Any Bonds Today?

Leon Schlesinger Presents Bugs Bunny

United States

1942

3 Min

Color

English

Currently 2.9/5 Stars.
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CAST Mel Blanc, Arthur Q. Bryan

MUSIC Irving Berlin, Carl W. Stalling, Milt Franklyn

ANIM Robert McKimson, Virgil Ross, Rod Scribner

Synopsis

The 90-second cartoon, commissioned by the Treasury and now in the public domain, was designed to encourage movie theater audiences to buy defense bonds and stamps. Its title card identifies it as “Leon Schlesinger Presents Bugs Bunny”, but it is more widely known as “Any Bonds Today?”

Bob Clampett directed the film, which started production in late November 1941 and was completed eight days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Bugs Bunny parodies Al Jolson in blackface.

In it, Bugs Bunny sings a portion of Berlin’s song, “Any Bond’s Today”, against a patriotic backdrop, at one point going into a blackface parody of Al Jolson. For the song’s last refrain, he is joined by Porky Pig, in Navy uniform, and Elmer Fudd, in Army garb.

The approximately 15-second sequence with Bugs in blackface, singing to “Uncle Sammy”, has been controversial in recent years and is usually removed from modern releases of the film. Cartoon Network, which in 2001 planned to show every Bugs Bunny cartoon as part of a “June Bugs” marathon, ultimately decided to pull Any Bonds Today? and 11 other cartoons that depict ethnic stereotypes. It should be of note, however, that Cartoon Network did air it, with the blackface part removed, on a ToonHeads special about lost and rare Warner Bros. cartoons.

Any Bonds Today? is also one of five cartoons featuring the Elmer Fudd modeled after his voice actor, Arthur Q. Bryan, which is fatter than the popular incarnation. Clampett made these shorts with a fat Elmer because he could not make Porky as fat as he was in his first cartoon, I Haven’t Got a Hat. —Wikipedia

Director

Robert Clampett

Clampett joined the Harman-Ising Studio in 1931, and in the early ‘30s began animating for the Warner Brothers’ “Loony Tunes” cartoons. He graduated to directing in the late 1930s, and until 1946 made some of the most hilarious and outrageous of the Warner cartoons: Porky In Wackyland, highlighted by some of Clampett’s most surreal humor; A Tale Of Two Kitties, which introduced Tweety Bird; A Corny Concerto, his Fantasia send-up; the race parody Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs; Russian Rhapsody, in which gremlins from the Kremlin sock it to Hitler; Draftee Daffy, with the little black duck trying to dodge the man from the draft board; Kitty Kornered, with Porky Pig bested by his pet cats; and The Big Snooze, a slapstick psychodrama with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, which marked Clampett’s final cartoon for Warners. After a brief stint at Screen Gems, Clampett turned to television and created the popular puppet show Time For Beany. In the late ’50s he animated his characters for the television… read more