"You naughty, naughty boy!"
"Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid" is a 1942 Merrie Melodies cartoon, directed by Bob Clampett, and starring Bugs Bunny.
The short begins in a faraway wasteland, with a Mother Buzzard sending off her quadruplets to get some food for them—save one, the dimwitted Killer (aka. Beaky Buzzard), voiced by Kent Rogers. After being booted away from the nest, he treks off to bring home a rabbit for his ma—and promptly discovers a rabbit hole, housing the ever so nomadic Bugs Bunny. Bugs promply matches wits with the buzzard, resulting in much Hilarity Ensuing.
"Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid" provides examples of:
- Artistic License – Ornithology: Vultures generally only scavenge for dead animal carcasses (hence the bald head), and unless the prey is wounded or sick, will rarely hunt for and resort to killing live animals. Of course, with Hays Code censorship, the story wouldn’t happen in any way like Real Life, but you really have to wonder what Mama Buzzard was thinking sending the obviously dopey Killer out to get food using a skill that vultures would not be the most adept at practicing.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite Mama Buzzard's vented annoyance with Killer, she instantly swoops in when Bugs has presumably reduced him to bones.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Bugs thinks his body is reduced to a skeleton and breaks down hysterically sobbing— but takes a moment to say to the audience "Gruesome, isn't it?" When his toes poke up from the sand and he realizes he's fine (changing to hysterical laughing for a moment), he then says to the audience "Eh, I knew it all the time!"
- Deathbringer the Adorable: Killer the Buzzard.
- Defeat Equals Friendship: Implied during the end.
- Desert Skull: Bugs falls into a hole next to some cow bones, and he briefly thinks the bones are his. Later, he tricks Killer into thinking the same.
- Establishing Character Moment: After his brothers all make Mama proud by heading out, Killer refuses to leave by stammering and being quite meek.
- Friendly Enemy: Given how meek an opposition Killer is, Bugs' disposal of him is far more playful than usual, even putting an end to his prank when he thinks he's risked traumatising him and Mama Buzzard.
- Harmless Villain: Killer.
- I Have Many Names: Beaky Buzzard is referred to solely as "Killer" by his mother throughout this short. Allegedly his name was undecided until later shorts, he was generally known as "the Snerd Bird" to most of the creative team.
- I Want My Mommy!: Thinking he's been reduced to a skeleton, Killer screams for his mother.
- Luminescent Blush: Killer after poking in on Bugs showering and being called a "naughty, naughty boy."
- Mama Bear: "Hey, what did you do to my poor little kid?!"
- Momma's Boy: Killer the Buzzard.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Killer is based on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's character Mortimer Snerd.
- Post-Kiss Catatonia: Bugs inherits Killer's stammering after a large peck on the lips by Mama Buzzard.
- The Runt at the End: After Mama Buzzard tells them what to get for dinner, three of her sons all happily leave to go hunting. Killer, however, stays grounded and stammers that he doesn't want to leave. Mama Buzzard forces the issue, though.
- Shout-Out:
- Bugs emerges from his hole with his radio and antenna to the tune of the NBC Chimes.
- Bugs thinking the desert skeleton is his own is a nod to the Harold Lloyd film The Freshman (1925). It parodies a similar scene where Lloyd confuses a dummy's leg with his own, thinking it's broken beyond repair.
- Stock Footage: The opening of this cartoon was recycled for the opening of another Killer / Beaky the Buzzard short, "The Bashful Buzzard."
- Vile Vulture: Subverted with Killer, but played straight with his brothers and mother.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Bugs, as demonstrated on the page image.
