Shrunken Cinema/Termite Terrace/Show Biz Bugs
From Eccentric Flower
Show Biz Bugs
1957
Summary: Daffy tries to outdo Bugs' popularity in their shared stage act.
Director: Friz Freleng
Writer: Warren Foster
Featuring: Bugs Bunny; Daffy Duck.
Onreel
0:19 Sound cue: This cartoon is full of standard showbiz style vamps, like the music at the beginning of the titles, that are probably not worth the effort to trace further.
1:00 I love Daffy's spats. However, it seems the animators got tired of drawing them in the next scene.
1:40 Sound cue (entrance music): "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover."
1:49 Sound cue for the actual dance: "Tea For Two."
2:49 "Shave and a haircut: Two bits."
3:03 Sound cue: "Jeepers Creepers."
4:21 Daffy's description of the "sawing in half" trick is, in fact, pretty much how it was done back before audiences got cleverer and magicians had to get increasingly more devious about it.
4:37 I suspect Blue Cross will still be around as a health care provider no matter how many years in the future people read these comments. They're unkillable.
4:51 For more on "Those Endearing Young Charms," see Ballot Box Bunny.
Offreel
This short has been heavily rifled for bridging material on various TV anthology shows of Warner cartoons over the years.
Wikipedia says, or said at the time I wrote this: "'Show Biz Bugs' is notable for portraying the modern interpretation of Daffy in a more sympathetic light: In this film, Daffy is a jealous and arrogant competitor to Bugs, but his shabby treatment by the theater management and audience is depicted as being unfairly out of proportion to the genuine talent he possesses." I don't think I agree with that - I don't think Daffy displays much genuine talent here - but it's true that this is definitely a more modern interpretation - in fact, a cartoon which could only have been made in the 1950's, after much water was under the bridge. See also comments at What's Opera, Doc?.
Daffy's final act, you will not be surprised to know, has been cut in various ways by the squeamish on various television airings. The gag is a slight retread of one used in a 1949 Porky cartoon, "Curtain Razor."
