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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| 50th Anniversary Of 'What's Opera, Doc?' |
| 2007-07-08 |
| At any other time, the film would not have been made. Imagine the pitch: "Let's steal time and funding from our other projects so we can go way over budget making a cartoon with no jokes, and no real gags. The score will be a German opera. Kids won't get it. Most adults won't get it, but I don't care because I think it's funny." Fortunately, the time was 1956, the director was Chuck Jones, and the place was the Warners Bros. backlot animation studio dubbed "Termite Terrace." The result – released 50 years ago this week – was "What's Opera, Doc?," voted by animators in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals to be the greatest cartoon of all time. It is the antithesis of the routine cartoon. In place of snappy one-liners we see Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny singing their parts with complete sincerity and commitment. The backgrounds are beautifully textured paintings. The score is powerful and moving. Bugs cuts a striking figure in a metallic brassiere before Madonna was even born. It's audacious and decadent and beautiful and bold and everything the vast majority of cartoons would never dare to be. Years later, it was my immense pleasure to meet Chuck and spend several hours with him. Never before, and never since, have I encountered someone as smart, funny, passionate and wry, all rolled into one delightful and charming package. I can only imagine the magic at work as he and fellow geniuses Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Mike Maltese, Maurice Noble, Mel Blanc, Carl Stalling and a host of others created thousands (yes, thousands) of cartoons featuring history's greatest ensemble cast. Chuck told me he and his team of writers and animators never saw themselves as making cartoons for anyone but themselves. Months, and sometimes years, passed before their work ended up in theatres, and by then they had made so many new cartoons public reaction just wasn't on their radar. It was because they made cartoons to humour themselves, and because studio executives didn't much care what they did so long as they stayed on time and on budget, that "What's Opera, Doc?" was possible. The key was placing it between two Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons in the production schedule. Formulaic by design, those ones could be done fast and cheap. Knock off the Coyote films ahead of schedule and under budget, reallocate the time and money to "What's Opera, Doc?" so the overall budgets remained intact, and voila! A masterpiece created right under the noses of studio executives who would have vetoed the idea long before Elmer Fudd could have raised his spear and donned his magic helmet. A few years ago, when I staged a tribute to Chuck and his incredible body of work, showing 15 of his greatest cartoons on the big screen as they were originally meant to be seen, it wasn't "What's Opera, Doc?" that got the biggest reaction, initially. The nearly 500 people in attendance gave their most enthusiastic reaction to the opening credits of "One Froggy Evening" featuring Michigan J. Frog, and "Rabbit of Seville," the famous Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd barbershop ditty. Both great cartoons, to be sure, and both on any animation historian's top 10. The interesting thing was that for weeks afterward, people told me how moved they were by "What's Opera, Doc?" Some had never seen it before. Others had seen it on TV, but absent the big screen and big sound, they had failed to fall under its spell. Seeing it that day, the way audiences first saw it in 1957, they were enthralled. That's what makes "What's Opera, Doc?" the greatest cartoon ever, and that is why a piece of such grandeur will never be repeated. That's not to say good work hasn't been done in recent years. The laughs are plentiful with The Simpsons in its heyday, Family Guy most of the time, and South Park when they find that sweet spot between satire and absurdity. On the big screen, Pixar tells stories as captivating as the greatest Disney epics of the past, and pulls the viewer into spectacular and compelling worlds. They are all great in their own way, but they are to be expected. Animated sitcoms are supposed to be funny and irreverent and mildly scandalous. Feature films are supposed to have rich character development, radio-worthy songs, and captivating storylines. Bugs Bunny cartoons are not supposed to feature a lisping Viking rabbit hunter enthusiastically professing his operatic love for a bunny in drag. These days, cartoons are made for the small screen, for syndication, for licensing, for Happy Meal toys and theme park rides. Gone are the days when someone like Chuck could trick the system and go on a flight of fancy to animation immortality with such a hugely impractical and absolutely beautiful film. No one who knows and loves "What's Opera, Doc?" will ever hear Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" without hearing, in their own minds, "Kill da wabbit ... kill da wabbit." While classical music aficionados may be offended by that fact, I'm okay with it. More than okay with it. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #10 TW, And yet in the 1960s Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts were beloved by everyone who watched, and hard a large television viewership. The DVDs have been available for a while. I hope a successor can be found. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2007-07-08 23:42 |
| #9 The problem with classical music videos (the extended versions being PBS thingies, I suppose) is that so rarely is the sound quality of a television system equal to that of a reasonable stereo, expensive home theater surround sound set-ups excepted. But how many people can/want to afford those? Once upon a time what is now classical music was the performance option to folk tunes. Johann Sebastian Bach composed court music, yes, but he was required by contract to provide music for several church services a month -- and not for his ruler's private chapel. Mozart's Requiem is as fine as his Magic Flute, if very different... and the film Amadeus showed the latter was practically a vaudeville piece, much like Shakespeare wrote as much to sell tickets to the groundlings as to the lords and ladies in the boxes. Chopin was as much a rock star as the Beatles, presumably not just for his composing. By contrast, so much of current classical composition is as deliberately unreachable for the untrained listener as is current fiction writing. I happened to hear the original composition from one of the recent BBC proms, and it was to me simply unlistenable. But it wasn't aimed at me, who grew up listening to classical and Disney record pretty exclusively, and played bad violin through high school; it was aimed at the composing professorate, who recognized all the references and currently fashionable affectations. On the other hand, both The Three Tenors and the Three Mo' Tenors sell out every booking, which certainly indicates audiences are not completely lacking. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-07-08 22:55 |
