Ant Pasted

It's the Fourth of July and Elmer Fudd is looking to celebrate with a picnic and fireworks. When he decides to throw some of the fireworks at an ant hill "for fun," he starts a war he has no chance of winning. Elmer Fudd versus a colony of angry ants may not sound like the most exciting idea for a cartoon (and it isn't) but there are some laughs to be had here. Not many but some. Great voice work from Arthur Q. Bryan. Mel Blanc handles the voices of the ants but you wouldn't know it as their voices are sped up Chipmunk-style. That's actually one of the cartoon's bigger negatives, in my opinion. I thought the ant voices were annoying. The animation is crisp with lovely bright colors. Nice score from Carl Stalling. It's not a great short, to be honest. It's enjoyable enough but the ants aren't very funny, leaving most of the laughs to come from Elmer's buffoonery.

Elmer Fudd decides to go on a small camping trip for the fourth of July and takes lots of fireworks with him to celebrate. As he starts to set them off he ends up bothering an ant hill - and then throws them at the ants for fun. However the bugs are organised and mobilise an army to repel Fudd.

Elmer Fudd is more of a supporting player than a leading man, so as the film starts it was a bit of a worry. Despite this worry the film actually managed to be quite funny and fast moving. The battle between Fudd and the ants has lots of routines you'll recognise and it pretty much uses every `stick of dynamite' gag you'll have seen. It moves pretty fast and that is part of it's appeal - even if one scene doesn't work that well, it's only a matter of seconds before the next one comes along.

Fudd is OK but he struggled a little at times with the weight of carrying the film. The ants do reasonably well but they don't have that much of a character and, even worse it's really difficult to understand what they are saying at times.

Overall this film feels like it needs a big name in the cast to really raise it a bit, but the minor players do well and still produce a fun little cartoon.

Have been a fan of Looney Tunes all my life, the peak period being between the early 40s up to the mid-50s where one saw classic characters, great animation and music, very clever and hilarious writing and Mel Blanc always on top form. Their 60s output saw a lapse in quality though, while budgets were noticeably lower, the gags were too few and repetitive and what appealed before became cheap, annoying or out of character.

While Elmer Fudd is not my favourite Looney Tunes character, he endears and amuses despite being dim-witted and easily outwitted and have always liked him with Bugs Bunny particularly. There was interest in seeing Elmer as a lead character carrying a cartoon, when he is usually a supporting character or co-lead. Serving as the foil for especially Bugs and Daffy Duck, both of whom he worked timelessly with despite them being them generally being more interesting and funnier. 'Ant Pasted' is not him at his best, but one does see Elmer's appeal here and personality and humour-wise it is classic Elmer.

Do also agree that the ants could have had slightly stronger personalities to convince entirely as adversaries and also don't think their voices quite fitted their character designs.

'Ant Pasted' is slightly on the formulaic side story-wise, the outcome is not that much of a surprise.

Elmer though is on very good form, actually working surprisingly well as a character usually in support carrying the cartoon. He is as endearing and amusing as ever while never losing what made him as good a character as he is. Arthur Q- Bryan does a typically great job voicing him, and to me he is the best voice for Elmer and the only one to properly work. The animation is fluid and beautifully drawn and coloured, while Carl Stalling shows as to why he is one of the best in the "composing music for animation" job at the time. Have always loved his energetic rhythms, beautiful orchestration and ability to enhance the action (more than adding to it).

The Elmer vs ants war antics are fairly familiar but are very funny and have tension without resorting too much to repetition. The story still has a good deal of energy and always compels, despite the lack of surprises. Bryan is great, though Blanc is rather unrecognisable here and not in the best of ways.

Overall, very enjoyable. 8/10

Usually, Elmer Fudd plays second banana to Bugs Bunny, so it's always eye-opening when he gets to be the lead role. In "Ant Pasted", he goes on a picnic for Fourth of July and starts lighting dynamite and throwing it at some nearby ants. Before too long, the formic co-stars have turned into bigger bad-asses than the ones in "Them!" ever dreamed of being.

I agree with a previous reviewer that maybe they could have given the ants some more character, but otherwise, the whole cartoon's a hoot. And you'd better believe that they've got some neat stuff planned with the dynamite. When I was young, I always thought that the dynamite tricks were so cool, that one year, I even went out as a stick of dynamite for Halloween! Nowadays, that would probably lead to an arrest.

Anyway, this is one of the many cartoons that show why the Looney Tunes were truly the gold standard of their day. I imagine that the people making the cartoon probably had lots of fun creating it. Cool.