2023 marks the 85th Anniversary of Bug Bunny’s first animated appearance in 1938’s “Porky’s Hare Hunt.” Debuting originally as Happy Rabbit, Bugs eventually became one of the most iconic animated characters of all time. In honor of the landmark anniversary, we’re discussing every animated appearance by Bugs Bunny. We’re big fans of Bugsy and we hope that you are, too.
Follow us on this massive journey where we discover and re-discover Every Bugs Bunny Ever.
Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1944)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Tedd Pierce
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Gerry Chiniquy
The best way to approach “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” is by examining it within the context upon which it was released. This was during World War II where anti-Asian sentiment was high. So, typical of movie studios at the time, the animators at Warner brought their iconic Bugs Bunny in to the war to fight a spiritual battle on screen against Japanese enemies. “Enemies” is putting it lightly. They’re horrendous Japanese stereotypes and clichés, and the animated short never misses a beat. There’s the Japanese that sounds like gibberish. There’s the big buck teeth, the bug eyes, the fractured English, the big glasses, there’s the appearance of a Sumo Wrestler for some reason, and yes, Bugs Bunny dresses as a Geisha girl to woo the sumo wrestler.
There’s also Bugs referring to them as “Japs” for most of the picture.
Basically “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” was eight minutes of me painfully groaning “Oh god… Oh god… Oh my god… No… Dear lord… oh god!” I’ll admit that I’d never seen “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” before as most of my looney tunes education came from old VHS tapes, Saturday morning cartoons, and marathons on the Cartoon Network. The latter of which removed “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” from their rotation, and rarely mentioned it, if ever. They did speak about it once in their more mature animated history show “Toonheads” but that was about as far as it ever went. What makes “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” so terrible is the same problem that “All This and Rabbit and Stew” suffered from.
It’s not only that it’s so painfully offensive and mean spirited, but it’s just not funny. There isn’t a single “gag” in this short that even made me smile. The writers and animators are so obsessed with clapping back at their enemies in war, that they completely lose focus of the comedy and madcap lunacy. The premise of the short isn’t even creative. Bugs Bunny is in a crate drifting along the Pacific Ocean and singing “Someone’s Rocking my Dreamboat” and he announces to the audience that any time now he’ll find an island–since they always find an island in the moving pictures. And lo and behold he finds an island, but he’s attacked at all corners by off screen gunfire.
While attempting to hide, he comes across the Japanese soldier who thinks he’s an enemy. And the short takes off from there. It’s such a clunky and lazy set up that you can sense the writers were thinking “Lets just get him to the island, it doesn’t matter how we do it.” Bugs Bunny is also kind of smug, too, which makes his confrontation with the villains of the short feel like there’s not a real protagonist to root for. I understand what the sentiment behind “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” was. I understood that there was a huge anti-Asian mindset during that period. I don’t agree with it, but I get why the masses were conditioned to despise the Asian. Even the title “Nips the Nips” embraces the Asian slur “Nip” to instantly de-humanize the short’s villain for the viewer.
Probably the worst easily most unwatchable moment is where Bugs is pretending to be a Good Humor man to trick the soldiers and as they’re mobbing him he’s muttering “Here you are bow legs! One for you monkey face! There you go, slant eyes!” Oh, so bad. So, so bad. To make things worse, the short ends on a clunker of a joke where it was obvious they didn’t know how to bring it to an end. So Bugs cries about being alone on an island, he sees a US war ship and he’s tempted by a female bunny. From there he chases after her howling in arousal and—the end. Despite its horrific content, “Bugs Nips the Nips” is not a part of the dreaded Censored Eleven list, however it was removed from a lot of syndicated airings in the mid to late 1900’s.
First and foremost it’s pure propaganda, but it’s lazy propaganda that hasn’t aged well at all. I’d put it at the top two worst from Bugs Bunny’s library. At the end of the day, the best way to justify its existence, if you have to, is that it’s so much better observed as an animation buff, or historian that are interested in the darker areas of what have become strictly family friendly properties over the last sixty years, that the studios prefer we not discuss.
Find out what we think are the BEST and WORST Bugs Bunny shorts of all time!