Transylvania 6-5000 (1963)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A Masterpiece!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Chuck Jones' last Bugs Bunny short in the classic era is a fun one with a cool setting. Bugs is traveling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (underground, of course) but somehow winds up in Pittsburghe, Transylvania. There he makes his way to a spooky old castle where he meets up with his nemesis in this cartoon: vampire Count Blood Count. The Count tries repeatedly to bite Bugs but finds himself bested by, of all things, magic words Bugs happens to read in a book. A funny short with some good gags and lines. Being that this is a '60s Looney Tunes, the animation is not the greatest. But it is far from the worst I've seen from this period. The use of dark colors and shadows goes a long way to help the cartoon's look. Good voice work from Mel Blanc, Julie Bennett, and Ben Frommer. Surprisingly decent score from Bill Lava. One of the best Bugs cartoons of the 1960s. Not that there's a lot of competition.

Written by John Dunn, directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble, with a music score by Bill Lava, "Transylvania 6-5000" is one of the later Bugs Bunny cartoons made at Warner Bros., and not a bad cartoon at that. It may not be the funniest Bugs cartoon ever made, but it still contains plenty of verbal & visual gags as Bugs (who has lost his bearings) visits a spooky haunted house in order to telephone his travel agency. (Don't read any further if you have not yet seen this cartoon.) Bugs at first has no idea of the power of the magic words "abracadabra" and "hocus pocus"; often he'll sing these words to the tune of "It's Magic". The utterances of these magic words causes the majordomo Count Bloodcount to transform into a bat, or vice versa, which becomes a problem for gravity. This is what I like best about "Transylvania 6-5000". Good for Halloween or any old time!

Over his career as a cartoon director at Warner's, Chuck Jones crafted quite a few eerie cartoons, including a Sylvester-Porky trilogy which began with "Scaredy Cat." Jones never got around to putting the terrified cat and naive pig in a vampire's lair, but let Bugs take that turn instead. Bugs, like Porky in the earlier films, seems to be unaware of the danger he's in. He remains cheerful, and much of the film's humor comes from the way he maintains his aplomb against a shadowy background of coffin-shaped doorways, skull-and-bone carvings, and rotting drapes.The vampire he faces is not a generic Lugosi/Dracula type. Count Bloodcount is a distinctive character in his own right thanks to voice artist Ben Frommer and a crew of talented animators with Ken Harris foremost among them. Co-director Maurice Noble encouraged layout man Bob Givens and background artist Phil DeGuard to devise scenes which would have had Sylvester wide-eyed and shuddering. Musician William Lava used his ominous style to lend suitable aural touches to this frightfully good cartoon.-Tony

This Bugs Bunny is one of the better Bugs shorts done in the 1960s, when Warners cartoons were starting to vary greatly in terms of quality. This one is reasonably good and can actually compare favorably with the earlier work. Having Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble helps. Cartoon fans may notice slight but notable similarities to a later Inspector Clouseau short, Transylvania Mania. The similarities can be explained by the fact that both shorts were written by John Dunn, who wrote for Warners, MGM and Depatie-Freleng in the 1960s! He was definitely kept busy. More verbal jokes than usual but a fair number of sight gags. Worth Watching. Recommended.