prowess- and because Sylvester Sr. and Jr. presume Hippety to be a huge rodent, Sylvester must combat and thus be humiliatingly bested again and again by the playful, young kangaroo; Bugs' wrong turn in his burrow to Miami Beach brings him to Antarctica, where he protects a penguin from capture by an Eskimo; Cool Cat's success in college sports is due entirely to his reactions on reflex to bee stings of him at key competitive moments. "Pop 'im Pop!" with Sylvester, Sylvester Jr., and Hippety Hopper "Frigid Hare" with Bugs Bunny and the Penguin "Hip Clip" from "A Hound For Trouble" with Charlie Dog "Bugged By a Bee" with Cool Cat Show # 49 Bugs is a soldier assigned to solitarily guard Fort Lariat in 1886 from an attack by a hoard of Indians commanded by Renegade (Yosemite) Sam; Porky epitomises the virtue of work on his farm while a neighbour bear idles away his time through a summer, the result being ample food supply for Porky when snow falls and the bear begging for gratuity from Porky, who is compelled by the motto of "Love thy neighbour," to be generous to the lazy bear; and Charlie Dog is in Italy, pushily trying to ingratiate himself in pet-master-relationship proposals with a contrary restaurateur. "Horse Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Porky's Bear Facts" with Porky Pig "A Hound For Trouble" with Charlie Dog Show # 50 Bugs goes ballistic when he learns that rabbits only merit a hunting bounty of 2 cents as they are supposedly harmless creatures, Wile E. Coyote plays hopscotch with the Road Runner unaware that he on the edge of a precarious precipice that "gives way" beneath his feet and later disguises a lightning rod as a female road runner to decoy the Road Runner to electrocution but is himself struck by lightning, and Henery Hawk, dressed as an Indian, snatches the egg that Foghorn Leghorn has been commanded by his shrewish wife to guard. "Rebel Rabbit" with Bugs Bunny and the Game Commissioner "Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Hip Clip" from "Bear Feat" with the Three Bears "The EGGcited Rooster" with Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk Show # 51 A bandit swindles Bugs out of the gold boulder discovered accidentally by Bugs, and Bugs avenges himself handsomely by visiting the bandit's new, San Franciscan casino and winning there a fortune from a slot machine and games of "draw poker" and Russian roulette; Pa O'Possum tries to rouse his lazy, hanging-from-tree son to peel potatoes; and roller skis, a slingshot, exploding darts, and a boomerang do not benefit Wile E. Coyote's plan to capture and devour the Road Runner. "Barbary-Coast Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Nasty Canasta "Lickety-Splat!" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Sleepy-Time Possum" with Ma, Pa, and Junior O'Possum Show # 52 Foghorn Leghorn swaggers around a barnyard, affirming his roosterhood to an inexperienced, pint-sized chicken hawk, Porky labours as a caretaker at a theatre, and Daffy serves as Bugs' stunt double in the hope of proving his mettle as a leading character for being granted a series of acclaimed cartoons all his own. "The Foghorn Leghorn" with Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk "Porky's Movie Mystery" with Porky Pig "A Star is Bored" with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and Yosemite Sam Show # 53 Tweety as a zoo exhibit eludes Sylvester by flying inside of a bear cage and onto the limb of a tree surrounded by an alligator pit, Bugs flees Elmer through a television studio, and Ralph Wolf cannot filch the sheep in Sam Sheepdog's care despite disguising himself as Greek god Pan with a flute to lull Sam to sleep. "Tweet Zoo" with Tweety and Sylvester "Wideo Wabbit" with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd "Hip Clip" from "Gee Whiz-z-z-z!" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "Don't Give Up the Sheep" with Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog Show # 54 When Daffy forces Bugs at rifle point to come with him to a television studio to be his bounty for a thousand dollar prize, Bugs lures ever-greedy Daffy into answering a jackpot question on a telephone with a dynamite receiver and onto the set for "Indian Massacre at Burton's Bend", whereon Daffy is scalped; a thrown hand grenade is ricocheted into Wile E. Coyote's face by a cactus, and Wile E.'s invisible paint does not protect him from being struck by a beep-beeping truck; and Pa Bear wishes to obtain honey from a bee's nest up in a tree- a painfully futile task when his assistant is his clumsy, dimwit son. "People Are Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck "War and Pieces" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "The Bee-Deviled Bruin" with the Three