Blog 1, For HIST 389 “Bugs Gets The Boid” John Lyver
For the first blog post I decided to do a Bugs Bunny cartoon. . This cartoon depicts a rather stupid young Buzzard who is listening to his Russian(at least I think it’s Russian) accented Buzzard mother about bring home dinner. Most of these cartoons were created during the ‘Cold War’ so it is no surprise that Merry Melodies chose the Russians as the enemy in this cartoon. This cartoon seems to support some propaganda that Russians are very harsh and war hungry, but ultimately agreements between our two nations can be reached.
We may want to support the idea that the Russians are a harsh people, this is shown in the way the buzzard mother talks to her children and the large demands she makes on what they are to bring him for dinner. You can also see that these buzzards represent something greater then an animal of nature by the sounds of jets roaring as the young buzzards fly off in jet like fashion is they were taking off from an aircraft carrier.
The comedy of this cartoon however comes from the dumb buzzard that really doesn’t seem to care much for hunting but rather to simply stay with his mother, acting as if he is the runt of the litter. You can further see the character quality they choose to give this buzzard by the use of his ‘lite motif’ (a term used to describe the musical theme given to a character, originally used in Operas). The theme or ‘lite motif’ for this young dumb buzzard is a slow dopey trombone like sounding version of the song “Arkansas Traveler”. Interestingly enough the Lyrics added to this song which are taught to children usually in Boy Scouts, typically depict a person catching and bringing home to their mother a baby bumble bee, it is interesting that it used here because young buzzard out to bring home dinner to his mother.
This cartoon also depicts a scene of Bugs and the Buzzard dancing together to a swing style of music, which was popular to young people and something most people of this time would have known in the past. The use of sound and music to show and add emotion and feeling to the scene is also very well done and adds to the humor of this cartoon as well. Ultimately this cartoon almost seems to give the impressions that Russians are not to be feared although they are ready for war, but at the time could be seen either as propaganda against the Russians or as a way to support communist/capitalist relations as Bugs is able to make peace with the Buzzards in the end.
I posted comments on another students blog at http://amanda22192.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/ice-age-dawn-of-the-dinosaurs/#comment-4
