Senior director Friz Freleng always felt that Taz was a one-dimensional character who only howled and growled and craved any kind of food. There was, to Freleng, no other way to use the Tasmanian Devil than to repeat the premise of McKimson's five films. Yet, if the setting and situation were bizarre enough, Freleng knew that Taz could be relied upon to garner some laughter. And when he was looking for a character to pair with Bugs in the third cartoon short in Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979), Freleng decided to use Taz, perhaps also as a tribute to McKimson, who died two years before.

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"Fright Before Christmas" is a hilarious variation on Clement Moore's "The Night Before Christmas". Taz frees himself from a crate aboard a cargo airplane flying a transpolar route to Australia from North America (a very strange route to travel as it would be quicker to just fly across the Pacific Ocean to Australia from the U.S.A.) and parachutes into Santa Claus' clothes, which are being hung outside to freeze-dry, then is slingshot upward by the clothesline into Santa's sleigh. The frightened reindeer take the Devil away from the North Pole, into American suburbia, and atop 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. Recognizing Taz immediately, Bugs acts as though he thinks Taz is really Saint Nick and offers to the red-garbed Devil milk and cookies, which Taz eats along with plate and dining table, and reads 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 Taz a wrapped gift, which Taz swallows whole. It is a rubber life raft that self-inflates inside of Taz's stomach and lifts him into the sky.