Bears Show # 55 A loony love triangle in the Wild West between Daffy, the pretty duck squaw with whom he is smitten, and the squaw's initial admirer- a giant Indian, begins this instalment wherein Bugs battles Yosemite Sam of Outer Space, who has, with his army of robots, come to Earth in a flying saucer to acquire an Earthling for study and has in this regard selected junkyard inhabitant Bugs, and Foghorn Leghorn and the barnyard dog meet and use against each other a nervous prize fighter rooster who launches into outbursts of punching whenever he hears a bell. "The Daffy Duckaroo" with Daffy Duck "Sock a Doodle Do" with Foghorn Leghorn and Kid Banty "Lighter Than Hare" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam Show # 56 Yosemite Sam is Ebenezer Scrooge, Porky Pig is Bob Cratchit, Tweety is Tiny Tim, and Bugs is the spectre who imparts to Scrooge the true meaning of Christmas, Foghorn Leghorn endures an uninvited visit by his annoying, egotistical, practical joking college chum- Jackie Gleason-inspired rooster Rhode Island Red, and the World War I aeroplane with which Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner is catapulted by a string of power lines toward a violent crash. "Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol" with Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, Tweety, Sylvester, Pepe Le Pew, Elmer Fudd, and Foghorn Leghorn "Raw! Raw! Rooster!" with Foghorn Leghorn and Rhode Island Red "Just Plane Beep" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Show # 57 Sylvester requires psychiatric therapy after one too many humiliating defeats in his tussles with "giant mouse" Hippety Hopper, Bugs brings to justice a midget bank robber in baby guise, and Beaky Buzzard cannot wait for Leo the Lion to be decently deceased before trying to devour him- and Leo is unable to escape Beaky even by rocketing to the Moon. "Freudy Cat" with Sylvester, Sylvester Jr., and Hippety Hopper "Baby Buggy Bunny" with Bugs Bunny and Baby-Faced Finster "The Lion's Busy" with Beaky Buzzard and Leo the Lion Show # 58 A series of accidents results in Bugs being delivered by stork to a maternal kangaroo in the Australian jungle, where he heckles an Aborigine hunter armed with a spear and aiming to dine on Bugs' flesh; Daffy spars in a boxing ring with a defending champion; and mice Ralph Crumden and Ned Morton act to remove the feline obstacle to their access to a refrigerator for a cupcake with which to celebrate the birthday of Ralph's wife, Alice. "Bushy Hare" with Bugs Bunny and the Spear-Throwing Aborigine "Porky and Daffy" with Porky Pig and Daffy Duck "Cheese it, the Cat!" with the Honey-Mousers Show # 59 Foghorn Leghorn quickly regrets volunteering to babysit a mischievous boy chick; an inebriated, feathered bringer of a baby gorilla to expectant parents loses his tiny bundle and selects Bugs as a replacement for the infant simian, and the father ape is violently agitated by the rabbit son that he neither wants nor loves; and an orange cat named Rudolph schemes unsuccessfully to snatch feisty Petey Bird from his cage for purpose of feathered feast. "The Slick Chick" with Foghorn Leghorn "Apes of Wrath" with Bugs Bunny and the Drunken Stork "Hip Clip" from "Scaredy Cat" with Porky Pig and Sylvester "Puss N' Booty" with Rudolph Cat and Petey Bird Show # 60 Daffy, the "little, black, duck", becomes self-indulgent slave to farmer Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote's new chemistry set produces some ineffective items for attempting Road Runner capture, and Bugs exacts retribution against Three Little Pigs who sold to him houses of straw and wood doomed to demolition by the Big Bad Wolf's bluster. "Wise Quackers" with Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd "Clippety Clobbered" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote "The Windblown Hare" with Bugs Bunny and the Big Bad Wolf Show # 61 Yosemite Sam tries to exploit, entirely for his own gain, Bugs' ability to sense the presence underfoot of gold. The francophone, muscular termite infesting Porky's house proves impossible to exterminate. Lastly, Wile E. Coyote's bogus bird sanctuary, a telephone booth with a dynamite fuse, does not end the Road Runner's trail-blazing ways. "14 Carrot Rabbit" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "The Pest That Came to Dinner" with Porky Pig and Pierre Termite "Hip Clip" from "Feather Dusted" with Foghorn Leghorn and Egghead Jr. "Tired and Feathered" with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Show # 62 Practical joke paraphernalia vendor Daffy Duck provides some of the props for the war of pranks between Foghorn Leghorn and the barnyard dog, Claude Cat endeavours to eliminate Frisky Puppy, who has been adopted as Claude's