E-Mail This Article to a Friend " STARRING BUGS BUNNY " AND " LOONEY TUNES REVUE "

Sure, the great Warner "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" cartoons are the product of pen and ink, or actually the whimsical brainwork of directors Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Robert McKimson, voice master Mel Blanc, and — at their very best — music director Carl Stalling. But I prefer to think of them as another example of the ensemble comedies that Hollywood made during its Golden Age. Or at least the equivalent of the Bing Crosby & Bob Hope Road pictures. Think of Bugs as the cool-tempered Bing and Daffy, his wise-quacking co-star, as Bob and it starts to make sense. Maybe. And though the jokes seem a little Borscht Belt at times, there’s a charm to the characters and twisted tales that is always winning.

So for a couple of hours of uncomplicated pleasure, a sweet rush of Saturday-morning cartoon nostalgia, it’s hard to beat these two compilations of classic Warner’s ensemble mini-flicks. The first, for diehard fans of the Bunny, is "Starring Bugs Bunny," in which the carrot eater with the Brooklyn brogue takes front-and-center for a baker’s dozen titles, including two opera parodies — "Rabbit of Seville" (The Barber of Seville) and "What’s Opera Doc?" (Wagner’s Ring Cycle) — and the classic "What’s Up Doc?" Then there’s "Beanstalk Bunny," with the ensemble — Bugs, Daffy, and Elmer Fudd as the Giant — in top form, parodying a fairy tale that’s been fodder for every inky franchise from Disney to Ren & Stimpy. Another character from the modern TV screen, the WB Network frog, sings, dances, and — of course — croaks his way through "One Froggy Evening," a perversely dark-hearted feature that’s more like a Twilight Zone episode than just about anything else in the studio’s cartoon canon. And Marvin Martian exchanges ray-gun fire with Daffy in "Duck Dodgers in the 24th-1/2 Century." On the second program, the "Looney Tunes Revue," Sylvester has a supporting role in "The Scarlet Pumpernickel," joining Porky as the masked Daffy’s foil. Toss in the hairy Valentine-heart-shaped monster Gossamer and a Karloff-like mad scientist in "Water Water Every Hare" and the program adds up to one of the greatest assemblages of American comedic talent — and nobody has to figure their residuals.