Comparisons to 'Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid' will be inevitable, with Beaky and his mother also in that cartoon and the story being similar here even if the material is different.
This said, 'Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid' is the vastly superior cartoon to me, while it is still funny enough, if rather silly to begin with, the best of the writing in 'The Bashful Buzzard' doesn't come close to the animal bone, "take a shower" and big band dance sequence gags in 'Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid' and the absence of a much stronger character to Beaky and his mother like Bugs is noticeable.
Beaky is still a cute and amusing character, while never being too cloying, overly-dumb or annoying. Making less of an impact is his mother, humour-wise she's bland, she's a bit shrill and also somewhat stereotypical without being particularly funny, endearing or interesting. The story is not quite as engaging this time around, and a stronger character to work against would likely have livened things up.
However the animation is bright in colour, fluid and rich in detail and smooth in movement and design, with some clever and wonderfully wacky visuals still as was characteristic of Bob Clampett. Ever demonstrating why he has always been my personal favourite of the Looney Tunes composers, Carl Stalling provides yet another energetically characterful, beautifully orchestrated and cleverly action-enhancing music score.
'The Bashful Buzzard' does boast some very amusing, without ever being hilarious, dialogue especially "you little shriveled-up, infinitecimal piece of sh... shoe leather". Same with the gags, fun and well animated but there are more hilarious and more inventive around. Mel Blanc's voice work is terrific as always.
Overall, quite good but not great like Clampett often was. 7/10 Bethany Cox
