Senior director Friz Freleng always felt that Taz was a one-dimensional character that only howled and growled and craved any kind of food. To Freleng, there was no other way to use the Tasmanian Devil other than to repeat the premise of McKimson's five films. Yet, Freleng knew that Taz could be relied upon to garner some laughter if the setting and situation were bizarre enough. Freleng decided to use Taz when he was looking for a character to pair with Bugs in the third cartoon short in Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979), perhaps also as a tribute to McKimson, who died two years before. "Fright Before Christmas" is a hilarious variation on Clement Moore's "The Night Before Christmas". Taz is aboard a cargo airplane flying a transpolar route to Australia from North America, but he frees himself from a crate and parachutes into Santa Claus' clothes which are being hung outside to freeze-dry, he is then slingshot upward by the clothesline into Santa's sleigh. The frightened reindeer take the Devil away from the North Pole, into American suburbia, and stop on top of Bugs Bunny's house, in which Bugs is reading Clement Moore's poem to little Clyde Rabbit. After Clyde goes to bed, Bugs receives a soot-covered visitor, who has arrived via the chimney. Recognising Taz, Bugs offers milk and cookies to the red-garbed Devil, which Taz eats along with plate and dining table, while he pretends he thinks Taz is really Saint Nick. He then goes on to read Clyde's Christmas want list, which includes controlling interest in IBM, Frank Sinatra's old address book, a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" chemical set, a second-hand diver, and a partridge in a pear tree. Bugs gives a wrapped gift to Taz, which Taz swallows whole. It is a rubber life raft that self-inflates inside of Taz's stomach and lifts him into the sky. Compared to that of other Looney Tune characters, who starred in from 30 to more than 100 classic cartoons. Taz had a short, rather unvaried, and mostly unremarkable career. But still, the question remains. Why has Taz become an icon, a signature character for Warner Brothers' cartoons, and popular enough to have all 6 of his cartoons released on one home videotape, while three of said cartoons were already on other videotapes? Probably because during his rampages through forests or jungles in search of food, so much animal energy is displayed by him. Taz is the most brutally destructive semi-regular character in the Warner Brothers cartoons, unlike any of the others, when spinning like a tornado, he can shear through trees, rocks, and mountains. Only the Wile E. Coyote in "Hopalong Casualty" ever comes close to Taz's destructive power. Taz does not need guns or bombs to destroy; he does it with his own brute strength, big mouth, and chainsaw-sharp teeth. Blissfully unaware that there is anything wrong with this destructive power, Taz carries on doing what he does best. He is a brute with an all-consuming urge to consume, and he will eat anything: animal, vegetable, or mineral. Yet, unlike Yosemite Sam, he is not a schemer. He does not plot the demise of others. Everything he does is all a complete accident, for him, it is normal. He has no evil machinations. He is not greedy in the sense of wanting power, monetary or political, over others. He just wants to eat, by all and any means. Taz is an innocent savage. He never fell from grace because he never had it. He never ascended to a civilized state and then reverted. He has remained in a state of nature as its most powerful force. Taz evokes no such visceral reaction in viewers. He is so outlandish as to not remind viewers of the brutes from which they evolved. Rather, Taz makes the beast of instinct look completely external, lovably innocent, and easy to outwit. He has a big mouth but says very little. He can survive the explosion of bombs fed to him by Bugs, as his stomach is strong enough to withstand three-fold stretching. He eats anything and is never poisoned. He eats and eats- and gains no weight. How most people must envy that! Bugs may be what people most aspire to be, but Taz is what they wish would represent "the other side of the coin", a fearsome but ultimately harmless brute, fun to watch and to have around. The ultimate party animal!

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