Cartoon a Day: The Big Snooze

The Big Snooze
1946
Directed by Bob Clampett (uncredited)
Available on: Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 2

"The Big Snooze" is a classic example of the Bob Clampett style of Looney Tunes cartoon...completely crazy!


It begins with Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny...the usual. But, after one particularly funny bit involving running through a hollow log and a cliff edge, Elmer decides he's had it and tears up his Warner Brothers contract.



He sets out to take up fishing, and promptly falls asleep while at the side of a pond. Bugs, figuring that his job is in jeopardy if Elmer isn't on board, takes some sleeping pills to continue the antics in Elmer's dreams. Kind of Freddy Krueger - ish, I guess.


Setting the cartoon in a dream world just gives Clampett license to go totally nuts, not that he ever needed an excuse before. One sequence seems to be a parody of the "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence of Disney's "Dumbo."



Bugs also manages to get Elmer to dress up as a woman and the sequence just gets more and more bizarre from there. Clampett understood that there is no limit to what's possible in a cartoon...probably better than any other director. Everything is taken to the extreme.


Just look at the above screen capture! When you freeze frame a Clampett cartoon you're just never sure what kind of an odd pose you're going to get. He was a master. Unfortunately, this was one of his last cartoons at Warner Brothers.