Gorilla My Dreams USA, NR, 7 m, 1948
Released in 1948, Gorilla My Dreams is the only “Looney Tunes” short to feature Gruesome Gorilla, a barrel-chested primate with pointy choppers and a strong disdain for wascally wabbits. In the pantheon of Bugs Bunny’s one-shot adversaries (Count Blood Count, the Gremlin, Herman Goering), G.G. is one of the most formidable. Too bad Warner Bros. retired him before he had a chance to catch on with the public. Bugs Bunny (voiced, of course, by Mel Blanc) is adrift at sea in a barrel. Unbeknownst to our hero, the barrel is floating towards the jungle isle of Bingzi-Bangzi, which has a sign touting it as the “land of the ferocious apes.” But despite this chilling admonition (and a forbidding score by the great Carl Stalling), the island’s inhabitants are a largely docile lot: they lounge about munching on bananas and reading books like Our Vines Have Tender Apes. In one of the huts that make up Simian City, Mrs. Gruesome is giving her loutish husband an earful about his inability to knock her up. Half-crazed by her incessant nagging, Gruesome gets in her face and lets out an earth-trembling roar that sends her packing. She runs to the island’s rim and collapses, her body racked with sobs. As tears race down her cheeks to mix with her hubby’s foul spittle, she takes notice of the barrel bobbing in the water. Like Thermuthis’ handmaiden rescuing Moses from the Nile, Mrs. Gruesome pulls the craft to shore. When her watery eyes come to rest on the long-eared castaway inside, she immediately falls in eyelid-fluttering love. (It’s unclear if she mistakes Bugs as an ape or if she’s so desperate for a child that she doesn’t care what he is.) She grabs the barrel and swings back home, while Bugs, oblivious to what’s going on, leafs through Esquire and sings “Someone’s Rocking My Dream Boat.” Swinging from vine to vine, Mrs. Gruesome comes upon a stoplight, which permits none other than Tarzan (doing his best Johnny Weissmuller-style ululation) to pass through. She then makes it to the top of a soaring tree and removes Bugs from the barrel. She smothers him with hugs and kisses, little red hearts spilling from her chest. (She might’ve been the template for the friendless, mentally challenged yeti that tried to make Bugs his pet in The Abominable Snow Rabbit.) “Hey, cut that out, gargantuan,” Bugs hollers, “I’m not a gorilla!” Mrs. Gruesome turns back on the waterworks, causing Bugs to rethink his standoffishness. “That’s my soft spot: dames cryin’.” He unfurls his arms and says, “Muddah!” Muddah brings Bugs—now dressed in a pink bonnet and diaper combo—back home to meet his new daddy. When Gruesome gets a load of the pink-nosed, fluffy-tailed whatsit, he realizes the little lady has lost her marbles, but not wanting to upset her, he volunteers to take junior outside for some fun and games. While playing upsy-daisy, Gruesome hurls Bugs a hundred or so feet into the sky. When Bugs falls back to Earth, he hits the ground with a resounding THUD! (Thank Michigan J. Frog he didn’t buy the farm!) Bugs picks himself up, dusts off, and smacks dad over the head with a shovel. And soon they’re moving around in a circle, sizing each other up like a couple of contestants from “WWE Friday Night SmackDown.” But then Bugs starts to boogie down (to a tune emanating from God only knows where), which prompts the dumb-as-dirt gorilla to bust some of his own moves. Bugs throws his oversized feetsies (to the beat of the music) into a nearby tree, knocking loose cocoanuts that rain down on the ape’s thick head. Gruesome goes stark raving mad—Bugs’ cue to hightail it outta there. And so begins the kind of great vine chase we wouldn’t see again until Mutt Williams and his monkey pals took after the Russkies in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Gruesome finally catches up to Bugs at the edge of a cliff and beats the living hell out of him. He pummels, twists, and stomps Bugs’ lanky frame until he passes out from exhaustion. “Eh, I guess I wore him out,” Bugs muses. Yes, it’s a weak ending, but limp punchlines were not all that uncommon for “Looney Tunes.” Their seeming indifference to Hollywood’s hard-on for “The Big Finish” was part of their charm. Gorilla My Dreams, which was written by Warren Foster and directed by Robert McKimson, was remade in 1959 as Apes of Wrath, the title of which was taken from a gag in this cartoon. Gorilla My Dreams may have the better animation, but its far more vulgar offspring has the bigger laughs. September 15, 2008 “Gorilla My Dreams” Review. © Copyright 2008 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.
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