Apes of Wrath is a 1959 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng.
Title[]
The title is a play on the 1939 John Steinbeck novel The Grapes of Wrath and its 1940 film adaptation.
Plot[]
Bugs is in the woods, and The Drunk Stork is talking to himself while completely inebriated, resulting a gorilla baby to walk out of his bag. The stork finds out about the baby's disappearance; so he needs to find a new baby or he'll be kicked out of the Stork Club. He sees Bugs roasting a carrot and singing I Dream of Jeannie with a Light Brown Hare. He knocks him out and sends him to the gorilla's house where a gorilla couple lives.
He brings in the bag closed and they are both excited, until they open the bag, which reveals Bugs. Elvis, the male gorilla, goes to get a mallet but the mother stops him. Bugs tries to get away but the mother spanks him for running away. Elvis, who hates the idea of being a father to Bugs, roars at Bugs and she hits him over the head with a rolling pin, to get him to stop scaring the "baby." Seeing that this will be fun, Bugs decides to go along with it. He even pretends to be a monkey.
Elvis rocks Bugs to sleep, first at a normal speed, then at a fast speed, and after getting hit by his wife, back to a normal speed. Bugs whines for a drink of water and Elvis pours a bucket of it down on Bugs. He then plays horsey with Bugs and he throws him up into the air and he lands on Elvis and then he chases Bugs. But Elvis is confronted by his wife after Bugs reaches her and then Bugs and Mrs. Elvis chase and hit him.
Later, Bugs continuously hits Elvis with a bat. But while that was going on, the stork brings their real baby back and Elvis chases Bugs. Bugs first hides in a tree, but Elvis pulls it out and chases Bugs once more. Bugs finally appreciates the danger he is in when he crosses a rope bridge and tries to keep Elvis at bay by threatening to cut it if the gorilla crosses it; Elvis instead pulls the entire opposing cliffside to him in one effortless yank. Bugs later runs around to another cliff and stops, thinking that he finally lost the mad gorilla. But, after Elvis goes up top and Bugs to the bottom, he throws a huge rock, he dashes away, and it hits the mother after she approaches the cliff. "ELVIS! Guess what the baby said?" She begins to hit him and Bugs says "I'd like to see him eeh-ooh-aah-ooh and but his way outta this one!"
Then the stork delivers Bugs a baby, which turns out to be Daffy Duck! Daffy then says to Bugs, "Ooh, I love you mommy!" and repetitively kisses him, while Bugs is disgusted.
Availability[]
Stars of Space Jam: Bugs Bunny
Special Bumper Collection (Vol. 6)
Japanese Looney Tunes LaserDiscs Bugs Bunny
Looney Tunes Presents: Taz's Jungle Jams
Looney Tunes Super Stars' Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire (cropped to widescreen)
Looney Tunes Unleashed! (cropped for widescreen)
Looney Tunes Super Stars 3-Pack, Disc 1
Looney Tunes Super Stars Family Multi-Feature, Disc 1
4 Kid Favorites Looney Tunes Collection
Stars of Space Jam: Bugs Bunny
Stars of Space Jam Collection Volume 1
Looney Tunes: Parodies Collection (remastered in fullscreen)
Streaming[]
Censorship[]
- On ABC, all the scenes with the drunken stork were edited out (including the entire beginning sequence wherein the drunken stork clubs Bugs on the head to substitute him for the real baby ape was gone, and the part near the end where Daffy dives into Bugs's arms and kisses him), along with the scenes of the Elvis getting hit in the head by his wife and Bugs. Further, scenes of Bugs "playfully" hitting Elvis with a stick were shortened.[1]
- When this cartoon was shown as part of the clip show movie Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales, Bugs' line, "Eh, so I'll be a monkey" after he decides to stay with the gorilla family was redubbed to "Eh, I'll sell books later" (to coincide with the plot about Daffy and Bugs selling stories of their wackiest adventures). Even the ending of that cartoon was cut out to be changed to have Bugs burrow his way out of the jungle and into the open desert.
Notes[]
- This cartoon recycles the plot from the short "Gorilla My Dreams" (1948), also incorporating plot elements from the short "A Mouse Divided" (1953).
- Both of those shorts were written by Warren Foster.
- This short was used in Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales.
- When Bugs, disguised as a baby, encourages Mrs. Elvis to repetitively beat her husband Elvis in the head with a rolling pin, he says the lines "Give him another, mummy! And another! And another!" and "Bad ol' daddy!", the latter being a variation of Tweety's catchphrase "Bad ol' putty tat!" Coincidentally, Tweety would also say similar lines to that of Bugs did in "Tweet and Lovely" which was released later that same year when he encourages Hector the Bulldog to repetitively beat up Sylvester.
- The gag of Bugs threatening to cut the rope, and Elvis pulling the entire opposing cliff has became an internet meme around December 2021.
- After the gorilla baby is delivered, Bugs, realizing his predicament, borrows Daffy's classic I'm-in-trouble line "Mother!"
- Due to Daffy's brief cameo at the end, this short marks the first time Bugs lost to Daffy in the end. Daffy would defeat Bugs in the end again in a Tang commercial in the 1960s, the Cartoon Network television special The Big Game XXIX: Bugs Vs. Daffy, and in the New Looney Tunes episode "One Carroter In Search Of An Artist".
- When the stork hiccups from his drunken speech when taking a break on his delivery trip at the beginning, if one looks closely, the stork is seen having two visible eyeballs in each of his eyes in a number of quick blink-and-miss frames. Whether this is an animation mistake or completely intentional on the animators' part is unknown.
Gallery[]
TV Title Cards[]
References[]