By now you almost certainly have seen a clip of Javier Báez forcing an error for the ages by Pittsburgh Pirate's first baseman Will Craig. With Chicago up 1-0, Willson Contreras on second base, two outs in the top of the third. Báez rips a liner down the third base line. Erik González fields it neatly and throws to first baseman Will Craig. This should end the inning on a routine groundout. But González’s throw pulled Craig a bit off the bag, and Báez stopped a few feet before he got to Craig. But Báez, known as El Mago (The Magician) manages to pull Craig into a game of pickle rather than simply tagging the bag at first. Hijinks ensue with Contreras stealing home with Báez and Craig just a few feet away.
The MLB has gathered together the various angles and if you watch from the angle that starts at the 2:24 mark, you can see just how thoroughly El Mago has ensorceled both Craig and catcher Michael Perez. You can see that Javier Báez can see that Contreras has a shot if he can stall for time. In a series of stutter steps, he draws them in until they are right at home all within a few feet of each other when we see Craig thinking he’s about to pull off the coup de grace and just flip the ball over Javier Báez’s head to Perez for the squeeze out when Contreras comes sliding into home and throws the situation into even greater chaos, eventually landing El Mago on segunda base.
All of which couldn’t help but me in mind of my all-time favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon, 1943’s Wackiki Wabbit. The film was produced by Leon Schlesinger Production, an independent outfit that produced Merry Melodies cartoons for Warner Brothers. It was directed by Charles M. Jones, (not yet Chuck Jones) just 31 years old and ten years into his career with Schlesinger under the tutelage of Tex Avery in the 30s. Avery left Schlesinger in 1941 during a series of disputes between Schlesinger and the staff. Jones had moved on from Avery’s team at that point. While Avery and most of his team left the studio, Jones was successful in leading a unionization effort that culminated in The Looney Tunes Lockout when the staff went on strike and Schlesinger countered by locking them out for two weeks. The union prevailed however, and the lockout ended with a union contract. 1943 was also the year that Jones began directing the Private Snafu films, a series of black-and-white American instructional adult animated shorts for the US Army working with Theodore Geisel, aka Doctor Suess. The character was created by director Frank Capra, chairman of the U.S. Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit. Although the United States Army gave Walt Disney the first crack at creating the cartoons, Leon Schlesinger underbid Disney by two-thirds and won the contract.
Wackiki Wabbit is the tale of two castaways who wind up ashore a tiny Pacific isle inhabited by one Bugs Bunny. There are a few solid laughs as the two men, one fat, one skinny, so dazed by hunger, hallucinate each other respectively as a hamburger and a hotdog. The fat guy begins to salt the skinny guy’s knee in anticipation of a tasty snack. The skinny guy starts to eyeball his own foot, sliding a plate underneath. As he hones a knife against a roasting fork, the fat guy perks up and dons a cloth napkin around his neck to join in, breaking the skinny guy’s illusion.
Warning: There are some Pacific Islander ethnic jokes, which while quite clever in concept — watch for the reversal of subtitles — haven’t aged particularly well since the middle of World War II. Perhaps I’m an insensitive cisgender White male, but they seem more clumsy than offensive to me. Your mileage may vary and I would hardly blame you.
What has aged well are the two things I love about this film. I think they are both timeless and sublime.
The first is the abstract backdrops for the island sequences. They combine two alternating tiki pattern wallpapers with Matisse-style cutout paintings of the island flora. As best I can tell, this approach was unique to this film. While they are labor-saving static mattes, the style and some fancy camera work more than make up for that.
The second is what I see as the Ur-Bugs Bunny Manuveur of all time. After trying and failing to braise and eat Bugs Bunny the castaways believe they are saved when a giant steamliner appears out of nowhere and docks (what’s up dock?) at the island. Singing and dancing in celebration of their salvation, they are joined by Bugs who begins showering them in a flurry of flower leis, wishing them bon voyage, escorting them to the gangplank. [Spoiler alert] As they hit the gangplank, Bugs shoves two valises, one for each of them to their sides … but actually just past them. In the frenzy of bon voyages and au revoirs, Bugs gives them each a hug, beginning a pivot as he locks eyes and shakes hands, maneuvering them 180° and picking up the valises, and backing up the gangplank himself as he transitions them to wishing him bon voyage and imploring him not to forget to write. They wave the ship goodbye with the dawning realization that they’ve been buffaloed and are now shit out of luck.
It’s an ensorcelment in the exact same vein as Javier Báez, El Mago, pulled on Will Craig and Michael Pérez.
I remember seeing Wackiki Wabbit at about 12 years old, trapped in a basement family room with three or four other 12-year-olds who were in no way equipped to appreciate the genius of what they’d just witnessed. It was a joyous occasion for me but also a little bit lonely. I share it now with you, fully confident that you are one of the good ones, able to appreciate the sublime, even in something as silly as an 80-year-old Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Bon voyage!