What is Show Biz Bugs?

Show Biz Bugs is a Warner Bros. animated short originally aired in theaters on November 2, 1957. It is billed as a Looney Tunes and it has Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck as its main characters.

Credits

• Directed by: Friz Freleng
• Story: Warren Foster
• Animation: Gerry Chiniquy, Arthur Davis, Virgil Ross
• Layout: Hawley Pratt
• Backgrounds: Boris Gorelick
• Film Editor: Treg Brown
• Voice Characterizations: Mel Blanc
• Musical Direction: Milt Franklyn

Summary

Bugs and Daffy are performing an on-stage number. Daffy, tired of Bugs hogging up all the cheering, decides to try numerous numbers on his own in order to impress the audience. After tons of failed attempts, Daffy is willing to risk everything in order to upstage Bugs, including sabotage Bugs' own acts and try a number that can only be done once.

Censorship

Almost every TV airing of this cartoon edits the same scene, but in different ways. This involves the final scene where Daffy performs his ultimate act by drinking dangerous chemicals.

• *Cartoon Network used to air the original ending, but edited it by replacing the shots of Daffy drinking gasoline, nitrogyclerine, and gunpowder with a shot of Bugs holding his straw hat from his juggling act and staring in shock before it cuts back to Daffy swallowing the uranium 238, shaking well, and striking and swallowing a match before exploding. In 2003, this cartoon was shown again, but this time, the entire ending with Daffy's deadly act was cut and the cartoon ended with the shot of Daffy black and smoldering after getting tricked into playing the booby-trapped xylophone. The CBS version in the 1970s and 1980s also aired the cartoon akin to the way CN did in 2003.
• The syndicated Merrie Melodies version, local station airings, and the version that aired on ABC's "Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show" left in the ending, but cut Daffy drinking the gasoline, so that way it looks as if he drinks the nitroglycerine first.
• Nickelodeon's version aired the original ending, but cut the part where Daffy strikes the match, asides to the audience "Girls, you better hold on to your boyfriends," and swallows the match (making it seem as if he exploded from shaking well after swallowing the uranium 238).
• When The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie (which includes clips from this cartoon as the climax) aired on The Disney Channel, Daffy's death defying act was edited so severely that the only scenes left were Daffy holding the bottle of nitroglycerine and the explosion from after the match swallowing (making it seem as if Daffy holding the nitroglycerine caused the explosion).

On DVD

• Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 2 (Uncut and restored)