A Star Is Bored
A Star Is Bored is a 1956 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon, directed by Friz Freleng.[1] The short was released on September 15, 1956, and stars Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.[2] The cartoon expands upon the rivalry depicted between Bugs and Daffy, in such films as Chuck Jones' 1951 short Rabbit Fire, this time placing the action in a show-biz setting. In this 7-minute short, Daffy must double for Bugs in any slapstick that Warners deems too dangerous for its top star.[3] After each disaster, Daffy shouts "MAKEUP!". The director directing the scenes has an Erich Von Stroheim accent.
| A Star Is Bored | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Friz Freleng |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer (uncredited) |
| Story by | Warren Foster |
| Starring | Mel Blanc June Foray (uncredited) Arthur Q. Bryan (uncredited) |
| Music by | Milt Franklyn |
| Animation by | Art Davis Virgil Ross Gerry Chiniquy |
| Layouts by | Hawley Pratt |
| Backgrounds by | Irv Wyner |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
Release date | September 15, 1956 (US) |
Running time | 7 minutes |
| Language | English |
This is one of the only four Warner Bros. shorts (the others being This Is a Life?, Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers, and [Blooper] Bunny) in which Bugs is paired with each of his three main antagonists (Daffy, Elmer Fudd, and Yosemite Sam).
The title is a play on the film A Star Is Born.
Plot
The opening frame depicts the exterior of Bugs' dressing room, inside which he is talking to the journalist, Lolly (a reference to the nickname of Hollywood columnist Louella Parsons). Outside, we see Daffy sweeping the floor, complaining about the job he got. Fed up, Daffy decides to be a movie star.
Daffy then marches into the casting director's (possibly Jack L. Warner) office just as he is on the phone with another executive discussing the difficulty in finding anyone "STUPID ENOUGH" to be Bugs' stunt double for his next picture. Daffy of course takes the job!
After a visit to the Make-Up Department, Daffy gets his first taste of on-the-set film action shortly thereafter (a Western co-starring Yosemite Sam). Initially, Daffy is extremely excited to be finally in any motion picture ("I could be sent to prison for the scenes I'm gonna steal!", he snickers). He takes Bugs' place in a rabbit costume and holding a carrot, and stands next to Sam. Daffy gets the worst of it instead of Bugs!
Next, Bugs is in a scene where Elmer Fudd is cast in his usual role as trying to hunt Bugs. Bugs is high in a tree and Elmer is supposed to climb it to saw the branch Bugs is sitting on, off (though not all the way through, as Bugs reminds him). However, Daffy has other ideas. He tells Elmer to come closer to him, as he has something to tell him. Lacking a clue to Daffy's actual motive, Elmer shuffles closer to Daffy, who whacks him in the head to knock him out. Daffy tries to upstage Bugs by sawing off the branch Bugs is on; unfortunately for Daffy, the branch Bugs stands on is solid, while the part Daffy stands on falls to the ground!
After this sequence, Bugs is fishing off a pier, but Daffy takes no notice. Despite Bugs' advice to let HIM do the scene, Daffy insists on taking his place at the end of the pier and his fishing rod. Yet he is not safe from the film script even now, as a giant bluefin tuna swallows him whole.
Another scene wherein Bugs is chased by Elmer follows this one, culminating when Bugs dives into another tree. With the "SCREWY RABBIT" cornered, Elmer aims his gun into the tree but gets poked in the rear by the gun's barrel (in reality, it is really Bugs holding another gun). When Elmer pulls his gun back, the other one makes the same movements. Wondering just how stupid Elmer is, Daffy furiously marches onto the set, snatches Elmer's gun and shoves him off. Daffy sticks the gun into the hole in the tree in which Bugs is hiding but what he believes to be another gun (in reality it is HIS gun bent around so that it points at his hindquarters) sticks up through a hole in the ground just behind him! Daffy retracts his gun; the "other" gun does the same. Daffy does this two or three more times before he decides to try a small experiment. He ties a red ribbon around the barrel of his gun, then sticks it into the tree, and looks behind him. The ribbon on the gun in the ground is white with red polka dots, leading Daffy to believe it to be a fake. He shoots, intending to mark Bugs, but the bent-around gun plan is revealed when the bullet hits him in the hindquarters and he pulls the gun out of the tree. The ribbon is white with red polka dots! Daffy did not notice that Bugs had switched the ribbon.
The next scene has Bugs piloting a plane accelerating up to 20,000 feet, then going uncontrollably in the direction of the ground. At the last second, the plane is "stopped" before crashing and Bugs get out and his place gets taken by Daffy who, as usual, gets the worst of it, once again!
Having finally had more than enough, Daffy announces that "I'm through playin' stooge to a rabbit! I wanna star in my OWN picture!" to the casting director, who promptly tells the distraught Daffy that he has just such a script: the starring role in a new movie called "The Duck".
The final scene shows the filming of "The Duck", with Daffy starring as a typical duck in a peaceful pond and directed by the same man who helmed the earlier movie wherein Daffy subbed for Bugs. Just as in the first scene of the earlier film, Daffy digs out his script to rehearse his line. When the director announces "Camerrrra! Action!" Daffy says, "I wonder where all the hunters are today?", at which point ten hunters suddenly surround the pond, gun Daffy down and leave. Again infuriated, Daffy shrieks, "I DEMAND TO KNOW WHO WROTE THIS SCRIPT!" The cruel screenwriter turns out to be none other than... Bugs, to whom the camera is now transferred and who says, "I'd love to tell him, but, uh... hehehehe... modesty forbids."
Cast
- Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Director (voice)
- Arthur Q. Bryan as Elmer Fudd (voice) (uncredited)
- June Foray as Lolly (voice) (uncredited)
Availability
As of 2007, A Star Is Bored is available on the four-disc DVD box set Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5,[4] as well as the similar, two-disc DVD Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 5. It is also available as a bonus on the PlayStation 2 version of Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and the "Daffy Duck's Madcap Mania" VHS. The short is also available on the 2011 DVD The Essential Daffy Duck.
See also
References
- Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 290. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
- Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 60-62. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
- A Star Is Bored on IMDb
- DVD details for A Star Is Bored - IMDb