Other than a brawl, why would anybody on the pitcher's mound have a bat?It's the Hip Fab Fun cover. The four stars, from top to bottom, are occupied by Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester, Road Runner, and Pepe Le Pew with Penelope trying to push away.
Bugs Bunny and the Tasmanian devil are standing on the pitcher's mound in a ballpark with a capacity crowd. Bugs is wearing a solid blue cap and has a baseball glove on his left hand while he holds a bat over his shoulder with the right. He's saying "BATTER UP, DOC!" Behind Bugs, a baseball stuffed Taz URPs. Taz holds a partially eaten baseball in his left hand and covers his mouth the right.
Also, this is the first time the cover shows the Comics Code Authority stamp of approval. This is similar to giving the comic a G rating. All subsequent regular issues also have the stamp.
Other than a brawl, why would anybody on the pitcher's mound have a bat?
A tense moment in the ballpark and Bugs pops up from underground startling the batter who misses the ball. Strike three and the game is over. The batter, upset at losing the game due to Bugs' intrusion, isn't interested in giving directions to the Lake Athabasca International Carrot Convention and applies the bat to Bugs' head. Bugs' challenges the batter to a game of baseball. The batter stalks off, telling Bugs to be back in a week. Bugs thinks it's time he saw a few friends...to get a team together.
So off to the Warner Bros. Studio Store where various Looney Tunes are being themselves in front of the entrance. Later, in a back storage room, Bugs tries to make his case to an increasingly uninterested audience. He gets interest, and a team, by promising fifty bucks to all his players.
To his team's shock, Bugs brings in Yosemite Sam to coach. Yosemite finds the players abilities alarmingly poor and applies his training technique which includes a revolver...
The Big Grudge: The Chicago Maulers vs. The Bugs Bunny Blasters. The bottom of the first inning has the Maulers ahead, twenty to zero. The outmatched and distracted Blasters don't do well, both on the field and at bat. Yosemite grudgingly admits that Bugs is the only good player. This prompts the rabbit to don several disguises and go to bat over and over and over until the bottom of the ninth inning when the Blasters lead by one. Bugs decides it's time for a change of plans; now they're going to play their way.
The Maulers are at bat and with men on first and second the batter that Bugs distracted a week earlier sends the ball out of the park. One runner falls into Elmer's trap. Another gets knocked out by Porky's mallet. The batter gets bewildered by Tweety's flitting around and then gets a whiff of Pepe's odor. Just as he's about to make it to home, Taz eats home plate.
The team the Maulers lose to wear purple and white. The only major baseball team to wear purple is the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies are relative newcomers, but were around in 1994 when this comic came out. The Maulers colors, red and white, are used by several teams, as are the Blasters colors, blue and white. Considering it's Bugs' Blasters the blue and white may refer to the Dodgers, the Brooklyn Dodgers. (DW) Page 3: The Looney Tunes outside the Warner Bros. Studio Store are: Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Tweety, Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Taz, and Pepe Le Pew. Page 3: On display inside the Warner Bros. Studio Store are: Speedy Gonzales, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, Marvin the Martian, Henery Hawk, Sylvester, Bug Bunny again, Tweety Bird, and Porky Pig. Page 3: In front of the store, Porky is handing out Looney Tunes comics. (A nit: Those comics have dull covers, solid purple with the title in black and nothing more.) Page 3: Daffy is more interested in his likeness than anything else, even the offer of fifty dollars. Page 15: The antagonist is named Al. Page 1: Bugs emerges from a tunnel, but the usual above ground signs of burrowing are absent. Page 2: Bugs is standing next to his hole in panel three and shown in the hole in panel five. Did the blow in panel four hit hard enough to knock him backwards into the hole again? Page 3: Bugs, who is gray, has a blue tint in panel three. Page 7: When one player shouts "I've got it." the other players are supposed to allow room and let that player catch the ball. However, this is used to show ineptness and so may be an appropriate error for the trainees to make. Page 8: Tweety's eyes are colored in yellow like the rest of him. Also the yellow overflows his body while one foot isn't fully colored. Page 9: The bill of the umpire's cap isn't colored. We only find out the antagonist's name in the final two pages, yet he figures prominently before that and not just on the first page. The "B" on the Blaster's caps changes from white to black and back several times throughout the story. Showing black at a distance may be understandable, but page 7 shows white in a distant scene and black in a near scene. On several pages the color registration is off. This is a printing error, not a colorist error. The Blasters won by cheating. Then, they were playing Chicago...Wile E. Coyote has a new weapon in his quest to catch Road Runner: the Acme remote control boulder, batteries not included. The initial test shows promise as a cactus is easily flattened. Road Runner zips by and Wile E. sends the boulder after him. The boulder sputters to a stop almost immediately.
The coyote tries the remote control several times. He kicks the boulder. Finally he changes the batteries in the remote control, accidentally pressing a button as he puts the remote back together...and gets flattened by the boulder.
How did Wile E. get the boulder out of the box from the top? Kachelhofer, who seemed to miss filling in color fully in issue 2, has gotten it right this time. Unfortunately the printing isn't right as the color registration is off, especially on page 19.Penelope Cat is looking hungrily through a bakery window as a delivery is made at the side entrance. The baker's shipment of imported French chocolate kisses has an odd smell as the crate is opened. Pepe Le Pew, always interested in kisses, was sealed in before he realized the kisses were chocolate. Pepe ate them on his way across the Atlantic. Fast Frenchy throws Pepe out, then shoos Penelope away.
Pepe decides to make amends and sneaks into the back of the bakery, quickly donning a hat, apron, and a croissant as a moustache for a disguise. Penelope takes advantage of Pepe leaving the door open, hoping for a quick bite. Pepe's singing startles her and she backs into a decorator and gets a stripe of white frosting down her back. The noise gets Pepe's attention and, for him, it's love at first sight.
Penelope runs for it, climbing a rack and throwing creampuffs at Pepe, then squirting the filling from custard filled rolls at him. Frenchy hears the commotion and gets hit with a pie meant for Pepe. Enraged, Frenchy picks up both cat and skunk by the scruff of the neck and has them work off the damages. Their job? Stand on top of a wedding cake as bride and groom figures...
Page 25: A mouse runs away from the garbage when Pepe is tossed into the can. Page 24: The mailbox on the sidewalk faces the wrong way.There are three one-page fillers.
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Last updated 17 March 2004