The all-time looniest Looney Tunes record is a compilation of Little Golden Records voiced by Gil Mack plus 12 months of birthday songs performed by Mel Blanc himself.
BUGS BUNNY SONGFEST
Golden Records LP-71 (12” 33 1/3 RPM / Mono / 1961)
Executive Producer: Arthur Shimkin. Musical Director: Mitch Miller. Arrangements: Jimmy Carroll, Arthur Norman, Dennis Farnon. Running Time: 34 minutes.
Voices: Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Henery Hawk, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe LePew, Speedy Gonzalez, Hippity Hopper, Cicero Pig, Ollie Owl); Gilbert Mack (Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Henery Hawk, Pepe LePew, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam); Mike Stewart, Anne Lloyd (Soloists); Bob Miller, Dick Byron, Ralph Nyland, Mike Stewart (The Sandpipers).
Songs: “What’s Up Doc? (Parts 1 & 2),” “Merrily We Roll Along (Parts 1 & 2),” “I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat,” Daffy Duck,” “Sylvester the Cat,” “Elmer Fudd,” “Bugs Bunny Way Out West,” “Henery Hawk,” “Foghorn Leghorn,” “Porky Pig and Petunia,” “Bugs Bunny, Railroad Engineer,” “Sylvester: January,” “Tweety Bird: February,” “Daffy Duck: March,” “Ollie Owl: April,” “Porky Pig: May,” “Henery Hawk: June,” “Pepe LePew: July,” “Speedy Gonzalez: August,” “Bugs Bunny: September,” “Hippity Hopper: October,” “Foghorn Leghorn: November,” “Cicero Pig: December.”
Gilbert Mack
Gilbert Mack was an “original cartoon voice,” as the cover suggests, but not a Warner Brothers cartoon voice. He did quite a few voices for Famous Studios (coincidentally they include Moe Hare), Astro Boy and Filmation’s The New Adventures of Superman. For Golden Records fans, he was a very prominent presence, as he was also to listeners of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
But should Mack’s Bugs Bunny songs go on side one or side two? Putting his songs on side one might disappoint listeners who had trusted the claim of “original cartoon voices” on the album cover and record label. In the case of Mel Blanc—indisputable the “original cartoon voices” fellow, his birthday songs are very repetitive and highly specific. Whatever the reason, it was decided to put all the Mack songs on side one and the Blanc ones on side two.
Mack’s Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies songs are very much like those created for Hanna-Barbera characters, like Ruff and Reddy, Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw on Golden Records. The uncredited songwriters could be Mary Rodgers, Alec Wilder and/or Marshall Barer, who wrote countless ditties for the label in its early years.
Mack’s opening song, “What’s Up Doc?” is not the familiar one heard in the classic 1950 Warner cartoon. It’s a problem/solution song about facing situations by saying Bugs’ famous phrase, much like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” or “I Whistle a Happy Tune.” The song is separated into two parts because it originally appeared on two sides of a 78-RPM record.
Also presented in two parts is Charlie Tobias, Murray Mencher, and Eddie Cantor’s Merrily We Roll Along. Like “What’s Up Doc?” this tune requires Mack to do a “roll call” of Warner cartoon characters. The results are mixed of course, but some are much better than others. The uncredited arrangement for this particular rendition may be, as an educated guess, that of Dennis Farnon, who had recorded the superb Rocky and His Friends LP for Golden the same year. It does not sound like any of the other music on Bugs Bunny Songfest but has some instrumentation reminiscent of the Rocky album.
The oddest song on side one is “Porky and Petunia Pig,” because it has nothing to do with the Looney Tunes canon. Rather, it’s about how Bugs and Daffy, totally out of character, make fun of Porky and his love for Petunia.
“Bugs Bunny, Engineer” is interesting because it’s one of a handful of Golden discs recorded with the Arthur Norman Chorus—which I suspect might be a pseudonym for Norman Luboff. The singing and instrumentation on this song, all the birthday songs on side two, and many Mickey Mouse Club Golden Records are very similar in tone.
Speaking of Mel Blanc’s birthday songs on side two, they all have a rigid format. Each starts with the chorus repeating “Happy Birthday” (not the familiar version), followed by Mel Blanc as the featured character. The lyrics assigned random aspects of personality to each month, like good grooming, luck, being studious and responsible, and so on. These songs are very much like Jimmie Dodd’s “Doddism” proverb tunes from the Mickey Mouse Club.