fellow house pet by Claude's master and mistress, and an arm-flailing genie transports Bugs to Baghdad for a harrowing confrontation with a violently greedy sheik. "The High and the Flighty" with Foghorn Leghorn and Daffy Duck "Two's a Crowd" with Claude Cat and Frisky Puppy "A-Lad-in His Lamp" with Bugs Bunny and Smoky the Genie Show # 63 A father-and-son pair of hillbilly chicken hawks try and fail to feast upon Foghorn Leghorn, who is vacationing in the Deep South, Yosemite Sam is a Viking attempting to pillage a medieval English castle whose righteous defender, to Sam's frustration, is Bugs, and Claude Cat for awhile stands between a male mouse and the object of the mouse's infatuation. "The Dixie Fryer" with Foghorn Leghorn, Pappy, and Elvis "Prince Varmint" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "Hip Clip" from "A Bear For Punishment" with the Three Bears "Mouse-Warming" with Claude Cat Show # 64 Tweety is a Confederate Army carrier bird with a top secret message for General Lee which the Yankees dispatch Secret Messenger Destroyer Sylvester to intercept, Ralph Wolf constructs the ultimate Sam Sheepdog-destroying apparatus but did not expect the inopportune blowing of the five o'clock whistle, and Daffy has "pronoun trouble" when trying to convince Elmer that it is rabbit season rather than duck season for hunting. "The Rebel Without Claws" with Tweety and Sylvester "Woolen Under Where" with Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog "Rabbit Seasoning" with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd Show # 65 Bugs tunnels into a sultan's palace, where he is obliged, with threat of a crocodile pit fate if he refuses, to tell some entertaining stories to the sultan; a circus performer muscular flea's vacation in a shaggy dog's hair is disrupted by the attacks upon the mongrel by a bully bulldog, against whom the flea retaliates with its brute strength on behalf of the mongrel; and Porky bolts his doors and seals his windows against an escaped killer named Bluebeard, whom a mouse in his house then impersonates to extort a banquet from Porky. "Hare-Abian Nights" with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam "To Itch His Own" with Angelo the Mighty Flea and Bulldog "Hip Clip" from "Don't Give Up the Sheep" with Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog "Bye, Bye, Bluebeard" with Porky PigIn September, 1992, the 65 syndicated instalments of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends were recalled from distribution as several of the cartoons thereon were shuffled over to The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show or to Looney Tunes On Nickelodeon, in exchange for cartoons not previously seen on Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends. Starting in September, 1992, a new package, or new season, of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends instalments was distributed only to affiliates of the Fox Network in the U.S. and contained such cartoons as "Pancho's Hideaway" and "Trip For Tat" and no longer featured ethnically or racially risque cartoons like "Caveman Inki", "Horse Hare", "Wise Quackers, or "Tom Tom Tomcat". "Rebel Rabbit" was cut to remove its scene in which Bugs returns Manhattan to the Indians. "Chow Hound" had its ending snipped by the Fox censors. For the new season of instalments starting on Fox affiliates in September, 1992, the opening to Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends was changed and showed Bugs Bunny being awoken by his alarm clock and dashing out of his hole in a scramble not to be late for his television show. He runs onto the Warner Brothers production lot and nearly collides with several of his fellow cartoon celebrities before reaching a set, running in front of the Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends television series logo, and collapsing because he is "out of breath" from his run to the studio. With some modification (music change, new television show logo, and Bugs not collapsing when he poses in front of the logo), this would also be the standard opening for That's Warner Bros.!, the Warner Brothers Network's own cartoon compilation television series, in 1995.
There has been no representation as yet on commercial videocassette, laser videodisc, or digital videodisc (DVD) of the openings, closing credits, and "Hip Clip" introductions to Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends.
IN MEMORIAM
Cartoon directors Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson, Tex Avery, Robert Clampett, Frank Tashlin, Arthur Davis, and Norman McCabe
Voice characterisation performers Mel Blanc, Arthur Q. Bryan, Daws Butler, and Bea Benaderet
Musicians Carl W. Stalling, Milt Franklyn, John Seely, and Bill Lava
