Written by Sam Niles
The first segment of Bugs Bunny’s 24 Carrot Holiday Special, HBO Max’s new holiday special featuring all your favorite Looney Tunes celebrating the holiday season in typically looney style, involves Daffy Duck and Porky Pig on a mission to save Christmas after learning Santa’s Elves are on strike. As one might expect from a Christmas special, Santa rehires the elves in the end after learning a lesson from the famed bird and swine. But the lesson doesn’t come in the form of a Biblical monologue like in A Charlie Brown Christmas, or through a story that reflects the magic of belief as seen in The Polar Express.
No, Santa learns his lesson after Daffy and Porky do such a bad job (and accidentally create a murderous robot) that Santa begrudgingly offers a 20% pay raise (plus dental) to the striking elves.
Watching this segment in particular in adulthood, it really hit home that, boy….Looney Tunes sure is cynical, isn’t it?
This isn’t a negative reflection. It’s not some attempt to say “this thing you loved from your childhood is bad, actually,” but instead a point of appreciation. It provides a healthy dose of it. The dynamics aren’t of best friends but primarily of hunter and hunted, con artist and (intended) victims, and any time a moment of peace or reconciliation happens, there’s always a catch.
What’s really nice? This new Looney Tunes may be modern, and it certainly embraces this modernity for the sake of humor, but it feels like the Looney Tunes of old simply made with newer tools, and both the modernity and festive spirit fit this Christmas special like a glove. Featuring set ups both classic and distinct, we get a glimpse at the way certain animation icons go about the holiday season. Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote both rely on more festive disguises and traps to lure their respective prey. The former is trying to find Tweety Bird during a mad holiday shopping season, and the latter searches for the Road Runner in their expected locations, with the Christmas decorations making for an effective contrast of the Arizonian setting.
The title character of this Christmas special, of course, shows up, in a vendetta between him and Elmer Fudd over where the latter is indiscriminate over where he shovels his snow, and they repeatedly try to one-up each other in delightfully absurd ways.
But arguably the standout segment features Taz. He goes door to door to carol, making the ultimate anti-social being perform the ultimate public showcase of the Christmas spirit. Visually inventive, the sequence is a montage of different doors opening to Taz facing different…struggles as he attempts to spread holiday cheer, and during this segment, Taz’s trademark violence, combined with Looney Tunes’ trademark cynicism and irony, make this segment a particular standout in a delightful special.
Providing five segments in total, every moment of Bugs Bunny’s 24 Carrot Holiday Special is a delight for the whole family. The special serves as an effective middle ground between the childhood of today and the childhood of the past, parents will be nostalgic for the cartoons they grew up watching, as if they were transported back in time, while children will be able to relish in the childish pleasures for the (valid) sake of childishness.
