Saturday Morning at the Carolina

"Buster, it may come as a bit of a surprise
 to find that *this* is an animated cartoon."

                          - Daffy Dumas Duck

On Saturday, May 28th, the Carolina Theater, in Durham, started its
summer movie series with, appropriately enough, THE LOONEY TUNES HALL OF
FAME.  The prices were higher for kids ($3.50 versus $1.50 for adults),
a business decision based on either shrewd marketing or intolerance for
tykes. That's a joke, son.

Grown-ups, who thought they were getting a bargain buying a
buck-and-a-half quarter-staff, were subsequently subjected to an
unexpected (and unadvertised) forty-minute prelude of puppets and
dancing, and singing and skits, and a six-foot kangaroo named Kam.

ACME kangaroo bait, anyone?

The HALL OF FAME really wasn't. Conspicuously absent were THE RABBIT OF
SEVILLE and WHAT'S OPERA DOC, among other, better shorts. But there were
enough anvils, rifles, and other ACME products to make everyone happy--
not just the rabbits and coyotes.

A BEAR FOR PUNISHMENT, less known than stand-outs ONE FROGGY EVENING and
DUCK DODGERS IN THE 24 1/2 CENTURY, was itself worth the price of
admission and featured fatherly abuse the likes of which PC TV
wouldn't dare show these days.

(The irony, of course, is that children were never the intended audience
 of these films. Those great Warner animators of the forties and fifties
 designed these shorts for themselves and the adult audiences who saw
 them before feature films.)

Next week the theater screens WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.
Depending upon your tolerance for a live "opening act," you may wish to
call ahead and find out what time the *film* (and not just the show)
starts.

Two-hours-plus-change can be a long time for a little person to sit
still.

That's all folks.

Copyright 1994 by Michael J. Legeros
Movie Hell is a trademark of Michael J. Legeros