Bunny Hugged (1951)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Phil Monroe, Ken Harris, Lloyd Vaughan, Ben Washam
Music by Carl Stalling
During the early 1950s, professional wrestling enjoyed a flurry of popularity thanks to television. The Termite Terrace gang took advantage of this new wave of attention by dusting off the 1948 boxing cartoon “Rabbit Punch” and reimagining the action in a wrestling ring – with the musclebound pugilist Battling McGook brought back under the name Crusher.
In “Bunny Hugged,” Crusher is the wrestling champion whose reign is challenged by Ravishing Ronald, an obvious spoof of then-popular wrestler Gorgeous George. Bugs Bunny is Ronald’s mascot, and he watches in horror as Crusher ties up Ronald in his hairnet and uses him as a punching bag. Bugs gets the referee to stop the match and allow him to take over for Ronald as the “Masked Terror.” But Bugs is even worse at wrestling than Ronald and winds up trapped in Crusher’s painful leg scissors.
Realizing he lacks the brawn to outmuscle Crusher, Bugs decides it is time to “employ a little stragety.” He tricks Crusher into thinking his trunks are torn, and then he presents himself to Crusher as “Stychen Time,” a traveling tailor. Rather than sew up the supposed torn trunks, Bugs jabs Crusher in his backside with an oversized needle, which sends him sailing out of the ring in pain. When Crusher returns, Bugs has a giant bank vault door waiting for him. Bugs opens the door and Crusher runs through it and into the ring ropes – but he’s going so fast that the ropes stretch out like a rubber band and then contract, sending Crusher into a now-closed steel door. When Bugs opens the door, Crusher is disoriented to the point that Bugs can slip a jacket over him and pin him to the mat – with safety pins! Crusher snaps out of his daze when he realizes Bugs is the new wrestling championship and tries to get revenge, but Bugs literally has a trick up his sleeve for the wrestler.
Under Chuck Jones’ direction, “Bunny Hugged” moves at a rapid pace and is rich with inventive sight gags including the Ali Baba-worthy entourage for Ronald, Crusher’s excessive display of muscle flexing and the vault door moment with its appropriately zany sound effects. Crusher was a fun villain and it’s a shame he never turned up again the Golden Age cartoons – and it is also a shame that John T. Smith didn’t receive screen credit for giving Crusher his memorably dizzy voice.