Posted in: TV | Tagged: bugs bunny, looney tunes

Looney Tunes: Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson Pick Favorites

Directors Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson name their favorite Looney Tunes characters/moments for TCM's February star, Bugs Bunny.

With Turner Classic Movies celebrating the Looney Tunes brand, featuring its biggest character, Bugs Bunny, as the February Star of the Month, the cable network asked two of Hollywood's most critically-acclaimed directors in Steven Spielberg (Disclosure Day) and Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), about their favorite Looney Tunes moments and characters. TCM announced that it will be the home of more than 750 combined shorts and films for the Warner Bros Discovery brand, featuring the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe LePew, Sylvester Cat, Tasmanian Devil, Tweety Bird (all most famously voiced by Mel Blanc), and more.

Directors Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson Name Their Favorite Looney Tunes Characters and Moments

"I love Bugs, but I think Chuck Jones and the Roadrunner-Coyote. That's my favorite Warner Bros toon by far," Spielberg said while Anderson attempted to recall the 1943 Jones classic Wackiki Wabbit. "Bugs was on a desert island, right? I don't know the name of the episode at all, but he's on a deserted island, and he's stuck with a fella. He keeps seeing him as a roasted chicken. That one's great." The plot centered on two shipwrecked castaways sailing adrift on the verge of cannibalistic thoughts when they find an island to inhabit with only the other inhabitant, Bugs Bunny. As they devise ways to try to eat him, he naturally outsmarts them. During the chase, a ship comes by to save whomever. As the duo celebrate and prepare to board, Bugs baits and switches them before departing on the ship, before the duo go back to their cannibalistic thoughts again, turning into a hot dog and hamburger as it ends.

Spielberg produced a Looney Tunes spinoff called Tiny Toon Adventures from creator Tom Ruegger that incorporated the characters in an academic setting where they teach the likes of Buster and Babs Bunny, Plucky Duck, Dizzy Devil, and more, that ran from 1990-1992 as a collaboration between Warner Bros and Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. A sequel series was produced in Tiny Toons Looniversity from Nate Cash and Erin Gibson for Cartoon Network in 2023 that brought back the characters. TCM will feature Bugs Bunny shorts all February, along with the original films they parodied.

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