TVSquad

Okay, we've looked at both Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck individually, and now it's time to focus on some of the best cartoons in which the two cartoon heavyweights shared the screen (much to Daffy's consternation, I'm sure). Bugs Bunny didn't necessarily meet his match with Daffy, but the two characters played off one another in a manner that seemed more substantive than Bugs' usual battles with the likes of Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam. While someone like Elmer would simple come at Bugs with guns blazing, Daffy would often try to match Bugs on an intellectual level, and usually wind up having his bill shot clean off his face. These are my favorite Bugs and Daffy cartoons:

Rabbit Seasoning (1952):  An ever-malleable Elmer Fudd finds himself repeatedly shooting Daffy, despite Daffy trying to convince him it isn't duck season. Actually, it is duck season, but Bugs uses reverse psychology and clever pronoun usage to trick Daffy into somehow begging Elmer to shoot him. There's also an important lesson for all of us in this cartoon, which is that a crazy man with a gun can always be thwarted by a rabbit dressed as a woman.

John K wrote this on his blog recently: "The style of every scene in every cartoon I do depends on who is drawing the scene (both storyboard and layout), who painted the background and what the scene is about and how the artist and the characters are feeling at the moment."

Every animation studio seems to have its own unique style, whether it's Spumco, Disney, or Warner Brothers, but in reality, those cartoons are the work of several people who each bring their own unique style to the whole. Sixteen-year-old Thad K has set up a very cool blog dedicated to recognizing the styles of different animators. He already has two lengthy posts (including YouTube clips) dedicated to Tom and Jerry and Woody Woodpecker. Thad breaks the shorts down into segments, pointing out what each animator brought to the short. Perhaps going over these classic bits of animation with such a fine tooth comb extracts some of the fun from watching these cartoons, but I think it nicely reveals a depth these cartoons have which perhaps isn't as evident when viewing them casually.