The Bashful Buzzard (1945)

Wonderful Movie

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

It is a performances centric movie

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Beaky Buzzard returns in this enjoyable short from Bob Clampett. Beaky had previously appeared in Clampett's classic Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid. Here, as in that short, Beaky and his brothers are sent out by their mother to capture food. The brothers do so easily but Beaky runs into some trouble. Fun stuff from Clampett but missing the something extra Bugs brought to the table in the previous short. Still there are funny gags and lines throughout, as well as references to Dumbo and The Great Gildersleeve. Beaky may be a minor character in the grand scheme of things but he's impossible to dislike. Good animation, music, and voice work. The last cartoon Kent Rogers did before his untimely death.

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.

"Beaky Buzzard" was another Looney Tunes effort that never made it past a couple of efforts. This cartoon did offer some laughs, though.Mama buzzard, complete with a strong, stereotypical Italian accent, sends her four boys out on a mission - get food! Three of them head out in formation and start dive bombing immediately. The fourth is a shy little guy who sounds exactly like Edgar Bergen's ventriloquist character "Mortimer Snurd." He isn't just shy; he's just plain stupid. He's sarcastically called "killer."The cartoon started stupidly but did get funny when the buzzards started bringing back food to the nest high up in the mountains.What they brought back was astounding - and funny! Unfortunately, the 'toon reverts back to stupid near the end with the little guy inadvertently bringing back a surprise, but it's not really humorous. I can see why this idea didn't work.