The songs may be the work of later-to-be-Oscared Alan and Marilyn Bergman, who wrote songs for the original lands at Disneyland that Golden released as singles and Mattel sold on giant fold-out, cut-them-yourself printed sheets. These recordings surely were not intended for mere relegation to side two of an album. There was a proliferation of paper sound sheet records sold as greeting cards in the early ‘60s, so these might have been planned—or maybe even used—for such products.
If the songs were never released anywhere outside this LP (which is unknown to me), it may have been because if you got just one of these for your birthday and it wasn’t your favorite character, cue the whining. While it’s cool that Ollie “I Love to Singa” Owl represents April, some might have wished they had Bugs for their month—but he’s tied, for no apparent reason, to September. And why did they deny Pepe LePew the month with Valentine’s Day? Sacre bleu!
GIVE A LITTLE LISTEN
“Bugs and Friends Happy Birthday Songs”
It’s the whole Blanc year, all wrapped together and tied up with a bow. Happy Tuesday!
GREG EHRBAR is a freelance writer/producer for television, advertising, books, theme parks and stage. Greg has worked on content for such studios as Disney, Warner and Universal, with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. His numerous books include Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records (with Tim Hollis). Visit 
This is wonderful stuff! I thought it interesting that Hippity Hopper was actually given a voice…and a gender. There were times when the kangaroo was given a female name; I don’t remember the title of the cartoon, but she is called Gracie in one episode. If Warner Brothers ever rethinks its decision not to bother with its classic LOONEY TUNES cartoons anymore, this should be a special feature. Until then, we have CARTOON RESEARCH and Greg to thank for these jewels!
Gracie is Hippety Hopper’s mother!
By the way, Greg, did you get permission to use Golden Age Cartoon’s Matthew Hunter’s fan drawing (at the 6:35 mark) for the video? Some artists get upset about their artwork being used without permission.
Time being an issue, it’s just a handful of images from google chosen at random so people have something to look at while the record played. The sole intent is to provide the recording for those who may not have access to it otherwise.
This would have been neat if they had a live concert version of Bugs Bunny’s Songfest with the costumed versions of Bugs,Daffy, Porky and the other Looney Toon characters with a live face backup singers and dancers.
The “Australian” accent gets away from Blanc, doesn’t it?
I have the fold-out map record release. I never dreamed Alan and Marilyn were involved! (My set is uncut so I listen to MP3s I found on the net.) I’ve got a pretty fair stack of Mel’s 78 RPM work, too- mostly promo copies. There is also a cool bootleg floating around of Mel called Party Panic which is fairly recent.
They’re credited on some Golden Records as Marilyn Keith and Alan Bergman. There are two Golden LP’s of Aesop’s Fables with their songs with music by Norman Luboff and chorus directed by Mike Sammes. One of the voices on the album, Peter Hawkins, was the original voice of the Daleks on Doctor Who.
If we’re talking about the same thing, then the Mattel Disneyland fold-out is not the same thing as the Golden records. Mattel’s records are mostly spoken word – No songs. A couple of the sides are narrated by Tinkerbell! Here’s a YouTuber ruining his copy of record 1 by trying to play it with an LP needle and a stack of coins on the tonearm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSINlb0PAh8
Cover looks to be Chuck Jones/Jones unit.
If the songs were never released anywhere outside this LP (which is unknown to me), it may have been because if you got just one of these for your birthday and it wasn’t your favorite character, cue the whining. While it’s cool that Ollie “I Love to Singa” Owl represents April, some might have wished they had Bugs for their month—but he’s tied, for no apparent reason, to September. And why did they deny Pepe LePew the month with Valentine’s Day? Sacre bleu!
You can’t have everything I guess, still, having Speedy Gonzales for my birth month isn’t bad! Interesting that Cicero Pig finishes off the year here.
Henery Hawk AND Ollie Owl AND Cicero Pig? It seems to me that Golden’s status as a Western Publishing subsidiary must have been central here; the character selection seems influenced strongly by the comic books of the time, to a point where I’m guessing the recordings may originally have been meant for premium records sent out to LOONEY TUNES comic book subscribers. (Give us your birth month, and you too can be serenaded by one of our top stars…)
While some modern-day Looney Tunes merchandise ret-cons them into one, I don’t think the original Ollie Owl was ever meant to be the same as Owl Jolson, the “I Love to Singa” character. Ollie as drawn by Vivie Risto in the Western comics melds the name, personality, and glasses of the 1935 I HAVEN’T GOT A HAT Oliver Owl with aspects of the owl chick in 1939’s THE EGG COLLECTOR, who was called “Oliver Owlet” in some marketing materials (and “Little Hoot” in others, maybe after someone noticed the reused name).
Great face on that Bugs, even if he IS gigantically tall (with cleavage).