Watching Clouds, “Kill the Wabbit,” and the Origin of Man
Last Friday night we kept the boys up late so we could all go see Bugs Bunny on Broadway - the Philadelphia Orchestra performed live, accompanying Bugs Bunny cartoons projected on a big screen. Before it was dark enough to show the cartoons, the orchestra did a short performance, which - as you might expect - Kai found boring. So we lied on the lawn and looked for shapes in the clouds. This isn’t something I’ve taken the time to do with him before, and I can’t tell you how great it was. I continue to be astounded at how curious he is - after talking about the clouds for a few minutes, he asked about how the dinosaurs died, and then he wanted to know how the solar system was formed, and then he wanted to know where the first person came from. He understood my explanations for the first two, but he had a hard time wrapping his mind around evolution (sorry folks, I didn’t go with the biblical explanation). But he didn’t give up - he kept asking me about it in different ways until he felt he had a handle on at least some of it. I’m now a true believer in lying on your back and staring at the sky - it’s probably the best way to have a conversation without distraction. Given that we live in the Age of Distraction, this is no small feat.
Kai wasn’t familiar with the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, as they’re not on TV much anymore. He loved them. Of course, he was probably influenced by the huge crowd around him laughing, and the fact that he was up way past his bedtime. If you’ve ever been around kids who are up too late, their behavior is indistinguishable from that of a drunk, except that they’re more frenzied. The same goes for Eidan - with everyone around him laughing, he had a big grin on his face most of the time. Fortunately, he fell asleep before having a meltdown (which is the big risk of keeping kids up too late).
Given the live orchestra, two “musts” for the show were The Rabbit of Seville and What’s Opera, Doc?. I laughed pretty hard at the “Rabbit of Seville” - I had almost completely forgotten this one, so the gags seemed new to me. But of course I hadn’t forgotten “What’s Opera, Doc?” from my childhood - as with many of my generation (and probably the generation before) it was my first exposure to opera. I will never be able to appreciate “Ride of the Valkyries” as it was intended. To me it will always be the “kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit!” song (and I’m sure I’m not the only one). I just learned from the Wikipedia page I linked to that many consider it the greatest animation short of all time. Seeing it for the first time as an adult, I can understand why - the scoring (dozens of hours of Wagner condensed into 6 minutes), the animation, the voice work, and the many satirical jabs are all brilliant.
