Storyboard Artist Michael Ruocco's Own Words on Bugs Bunny's "Mummy Dummy"

 Reposted and assembled from Michael Ruocco's thread at https://twitter.com/AGuyWhoDraws/status/1415132169706491905 with additional video comparisons of his storyboards with the finished animation. Big Spoiler Warning!

I've been waiting over 2 years to talk about this, and now I finally can. Here's a behind-the-scenes thread about the making of my first "Looney Tunes Cartoons" short: "Mummy Dummy".

(Mummy Dummy was our original outline title, which we thankfully kept.):

Being so early on, we were all sort of testing the waters in regards to what we could do, which in a way also meant "what could we get away with?". How close in terms of the original LT short's content/violence could we do? Could/should we go even further? etc. Personally, it was both super liberating and very daunting, after coming off of 3yrs on "Wabbit/New Looney Tunes", where we could barely get away with anything even remotely violent without S&P stepping in and cutting us off at the ankles. So I asked "could I...?" an awful lot.

Despite this, my experiences on Wabbit/NLT were a huge benefit in regards to how I would tackle my boards from an economic standpoint without sacrificing the humor or flow. Each production's budgets and standards/practices aside, the staging/ rules were still relatively the same. I kept my shots mostly wide in classic vaudeville staging, with occasional cinematic cuts and angles to mix it up, all leading up to the crazy Hitchcock-like horror scene (which I'll get to later):

Again, since I was just off of Wabbit/NewLooneyTunes a few months earlier, I was still shaking the old show's style off and gradually adapting to our Soper/Clampett approach. I was still drawing Bugs too thin, eyes too close together, etc., and drawing a bit too graphically:

It was fun being able to draw Bugs with those gnarled Rod Scribner teeth and with actual cheeks that had volume. Still was figuring out how far I could push the poses and shapes, and I didn't really find my stride until a few shorts in:

My first "can we actually show this?" gag. Testing the waters:

Pete (Browngardt) had very specific ideas in mind in regards to what the Mummy should look like and we went back and forth with him, along with Alex Kirwan, David Gemmill and Carey Yost, to find a design we were happy with. I love the sort of a hulking, Alice the Goon look we ended up with:

My feeling always is, if it's fun to draw/show them getting hurt, then the design works:

One of the story issues we faced was how oblivious should Bugs be to what's going on around him. Does he honestly think this is a themed resort? How oblivious or self aware do we make him? I took inspiration from the Jekyll/Hyde and Count Bloodcount shorts (and Gossamer too):

Early on I was really pushing my pun-muscles and definitely went overboard. Still, I'm proud of my crypto-currency line which, sad to say, is still relevant years after writing it:

Here we go... here was our next "can/could/should we?" bit. Gemmill and I brainstormed about what one would find in an Egyptian tomb that an unknowing tourist would confuse with a five-star hotel, and we joked about a buffet gag and thought "let's just try it."

It was pitched, it got laughs and tentative approval. Worst case scenario, it gets cut and we pull it back. And surprisingly, it went through as is. My thought was, its this mummy's own organs, and he's already dead, so it's not so bad. And Bugs is blissfully ignorant of it:

Whoever animated the foot stomping scene at Yowza Animation, you absolutely nailed it. And overall, the animators up there did a fantastic job, and found fun ways to pluss the action (i.e. Bugs squeezing the "juice" out of the heart, etc.):

I honestly think this is probably the farthest I've ever gone in turns of "gross" humor, especially on this show. I usually am not the type to do gags like this, and didn't for the rest of the series. But in the context of this cartoon, it was fun and it fit!:

Again, it was fun knowing we could push the expressions as far as we could compared to "Wabbit", and Bugs is a hard character to break.

Another fun scene! Technically, I was still figuring out how to work best in Storyboard Pro, so I tried doing a few scenes loosely with bitmap brushes. It felt nicer, but so many textured lines weighs the software down. I remember playing back these scenes made my work comp chug:

My original camel design was just the camel from Clampett's "Porky in Egypt" short, but I absolutely adore the design Stephen DeStefano did in the final short. Love his shaggy hair.

So now we come to the climax of the cartoon, and we knew we really wanted to play up the sort of formulaic "creeping monster" idea and have the conclusion take a real shocking left turn nobody would expect. Again, Gemmill and I brainstormed a massage gag and we said "why not?"

I remember when I pitched this in the room with the crew and the gasps it got. Same when it played at Annecy in front of a crowd of hundreds of international animators (mostly French). The reactions were amazing. It was worth it for that alone.

I think the combination of DeStefano's special poses, Joshua Moshier's amazing score (was so tickled at his use of "Night on Bald Mountain" when I first heard it), Aaron Spurgeon and the BG team's amazing color choices and Tommy Meehan's editing really sold this sequence.

It was a very cathartic scene to board after not being able to do anything remotely violent with these characters for years, and just seeing how far I could go.  I got to channel a bit of Hitchcock's Psycho and, funnily enough, Watership Down.

I could be one of the few people in the world who gets to say "I got to "kill" Bugs Bunny.":

Yes, I'll admit, the scene IS over-the-top. We didn't need to go this far, and it's partly the reason why this short, made so early in production, took this long to release. But I knew it was all planned for a reason. I knew we needed a REAL subversion of expectation, and I think we did it well. And in the context of this short; the looming threat, the formula, who Bugs is, it WORKS. I had my cake and got to eat it too. I think Clampett would of done it too.

After that scene, it was time to get out of the cartoon as quickly and humorously as possible. The tables have turned, Bugs is now fully in control and the mummy's on the retreat. Gotta get the final laughs in til we iris out.

This short was all a huge experiment for me, and a great learning experience in regards to story structure, brainstorming and just getting a feel for what ultimately would be one of the most rewarding and fun work experiences I've ever had in animation. I got to see how supportive everyone on the team was going to be, how great and empathetic of a leader Peter Browngardt would be, how truly dedicated and skilled the design team was, and how great  David Gemmill's direction & guidance was, and got to build such a rapport with them all. And after this cartoon, we eventually had a full board room full of amazing folks would could bounce looney ideas off of, and it was so exciting waking up and going into that room each day of all those 2+ years.

- Michael Ruocco