The Devil and Isadore Freleng

I mentioned before, in an earlier Looney Tunes story, that Friz Freleng does have an affinity for the macabre in his Looney Tunes cartoons. A big part of it is his depictions of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with three shorts playing out that story. But the affinity also includes an even darker depiction: the Devil. We have seen Heaven and Hell depicted in classic cartoons before. Tom and Jerry gave us the famous short, Heavenly Daze, where Tom ends up in Heaven after his latest chase, but faces heading to "the other place" if he can't receive documented forgiveness from Jerry.

Looney Tunes was no stranger to these devilish tales, as Freleng gave us not one, but two hellish shorts. They are as follows:

Satan's Waitin' (1954)

One of the most known Sylvester & Tweety shorts was Satan's Waitin', which was released on August 7, 1954. The cartoon starts per usual, Sylvester's chasing Tweety atop a tall building, and he catches the bird, but discovers that he has slid off the building. Sylvester manages to snatch a pair of Tweety's tailfeathers before falling, and uses them to fly up to the top. However, Tweety--innocently thinking that Sylvester was returning his tailfeathers--retrieves them, and Sylvester falls and hits the ground.

So yeah, in this instance, Sylvester's actually killed. We see Sylvester head to the stairway to Heaven, but there's a barrier. So he takes the only other stairway... down there. The fiery setting and the sound of evil laughter lead to Sylvester realizing where he was, and regarding the latter, it belonged to a very canine Devil, who looks at his log and tells Sylvester that he had been a "bad pussycat." Of course, cats have nine lives, so the canine Devil tells #1 to sit and wait for the other eight, and he'll get the others. Oh boy.

Sylvester wakes up and upon seeing Tweety, he tells the canary to run off and that he's done chasing him. However, Sylvester is prodded by the canine Devil, who tells him that he has eight lives left. Sylvester chases Tweety, but ends up flattened by a steamroller, losing life #2. Sylvester wants to quit, but bulldog Beelzebub appears and says that Sylvester has seven lives left ("Seven is a lucky number," he says). So the chase continues on and heads to an amusement park, where the characters enter a tunnel. Sylvester notices something about the tunnel and looks at it. Big mistake. The entrance resembles a demon dog, and it literally scares life #3 out of Sylvester.

So doggie Devil appears and orders Sylvester to go after Tweety. The chase leads to a shooting range game at the park, and Sylvester makes the big mistake of posing as one of the targets. A customer fires the gun and the shots result in Sylvester losing life #4. And #5. And #6. And #7. Finally, Sylvester runs out of there and tracks Tweety to a rollercoaster. He stands up and prepares to clobber Tweety, only to run into the narrow entrance, costing him life #8. The reality hits Sylvester: he now has one life left and has to be careful. Doggie Devil tells Sylvester to go get Tweety. Sylvester's not having it. Sylvester leaves the park and hides out in a bank vault, with plenty of food. Just his luck, that same vault is being robbed by a pair of criminals, with one of them asking the other, named Muggsy, if he used too much dynamite. Muggsy's sure he didn't.

Guess what happens?

The explosion hits.

"You used too much, Muggsy."

"Now he tells him," says Sylvester, after losing life #9.

Very dark ending, though the short overall was dark. The last lines, IMO, take some of the darkness out of that ending.

Devil's Feud Cake (1963)

On February 9, 1963, Devil's Feud Cake was released, which was not only dircted by Freleng, he also co-wrote it with Warren Foster. This was a compilation short, but I loved this one, as it featured borrowed portions from three old cartoons. This was a Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam short, and the beginning borrows from 1952's Hare Lift, which sees Bugs look around inside an airplane, only to be encountered by Sam, who had just robbed a bank. We get a condensed version of the old short, which features Sam ordering Bugs to fly the plane, followed by Bugs reading the instructions and the robot pilot taking one of the two parachutes and jumping out.

Sam takes the other one and jumps, while Bugs stops the plane with an emergency brake. In Hare Lift, Sam's parachute opens, and he lands in a police car and is arrested. In this? The "parachute" is revealed as a knapsack containing kitchen utensils, and Sam falls to his death and ends up on a stairway to Hell, where he encounters the Devil.

"What the Devil is your name?" is his query. Fun fact: the Devil's original question was, "Well, who the hell are you?"

A freaked out Sam introduced himself, and the Devil looks through his log and says, "Ooooh, my... you are a mean one." All Sam can do is sob, but the Devil makes a deal with Sam: if he can bring Bugs down to take his place, he'll let Sam go. Sam accepts, and he's back on Earth, where he sees a poster for Bugs Bunny appearing in "Ben Hare." So Sam gets a disguise and locates Bugs waiting for his cue.

"I'm on next," said Bugs.

"Oh no, you're not," said Sam. "You've got a date with that unmentionable place. So, so long, rabbit." Sam wields the sword at Bugs, who runs off, prompting a chase and borrowing material from another short, 1955's Roman-Legion Hare. We see Sam attacked by lions, he escapes and chases Bugs, only for the lions to run him off again. With no other alternative, Sam jumps off a cliff and returns to Hell, with the Devil scolding Sam for failing. After being told that he's not the man for the job, Sam pleads for another chance, and gets one, with Sam being sent to the desert, a la footage from 1955's Sahara Hare. Sam locates Bugs, shoots him, and then makes attempts to capture him. The last attempt saw him carve one of the stone bricks out of the shelter, only to reveal a cannon that shoots him back to Hell.

The Devil voiced his disappointment in Sam, but decided to give him one more chance. Sam's response?

"Oh no, you're not! If you want him, you can get him yourself!"

Sam later appears in a devil suit and says that he's staying, followed by fits of maniacal laughter.

I did love Devil's Feud Cake because of its use of borrowed material, as well as the shorts they borrowed from. 18 years later, we would see the plot to Devil's Feud Cake reused in the first act of 1981's Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, which was a tribute to Friz Freleng's contributions. The cartoon Devil in this go-around received a different look and a different voice; while Mel Blanc voiced him in the short, the Devil in this film was actually voiced by Frank Nelson. Nelson is best remembered for his many appearances on I Love Lucy, usually playing game show host Freddie Fillmore, and later playing Ralph Ramsey during the show's final year. He is also best remembered for his appearances on Sanford and Son as that random recurring character who always says, "Ye-e-e-e-e-s?"

Friz Freleng's affinity for the macabre is quite interesting. The Jekyll and Hyde homages in his shorts, and these shorts with characters actually ending up in Hell. Very dark and deep stories, and they were told magnificently well.