This 1981 production might be the best of the primetime television specials that sliced and diced classic cartoons with not-so-special new animation – if only because there is relatively little new animation.
The production expands on the 1954 short “Yankee Doodle Bugs,” with our hero tutoring his nephew Clyde on American history. Or to be more precise, how Bugs Bunny’s ancestors helped shape the republic.
In addition to “Yankee Doodle Bugs,” the production recycles footage from several Bugs Bunny gems (“Bunker Hill Bunny,” “Southern Fried Rabbit” and “Ballot Box Bunny”) and one stinker (“The Dumb Patrol”). One Tweety and Sylvester cartoon (“The Rebel Without Claws”) is included to pad the running time – after all, this effort was only working with post-1948 cartoons directed by Friz Freleng, who shared co-directing credit with David Detiege on the new material.
The resulting work is laugh-out-loud funny (except for “The Dumb Patrol” scenes), and it is a joy to see the new footage Clyde as he was originally designed and not as a mini-version of Bugs from the Christmas special. Emmy Award voters clearly got a kick out of it, as “Bugs Bunny: All American Hero” received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program. That is no mean feat, considering about 95% of the production consisted of old cartoons. It lost the award to “Life’s a Circus, Charlie Brown,” one of the lesser entries in the Peanuts television specials. Oh well, you can’t win them all.