During the course of “A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur’s Court” (later retitled “Bugs Bunny in King Arthur’s Court”), Yosemite Sam becomes so annoyed with an excessively verbose Bugs that he yells at him to shut up. The poor viewer watching this made-for-television special may have the urge to share that angry sentiment with all of the on-screen characters. This Chuck Jones-devised mess is one of the most obnoxiously talkative animation productions ever made.
Inspired by Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” the production finds Bugs emerging from his underground travels with the belief that he arrived at a peanut festival in Georgia (a weak joke at the expense of then-President Jimmy Carter). He then mistakenly believes he is in Pittsburgh, only to quickly learn he somehow went back in time to Camelot during King Arthur’s reign. Bugs babbles for a few minutes about how Ray Bradbury gave him crazy travel directions that sent him back in time.
Several familiar faces turn up in Camelot: Daffy Duck is King Arthur, Yosemite Sam is Merlin of Monroe, Porky Pig is Porkè of Pigge, and Elmer Fudd is now Sir Elmer of Fudd (with Mel Blanc finally taking over that character’s voice). Elmer and Sam think Bugs is a shape-shifting dragon, but Bugs gains the king’s favor after pretending to have the power to blot out sunlight (he uses a convenient solar eclipse to fool the Camelot crowd that he has magic powers). The mayhem concludes with Bugs taking on Elmer and Sam in a jousting match that results in the villainous duo being repeatedly dunked in a moat.
The production offers a surplus amount of late-career Jones’ vices (verbosity, soft and sloppy animation, the endless breaking of the fourth wall, enervated slapstick segments) and none of the virtues of the animator’s Golden Age output. Action is at a bare minimum, with constant and unimaginative dialogue replacing the imaginative knockabout that made the Warner Bros. cartoons so special. And what could have been a riotously funny concept with Daffy as King Arthur goes absolutely nowhere.
Nonetheless, the production was popular enough to inspire more prime-time specials featuring Bugs and the Looney Tunes crew, as well as a new line of feature films.