Of Course You Realize THIS Means Podcast - A Looney Tunes Discussion · thismeanspodcast

Maestro George Daugherty Returns to the Historic Hollywood Bowl for Bugs Bunny's 85th!

·43 min·2 clips

The Hollywood Bowl hits its 103rd birthday on July 11th, 2025, the same day Bugs Bunny at the Symphony returns there.

1. Of Course You Realize THIS Means Podcast discusses George Daugherty’s Bugs Bunny at the Symphony return to the Hollywood Bowl for Bugs Bunny’s 85th anniversary. 2. Host Jonathan Graves interviews George Daugherty, the conductor and long-time presenter of the concert, because he has worked on these Looney Tunes performances for 35 years. 3. The episode asks why the Hollywood Bowl concert still matters as a live setting for Looney Tunes and what makes the new program different. 4. Daugherty says the concert now includes 17 cartoons, which he calls the highest number ever in one Bowl program. 5. He names Baton Bunny, The Rabbit of Seville, What’s Opera, Doc?, Long-Haired Hare, and the new birthday short Happy Birthday Bugs as key pieces in the program. 6. He explains that the July 11 performance lands on the Hollywood Bowl’s 103rd birthday, since the venue opened on July 11, 1922. 7. He says Bugs Bunny’s 85th anniversary falls on July 27, so the production is being timed around two separate birthdays. 8. Daugherty describes a 2020 Bowl plan for Bugs’ 80th birthday that was interrupted by the COVID shutdown and later revived for 85. 9. He recalls performing Long-Haired Hare at the old Bowl shell while wrecking balls were parked outside, and the next morning the shell came down. 10. He connects Long-Haired Hare, The Rabbit of Seville, and What’s Opera, Doc? to the Bowl’s arches, operatic staging, and live orchestral history. 11. He says Leopold Stokowski conducted at the Hollywood Bowl in its early days, which makes Bugs entering to conduct in Long-Haired Hare a historical echo. 12. He explains that the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra once rehearsed on the Warner Bros. scoring stage because the two sites are only about two miles apart. 13. Daugherty says Looney Tunes worked for children and adults at the same time, which he hears in three kinds of audience laughter. 14. He lists kids laughing at pratfalls, adults laughing at double entendres, and everyone laughing together at the same jokes. 15. He describes four new Road Runner shorts with scores by Christopher Leonards, plus new music by Carl Johnson for Dynamite Dance, Wet Cement, and a new Bugs Bunny birthday short. 16. He says the team can no longer use cartoons with Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse while that rights issue remains unresolved. 17. He recounts restoring original sound for What’s Opera, Doc? and using Treg Brown’s archived effects with Rob Winter’s re-created mix. 18. He recalls Chuck Jones saying the cartoons should feel timeless and says the audience reaction is part of the original theatrical soundscape. 19. Listeners who love Looney Tunes history, live orchestral film scores, and Hollywood Bowl lore will get the most from this. 20. Listeners wanting a short celebrity chat without animation history may skip this.

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