Transylvania 6-5000

Transylvania 6-5000 (1963) is a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on November 30, 1963, and stars Bugs Bunny. It was the last original Bugs Bunny short Jones made for Warner Bros. Cartoons before Jones left for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to found his own studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions. It was his second-to-last cartoon at Warner Bros. before moving to MGM, and the second-to-last Warner cartoon in 1963. Bugs demonstrates how to handle a pesky vampire with six simple magic incantations. The title is a pun on "Pennsylvania 6-5000", a song associated with Glenn Miller and referring to the now-archaic system of telephone exchange names where the first two characters of a telephone number were expressed as letters: "Transylvania 6-5000" stands for "TR 6-5000" which devolves to . Plot Bugs is traveling by tunneling underground to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when he runs into a tree. He does not immediately notice that a sign nailed to the tree reads "Pittsburghe, Transylvania". He asks a two-headed female vulture (Agatha and Emily) for directions to the town when he realizes that he has not reached Pittsburgh, but Agatha and Emily are too busy talking about eating him. Bugs mistakes an old castle nearby for a motel and calmly approaches it. Upon ringing a skull-shaped doorbell (which chimes the first few notes of "The Hearse Song") Bugs meets a vampire, who introduces himself as Count Bloodcount and invites him in. Although Bugs is only looking for a telephone to call his travel agency, the Count leads him to a guest room beckoning him to rest, informing him that "Rest is good for the blood.". Unable to sleep, Bugs picks up a book titled Magic Words and Phrases, and despite his initial skepticism about their effect, he reads it. The Count sneaks up behind him and is just about to strike when Bugs says "abracadabra", turning the Count into a bat. Bugs mistakes the bat for a big mosquito and clobbers him with a fly swatter. As the bat dizzily flies out of the window, Bugs says "hocus pocus", which turns the Count back into a vampire and causes him to fall into the moat surrounding his castle. Agatha and Emily wonder what a splendid-looking specimen the Count is as they watch him take the plunge.