Transylvania 6-5000 (1963)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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!

Another classic here. Yes, it is a classic. So simple are the gags, and yet they are so effective. Buggs is in top form here I can tell you. Just read this below. But you really need to see the visual gag that is "tagged" along with this to get the re-impact.... But read below: Count Bloodcount: I am a vampire. Bugs Bunny: Oh, yeah? Well, Abracadabra, I'm an umpire. Suddenly is wearing umpire clothesCount Bloodcount: Hocus Pocus, I'm a bat. Turns into a bat Bugs Bunny: I can be a bat, too. Hocus Pocus. turns into a baseball bat Count Bloodcount: - putting on glasses - You wouldn't hurt a bat with glasses, would you? Bat hits vampire Just brilliant. Trust me you will like this cartoon. I wish that these were shown more often so that a new generation could see them. We were lucky in that we could see them on a regularly basis..... Please any one else leave you views here about this classic

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.