Underplayed Gems

What's Opera, Doc? (1957)

What's Opera, Doc? poster
Directed by
Chuck Jones
Genre
musical film
Country
United States
Runtime
6 min
Rated
NR
Rating
7.6 of 10 from 215 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

Elmer Fudd chases Bugs Bunny in a cartoon that parodies Wagner's operas. Most of the dialogue is sung or recited.

playfuloperaticfast-pacedwhimsicalparodicmusicalslapstickenergetic

What happens

What's Opera, Doc? is a 1957 American Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The short was released on July 6, 1957, and stars Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. The story features Elmer chasing Bugs through a parody of Romantic composer Richard Wagner's operas, particularly the Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) cycle, Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), and Tannhäuser. It borrows especially heavily from the second opera in the Ring cycle, Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), woven around the typical Bugs–Elmer feud. Most of the dialogue is performed in recitative. The short marks the final appearance of Elmer Fudd in a Chuck Jones cartoon. It has been widely praised in the animation industry as the greatest animated cartoon that Warner Bros. ever released, and it has been ranked as such in the top 50 animated cartoons of all time. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed it "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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