Gruesome Gorilla, also known as Elvis, is a large, beastly and ill-tempered gorilla from the Looney Tunes collection of animated shorts.
History[]
He first appeared with Bugs Bunny in the 1948 short "Gorilla My Dreams" where his wife adopts Bugs as their child. Gruesome however has no interest in children and manhandles Bugs throughout the cartoon. Gruesome's second appearance was in "Hurdy-Gurdy Hare" where after once again feuding with Bugs, he and Bugs wound up working together in Bugs' organ grinding businesses.
His third and last appearance was in "Apes of Wrath" (albeit redesigned without his red toupee and renamed Elvis), a near remake of "Gorilla My Dreams". Unlike the original, in this episode Gruesome wants to be a father but is less than pleased when the drunken stork delivers Bugs instead after accidentally losing their real baby, but is frequently told off by his wife for his attempted cruelty towards their own baby son every time. Quick to realize he can milk his situation for entertainment, Bugs spends the majority of the cartoon tormenting Gruesome until the stork delivers their real baby and Gruesome is free to take his revenge against the rascally rabbit. However, while attempting to drop a boulder on Bugs, he accidentally drops it on his wife. He tries to explain, but his wife has finally had enough of his nonsense and starts to beat on him.
Gruesome later appeared as a boss in the video game Bugs Bunny and Taz: Time Busters. He also makes an appearance in the Looney Tunes Cartoons short "Fowl Ploy," albeit recolored.
Quotes[]
- "(growls) ARRRRGHH! KIDS! (growl) UGGGH!"
Notes[]
- All of his cartoon appearances involved Bugs Bunny.
- As his debut cartoon "Gorilla My Dreams" is a parody of the many jungle-themed films that were popular in the 1930s and 1940s which often featured gorillas extensively (though not always behaviorally accurately), most notably Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan film series, he likely is meant to be a parody of Tublat from the original Tarzan novels these movies were inspired from, while his wife Mrs Gruesome is likely is meant to be a parody of Kala from the same source material, as like Tublat, Gruesome refuses to accept Bugs as his new baby son despite his wife's insistence.
- His wife reappears in "Apes of Wrath". She was originally voiced by Mel Blanc (albeit using a falsetto voice, in contrast to her husband's gruff, beastly voice) in her debut appearance and later by June Foray in her second appearance. She also reappears in the Looney Tunes Cartoons short "Bunny and the Beast".
- He shares many similarities to Taz, another "savage beast" type antagonist which McKimson would later create in "Devil May Hare" in 1954, where they're both ferocious wild animals with brown fur, muscular build, violent tempers, lack of intelligence, and even share the same voice actor Mel Blanc. Except that, the only difference is that Gruesome is a vegetarian that lives on fruit, while Taz is a meat-eating predator that eats any animal in sight.
Gallery[]
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