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The Bashful Buzzard is a 1945 Looney Tunes short directed by Robert Clampett.

Plot[]

Beaky Buzzard is sent to bring home something to eat. While his brothers fetch a milk cow (with a farmer attached), a string of circus elephants, and a dog attached to a fire hydrant, Beaky manages to capture a baby bumble bee. The bee's mother then comes and stings Beaky, who falls down near a lake. There, he sees the small head of what turns out to be a large dragon. Beaky starts running from the dragon. Mama Buzzard worries about her son not returning home until late at night. When he comes, she is both glad that he came and angry that he brought nothing for dinner. However, he has caught the dragon, who dismisses the mother's claim by saying, "Well now, I wouldn't say that!"

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Production[]

"The Bashful Buzzard" began production sometime before mid-1944 while Leon Schlesinger was still the studio producer. It is noticeably the last Warner Bros. Cartoon to feature voices by actor Kent Rogers, who died in a training flight accident on July 9, 1944.[5] Mel Blanc would presume Roger's role as Beaky in two subsequent cartoons 5 years later.

The original titles to this cartoon are believed to be lost. However, there are re-created titles with the original opening music cue as a bonus feature on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5. The actual original titles are believed to resemble "Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid", evidenced by the Blue Ribbon reissue abruptly fading in and beginning with a similar camera zoom. So far, this is the only cartoon to have "official" recreated titles by Warner Bros. (though "The Lady in Red" also has recreated music made for HBO Max).[6]

Despite the short releasing after "Hare Trigger", the credits in the recreated titles resembles the format used in earlier cartoons (this case it mainly resembles "Draftee Daffy") where one animator is credited instead of multiple animators, along with a layout artist and a background artist. Mel Blanc is also credited despite his contract at the time only letting him receive screen credit for Bugs Bunny cartoons at the time of production.[7] Credits for the MPAA, Screen Cartoonist Guild and the IATSE are also absent on the recreated titles.

Notes[]

  • The baby elephant brandishing a banner reading "I am NOT Dumbo" is a reference to the 1941 Disney film Dumbo.
  • The Blue Ribbon reissue is one of several reissues from the 1952–53 season that feature a static Merrie Melodies end card with green Color Rings and the phrase "THE END" written in the Lydian typeface (replacing the traditional "That's all Folks!"). It is the first such cartoon to be seen on DVD.
  • When this cartoon's storyboard was released on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, the audio erroneously used an unreleased stereo mix of its recreated 1995 m/e soundtrack (used mostly for the 1995 redubs of this short) rather than the restored mono soundtrack. Note that some of the dialogue's volume has decreased, making it hard for viewers to understand the lines the characters say. In addition, both the reissued opening and ending music cues, as well as the unaltered parts of the background music, appear to sound canned for this reason. Other bonus cartoons that face similar problems are "Sniffles Takes a Trip" (1940) and "Hop and Go" (1943), both released on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6.

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