The Worst Film Ever

Purely Joyful Movie!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

. . . a compilation of references to such William Shakespeare plays as MACBETH, ROMEO & JULIET, AS YOU LIKE IT, and HAMLET. However, on a deeper level A WITCH'S TANGLED HARE--by its very title--proves to be yet another in Warner Bros. Animated Shorts Division's Prognostications of Upcoming Calamities, Catastrophes, Cataclysms, and Apocalypti, particularly regarding 21st Century America. In fact, more than 100 Looney Tunes deal explicitly with the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Campaign, including this one that is so blatantly devoted to Crooked Hillary's tangled hair. Just as Pinnochio's nose grew longer with each of his "fibs," Hillary's fur grows nappier each time her mouth emits words. (Or, as the Bard put it, "What a tangled web we weave, when we Whitewater to deceive.") Warner Bros. deftly warns of this phenomena 2:20 into TANGLED, with the following recipe for "Brew 1002" (or the original "Hillary Care" scheme): "1 cup butterfly toenails, 10 gallons nectar of rattlesnake, 1/2 cup minced spider webs, 1 fresh rabbit, 3 cups sifted dust." Witch H. (that is, Hillary) is attacking the "fresh rabbit" of America (that is, US!) with her foul rattlesnake concoction, and it will be dust-to-dust for all of us if she's elected come November!

"A Witch's Tangled Hare" is an American 6.5-minute cartoon from 1959, so this one is already almost 60 years old and still not one of the oldest. It includes many of the Warner Bros. regulars such as Maltese, Blanc and Foray and director Levitow also worked a lot for the company, even if he is not as known as the others. This is a very Shakespearian little film and the man himself even shows up in here, or does he really? I personally felt that this cartoon sacrificed comedy and being funny by trying to hard to be relevant from a Shakespearian perspective. This is a bit of a shame as I like Witch Hazel as an antagonist and it's nice to see Bugs going up against a female antagonist for once. But the material she is given here is just not good enough to let me recommend this little film. I give it a thumbs-down.

Bugs Bunny runs afoul of Witch Hazel while a struggling writer watches it all go down. Lots of funny lines in this one. Love all the Shakespeare references. Bugs and Hazel are a great comedy pairing; she's probably the best of his later foes. June Foray does a wonderful job providing the voice for Hazel. Mel Blanc is excellent as usual as Bugs and the writer. Energetic music from Milt Franklyn. The animation is a little sketchy for my taste but at least it appears to be a stylistic choice not denoting some cheapness on the part of the studio, as was sometimes the case with later Looney Tunes shorts. It's actually very nice to look at. The colors are bright and lovely. It's a funny cartoon with enjoyable characters and lots of laughs.

Looney Tunes along with Disney shaped my childhood. A Witch's Tangled Hare is not one of their finest, finishing with a terribly contrived and wholly predictable pun, but it is still a fun cartoon. The rapport between Bugs and Hazel is what drives A Witch's Tangled Hare, and it is very well-done here. Bugs is cunning and smart, while Hazel matches him in her craftiness and somewhat absent-mindedness. The dialogue on the whole is a witty spin on Shakespeare, especially with the Romeo and Juliet re-enactment. "I could be rinsing out a few things", "Screwy driver, I had the silly thing in reverse" and "Hello/Goodbye/Good grief/Good riddance" are classics. The gags are just as clever, it was nice to see a familiar gag of Bugs climbing into a boiling cauldron mistaking it for a bath, but it was Bugs and Hazel's laughing contest(and he owns her) that raised the biggest laugh from me. The animation is nicely drawn and beautifully coloured, while the pace is crisp, the music has vibrant energy and Mel Blanc and June Foray's voice talents are superb. All in all, apart from the final pun this is a fun and well-done cartoon. 9/10 Bethany Cox