| #8 High culture has a serious problem in that it never succeeded in keeping up with the times I'd like to think that high culture is so lofty specifically because it doesn't keep up with the times. Classical music especially has a certain timelessness and emotional ouvre to it that few other art forms possess. Nearly 200 years later, the tempestuous nature of his 4th movement—the F minor allegro Gewitter (Storm) passage of Beethoven's Opus No. 68 in F major—in the "Pastoral" 6th Symphony, is still every bit as clear and interpretable as it was back when it was first penned in 1808. The Act II adagio of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" wordlessly evokes a magical Christmas visitation far better than many Yuletide carols ever will. It is only a loss of appreciation that makes such work inaccessible. So few people today play a musical instrument that the magnificence of a philharmonic orchestra working through its paces is simply lost upon them. They cannot even conceive of the mastery and virtuosity required to compose or perform works of such elegance and depth. Pop music is very intertwined with its videos. And for that very reason popular music has sold its soul. MTV (pronounced "Empty Vee"), has almost destroyed modern music. With the importance of photogenic aspect and physical attractiveness thrust to the fore, musical talent has taken a permanent back seat to appearances. Truly, a another Hollywood victory of style over substance. There are classical music videos being made but without the greatest attention to detail they are just as frequently a distraction from the actual performance. Perhaps that is so for me because I derive such great pleasure from performing music myself. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-08 20:41 |
| #7 High culture has a serious problem in that it never succeeded in keeping up with the times, though it tried. I typically think of the 1812 Overture, which was created as kind of soundtrack to the second Napoleonic War. When it was written, it was current events, and needed little explanation. It had context. But the only way it could popularly connect today would be if it was accompanied by video that would explain the story. In a way, this was what Disney tried to do with the animated movie Fantasia. To give the audience a context for the music. Why not have classical music videos? Pop music is very intertwined with its videos. Most people can't even hear the music without thinking of the visuals. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-07-08 19:17 |
| #6 It's funnier if you know the music... which brings up another point... that popular culture fifty years ago was much more literate. That is, the ordinary audience was presumed to be much more familier with so-called "high culture". Bits and snatches of classical music and the more accessible operas, from the classics and modern literature showed up in all sorts of things... hell, there were even opera singers on Ed Sullivan! I mean, would What's Opera Doc? be made today? Like for kiddy television? |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2007-07-08 18:22 |
| #5 'course the above is Wagner for you Philistines out there. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2007-07-08 18:21 |
| #4 I love the Rossini overtures they use throughout the Classic Bugs Bunny cartoons. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2007-07-08 18:19 |
| #3 The Warner Brother cartoons will go down in history as some of the absolute finest animation of all time. While Chuck Jones and his crew of zany artists deserve a lot of credit, I still believe that Mel Blanc was key to the success of these animated gems. Legend has it that when Warner Brothers took out an insurance policy on Mel Blanc's voice box it was required that he visit a speech pathologist to be examined for any pre-existing conditions. This same doctor had also examined the famous opera singer Caruso. Upon scanning Blanc's x-rays the specialist was stunned to find that Mel's voice box was larger than any he had ever seen in his years of practice. I believe this is what enabled Mel Blanc to produce so many varied and authentic voice characterizations. The backgrounds are beautifully textured paintings. The unique nature of "What's Opera Doc?" does not end there. Review the cartoon and you will notice that the background scenery is "out of character" in that it is often painted in surreal colors. Also note the abstract renderings of Corinthian colums, forests and other visual props. This was an immense departure from the sincere realism that makes so many of the Warner Brothers cartoons such works of art. a cartoon with no jokes, and no real gags This is patently false. While not larded with the usual double entendres, ribaldry and puns, "What's Opera Doc?" has its share of gags. When betrayed Elmer's Siegfried scales the heights to summon down destruction upon deceiving Bugs' Brünnhilde he commands nature's elements to appear: "... typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, smog!" While a cute literary allusion to the mythical dragon Smaug, it is incorrect nonetheless as the Ring Cycle's resident reptile is named Fafnir. Needless to say, (then why say it?), air pollution at that time was already a common feature of the Los Angeles basin's skyline. So it is no far reach that this was a purposefully planted howler for the literary set, as are so many of the obscure references in these works. As to no jokes, I leave you with Bugs' parting shot at the very end as a tearful Elmer trudges off into the sunset carrying the rabbit's limp body: "Well what did you expect in an opera, a happy ending?" Here is a link to the full footage: http://one.revver.com/watch/109858 |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-08 15:13 |
| #2 RetOOOIIIN, my LOOOOOOVE... What I liked about that cartoon (apart from the music, the singing, the fat horse, the lightning, the end, and the very end) were the backgrounds -- they were very minimalist, with just enough detail to suggest what was supposed to be back there. You saw that in a lot of Chuck Jones shorts. I think of it as a futuristic look, but I suppose in this case they just wanted to suggest stage backdrops. I can't find the still I want but this one is similar: the trees have become an unbroken ring of leaves on sticks. |
| Posted by: Bruce 2007-07-08 14:33 |
| #1 Still my all-time favorite -- and it introduced me to classical music, which has been a life-long love. (Though I usually can't stand opera, ironically.) |
| Posted by: Jonathan 2007-07-08 14:25 |
