A JOKE, I'LL STEAL IT! NO ONE WILL NEVER KNOW!

An important note about these shorts is that they existed before television and home video. There was no easy way to rewatch these, so once they out of theaters the team's work would be forgotten.
Sprinkling these gags into newer cartoons not only eased up the work load but it kept some of their favorite gags alive.

I mean these played in theaters so people didn’t really see the same gag twice but we have the luxury to rewatch and binge them all! Fritz Freling is so underrated.

If it ain't broke; don't fix it.

Some of these feel like they could be good running gags, especially the "close that door" gag

Open that bridge varmint! Open it I say!

CLOSE IT!!! CLOSE IT!!! CLOSE IT UP AGAIN!!!

The Lincoln one is diabolical what 😂

I like how the exploding death gag is actually done better with Daffy. The little in-joke that he calls it an act “no other performer has dared to execute” alone makes it so much better tailored to his character

7:55 "I don't know how youse donit but I KNOW YOUSE DONIT!"

A major note on this: DIRECTORS ARE NOT WRITERS.  The recurring jokes were written by Michael Maltese, Tedd Pierce, Warren Foster and others responsible for the actual situations and dialogue.  Friz Freleng happening to direct them does not indicate that he was the only one to have that occur under him, because the writers were shared among the directors stable among the looney tunes shorts.

Time really flies. When I first saw these cartoons, they were around 30 to 50 years old. Now, it’s closer to 60 to 80.

I am pretty sure that I have seen a third version of the "throwing a match into the powder room" gag. In that one Sam flees the ship and Bugs goes into the powder room, revealing that it is a room for powdering faces, not gunpowder room.

...And while Bugs is laughing at how scared Sam was over nothing, the powder room explodes anyway. A rare gag that ends poorly for Bugs.

13:03 the irony of that first line

For those who don't know, this is because back then you could only watch these shorts in theaters and they didn't air on TV or had home media releases until decades later, so they kinda counted on that so that audiences didn't notice.

But now that you can basically marathon these you start to notice whenever they recycle gags and even animation.

The piano gag with the song "those endearing young charms" or whatever it's called has been used so many times in old cartoons

Mel Blanc is the best voice actor to ever bring life to the Looney Tunes, especially the villains

He also reused the gag from the start of "Rhapsody Rabbit", where Bugs Bunny takes out a pistol and shoots a person in the audience who's loudly coughing, in the Pink Panther cartoon "Pink, Plunk, Plink". Also, the relationship between Yosemite Sam and his dragon in "Knighty Knight Bugs" and many of the gags therein were reused in the TV series "Here Comes The Grump" between the title character and his own dragon.

I forget how timeless these gags are

In my opinion, the "open it, close it again" bit was done way better the second time.

12:14 “OK, rabbit, you’ve forced me to use force.”