The Bashful Buzzard (1945)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Boring

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

. . . have for 2016, especially when viewed with the "storyboard reel" version of this animated short, anyone visiting this page may well ask. Can it be an uncanny Parable applying to the 2016 American Presidential Election Campaign? Famed Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones has opined elsewhere that the work of Warner Bros.' Brief Cartoon Division MUST be viewed in the political context in which the viewer is living. This requires reviewers to ask themselves, WWCT? (That is, What Would Chuck Think about THE BASHFUL BUZZARD, if he were alive today?) BASHFUL BUZZARD, for we 21st Century Citizens, centers around five brothers, who are easy to recognize as Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump (who are the leading contenders for the Presumptive-Elect Party--sorry, Governor-However-Your-Name-Is-Spelled, of Ohio, who's such a sore loser that he abdicates his duties as Party Host!). These competitive siblings' Mom gives them orders with her thick foreign accent. This makes "Mom" a dead ringer for Melania Trump, the recently crowned Spiritual Mother of Our Entire Republican Party. Since it might strike some viewers as unseemly for a Mother of Five to stuff four of her sons into her cooking pot, Trump's trouncing of Bush, Christie, Cruz, and Rubio during Primary Season is pictured as Ma Buzzard cramming three regularly-sized elephants and one tiny pachyderm (Little Marco, of course) into her cauldron to show how Donald stewed the stodgy GOP Establishment Elephants in Real Life. When Killer (which Melania endearingly pronounces "Keeler") Buzzard gets stung by a bee (doubtless Meghan Kelly), Ma Buzzard (Melania) slaps some sense into Keeler Trump, insisting that he bag bigger game from now on. Soon her Keeler returns to their Homeland with his talons sunk into a hideous, bloated two-faced dragon (Crooked Hillary, it should go without saying).

"The Bashful Buzzard" is a Warner bros cartoon from September 1945, so this one had its 70th anniversary last year and it is from the exact time when World War II ended. The director is prolific filmmaker Robert Clampett and the (voice) cast includes successful (voice) actors Sara Berner and Mel Blanc. It is one of Warner Bros' Merrie Melodies films and frequently they feature characters that don#t show up in other films too often and this is true here. There is a connection to "Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid" from three years earlier, but that's it. Mama Buzzard sends out her kids to get some food on the table, but one of them is just too peaceful and his attempts to catch a baby sheep or even a tiny bumble bee don't turn out very successfully, while his brothers raid an entire zoo. But then, there is the challenge of his lifetime in what initially seems a small turtle. Okay little film that scores more through the story than through comedy and the Italian bird mom is also a nice addition. Voice acting is strong as always, I give this one a cautious thumbs-up. Worth seeing.

Comparisons to 'Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid' will be inevitable, with Beaky and his mother also in that cartoon and the story being similar here even if the material is different.This said, 'Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid' is the vastly superior cartoon to me, while it is still funny enough, if rather silly to begin with, the best of the writing in 'The Bashful Buzzard' doesn't come close to the animal bone, "take a shower" and big band dance sequence gags in 'Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid' and the absence of a much stronger character to Beaky and his mother like Bugs is noticeable.Beaky is still a cute and amusing character, while never being too cloying, overly-dumb or annoying. Making less of an impact is his mother, humour-wise she's bland, she's a bit shrill and also somewhat stereotypical without being particularly funny, endearing or interesting. The story is not quite as engaging this time around, and a stronger character to work against would likely have livened things up.However the animation is bright in colour, fluid and rich in detail and smooth in movement and design, with some clever and wonderfully wacky visuals still as was characteristic of Bob Clampett. Ever demonstrating why he has always been my personal favourite of the Looney Tunes composers, Carl Stalling provides yet another energetically characterful, beautifully orchestrated and cleverly action-enhancing music score.'The Bashful Buzzard' does boast some very amusing, without ever being hilarious, dialogue especially "you little shriveled-up, infinitecimal piece of sh... shoe leather". Same with the gags, fun and well animated but there are more hilarious and more inventive around. Mel Blanc's voice work is terrific as always.Overall, quite good but not great like Clampett often was. 7/10 Bethany Cox

. . . (during the 1900s) scientists believed that the average dinosaur had two heads--one at each end--not unlike Today's earthworms. (Of course, it's not hard to see why Nature made worms with dual heads; can you imagine how much trouble it would be for a one-headed earthworm to backtrack in his tunnel, since this tube would be the exact circumference of the worm who excavated it?) THE BASHFUL BUZZARD is labeled as being red-faced because he blushes when the innocent lambs he picks up turn out to be indecent 14-year-old human girls under their wool whom the Feds are using as "bait" in an Internet sting (this is the Looney Tuners obligatory Prediction for the 21st Century for this particular Warner Bros. animated short). Unwilling to go BACK TO THE FUTURE, the blushing buzzard instead goes WAAAY BACK to JURASSIC PARK, where he meets the two-headed Brontorex. Scientists Today believe that Global Warming is caused by Volkwagon's rigging their emission systems, but THE BASHFUL BUZZARD suggests that 22nd Century Eggheads may attribute it to bovine gases.