Rabbit Rampage (1955)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Ben Washam
Music by Milt Franklyn
In my opinion, “Rabbit Rampage” is the worst of the Bugs Bunny cartoons – which is curious since it is a sequel to “Duck Amuck,” which is my choice as being the best of all the Warner Bros. cartoons.
“Duck Amuck” was a lightning-in-a-bottle achievement, an uncommon blending of Dadaist imagery in an existential nightmare, with poor neurotic Daffy Duck trying and miserably failing to maintain his dignity and sanity amid lunatic assaults on his professionalism and person by an animator who functions as a malevolent god that repeatedly changes Daffy’s appearance and environment. Daffy is unaware of the animator’s identity and never learns it, as the omnipresent animator paints a door and shuts it on Daffy during his final protest – the audience finds out the animator is none other than Bugs Bunny, who confides to the viewer: “Gee, ain’t I stinker?”
“Duck Amuck” was not crying out for a sequel, but director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese returned to that film’s unique concept by placing Bugs Bunny as the character under attack by the off-screen animator. But from the start, things went awry. Whereas Daffy had no clue who was tormenting him in “Duck Amuck,” Bugs knows immediately who is controlling the brushes and pencils and peevishly breaks the fourth wall to angrily declare, “Oh, it’s you?”
And that’s where “Rabbit Rampage” immediately weakens – while the animator constantly tortures Bugs by changing his appearance and putting him in embarrassing positions, Bugs maintains a sense of control with impatient demands of normalcy that are answered in varying degrees of immediacy. This is most obvious in a sequence where the animator keeps putting elaborate hats on Bugs even though he keeps reminding the artist that he never wears a hat – Bugs maintains a low boil of disgust at his unfunny predicament. Even worse, Bugs goes so far as to grab the animator’s brush and break it in half.
Furthermore, the 1950s version of Daffy was perfect for “Duck Amuck” – his vanity and self-importance make it funnier when he is humiliated, and he responds to his indignities in a wide variety of emotions ranging from confusion to impatience to frustration to angry to being on the edge of a nervous breakdown. In “Rabbit Rampage,” Bugs is mostly irritated by the antics of the animator, going so far as to threaten to report his tormentor directly to the Warner Bros. hierarchy. Even the ending is a mistake – Bugs brings the cartoon to a close by pulling down a title card that reads “The End,” while the animator is revealed to be a dull Elmer Fudd who admits, “Well anyway, I finawwy got even with that scwewy wabbit.” Of course, this is not the first time that Elmer came out on top – in fact, the predecessor to this cartoon, “Hare Brush,” is the first short where Elmer gets the best of Bugs.
This is not to say that the Bugs Bunny cartoons cannot be funny when the long-eared protagonist isn’t in control of his situation – the Cecil Turtle duels or the wacky airplane ride with the mischievous gremlin are hilarious examples of Bugs fighting a losing battle against foes who are faster and smarter than he’ll ever be. But those cartoons were fast, fresh and funny. “Rabbit Rampage” has nothing going in its favor, and result is a complete misfire that should never have been released.
The Cecil Turtle episodes were brilliant!