Well, you're probably not, actually. But if you should happen to listen to him next Tuesday, you might hear him talking to me about the world memory championships. Unless the people involved change their minds, which is still entirely possible. I would, if it was me - I'm sure there must be more interesting people Steve could be interviewing.
Anyway, there are more interesting things I could be talking about. Nasty Canasta, for instance. One of the cartoons on Boomerang tonight [there's a whole hour of them at 6pm now, which is great, although their playlist doesn't seem to be as extensive as I thought at first] was 'Barbary Coast Bunny', featuring Nasty and Bugs Bunny, which I think provides a lot of food for thought, if you like that kind of thing.
Nasty Canasta was apparently meant to be a major new character when Chuck Jones thought him up, but he never really caught on, and I think the basic problem is that he's just too big. He certainly doesn't work in this one - the basic story is that he robs Bugs of a gigantic gold nugget that Bugs has stumbled across, which provokes Bugs to come to Nasty's casino and bankrupt him in revenge. The idea, clearly, is that we see Nasty towering over Bugs and cheer when he loses, but this is based on a total misunderstanding of what Bugs is all about. Bugs isn't the little guy who wins out because of his superior intellect; he wins because he's Bugs Bunny, and Bugs Bunny always wins.
In 'Barbary Coast Bunny', there's no particular brains to Bugs's strategy - he gambles all his money on games of chance, fully aware that Nasty has rigged them all so he can't win, and of course he wins them all anyway. Not by any active intervention on his part, just by being Bugs Bunny. We shouldn't be cheering for the hero who's beaten the big bully in a situation like this. We should be sympathizing with the poor sap who's lost out because the guy he's facing is able to defy all the laws of nature! And this is why Elmer Fudd will always be the archetypal Bugs Bunny counterfoil. And why Friz Freleng was thinking much more along the right lines with little, short-tempered, perpetual-loser Yosemite Sam than Jones was with poor old Nasty Canasta.
This is also why Daffy is more fun to watch than Bugs. Where's the appeal in someone who can't lose because the universe itself is on his side?
1 comment:
See - you did say Tuesday!
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