Chuck Jones
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It's not worth cataloging it all, neither the details nor the referential jokes (though I have to go on record as saying that the re-enactment of a scene from the 1952 Chuck Jones short Feed the Kitty is as noble an homage to classical animation as Pixar has ever performed), because even a cursory viewing can't help but pick up at least some of the work that went into creating a deep, totally plausible environment for the film's action, using indescribable breadth of imagination to create the illusion of a quotidian world.
And the movie's most memorable gag pays tribute to both the Alien series and the classic Chuck Jones cartoon "One Froggy Evening."
The movie incrementally becomes the nine-figure-budgeted superhero action movie equivalent of a Chuck Jones-directed Looney Tunes touchstone like “Duck Amuck.”
Watching it, I couldn’t help but compare it in my mind (unfavorably) to the 1955 Looney Tunes short “One Froggy Evening.”
The Grinch (2018)
Directed by Yarrow Cheney
influenced by How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)
Plot
At a meager 86 minutes, this 2018 adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s iconic storybook “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” nonetheless adds a menagerie of new material, including a subplot about Cindy Lou Who scheming to ensnare Santa and a handful of new characters including a chubby reindeer named Fred, offering an admittedly adorable – if definitely not superior – update to the classic holiday mainstay.
I was skeptical that the short story by Dr. Seuss, already immortalized in the 26-minute Boris Karloff-starring 1966 animated TV special “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” could be stretched into an 86-minute movie.
You’re a Mean One: Okay, more specifically, this latest adaption of the iconic Dr. Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
If you're old enough to relish your encounters with such classic shorts as What's Opera, Doc? or Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century, then Space Jam is little more than a feeble extension.
Riley’s dreams are produced in the cranial version of a TV studio; a trip through the blank spaces of abstract thought pays tribute to Duck Amuck , one of the greatest cartoons ever made; there’s even a pink, hobo elephant voiced by Richard Kind named Bing Bong.
We're talking "Duck Amuck" style surrealism in a few places.
That is a promising concept, I suppose—something like a sci-fi take on the classic Daffy Duck cartoon “Duck Amuck,” in which Daffy was at the mercy of a mischievous animator (guess who?) who changed the circumstances of his existence in a flash with increasing surreal results—but screenwriter Oren Uziel has no clear idea of how to implement such an idea.
At one point, he types commands, and she reacts like a puppet -- it's romantic manipulation at its most literal, as well as a grotesque variation on "Duck Amuck" (1953), in which Daffy Duck is tormented by his animator, Chuck Jones.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Directed by Cathy Yan
influenced by Duck Amuck (1953)
Themes
Remember the ending of that classic Warner Bros cartoon Duck Amuck, in which Daffy Duck is tormented by the hand of an unseen animator who keeps cruelly erasing and redrawing his reality (for instance replacing a parachute with an anvil)?
(Suffice it to say, if it had ended by stealing a page from the end of the classic cartoon ''Duck Amuck'' and having Bugs Bunny turn to the camera and say �Ain't I a stinker?,� that would have made infinitely more sense that what is offered up here.)
It has some of the greatest split-screen gags I've seen, the best of which, an extended drug trip, is "Duck Amuck" sublime.
But the promise goes unfulfilled, and the film is preceded by an equally disappointing 3-D Daffy Duck/Elmer Fudd cartoon "Daffy's Rhapsody," a grating, pushy comedown from the Olympian heights of "Duck Amuck" or the gorgeous and eternal "What's Opera, Doc?"
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Directed by Bill Condon
influenced by How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)
Themes
The heel-face turn is a great tradition in stories about villains, and it’s given American pop culture some of its most memorable story endings — in Return of the Jedi, in Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, even most recently in Moana .
The story speeds along at a fast clip, opening with fine voice-over narration from Geoffrey Rush, who puts us in nostalgic mind of the masterful work done by Boris Karloff for Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!"