Beanstalk Bunny (1955)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Ken Harris, Richard Thompson, Abe Levitow, Keith Darling
Music by Carl Stalling
A cute idea with a meh execution, “Beanstalk Bunny” reimagines the fairy tale with Daffy Duck as Jack, Elmer Fudd as the giant, and Bugs Bunny as an interloper who joins in the mayhem. Bugs went up the beanstalk before with “Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk” (1943) and found himself in a land of giants when he challenged Paul Bunyan’s dog in “Lumber Jack-Rabbit” (1953), so it was a bit strange to have him back for a third time in this type of a setting.
But even without considering those earlier films, “Beanstalk Bunny” doesn’t click. The film repeats the unbalanced vibe of the last Bugs-Daffy-Elmer smackdown, the 1953 “Duck! Rabbit! Duck!”, where Daffy’s excessively neurotic and unapologetically greedy behavior generates most of the laughs while Elmer is mostly a dumb foil and Bugs’ insouciant intelligence repeatedly trumps the other two. The film also goes overboard with all three constantly breaking the fourth wall, and the characters’ repeated references to the fairy tale source material quickly becomes a bore.
In fairness, there are a few imaginative gags, most notably with Bugs and Daffy taking turns to blow out Elmer’s cigarette (this sequence was cut from television broadcasts for several years). And the closing shot where Daffy winds up trapped within Elmer’s pocket watch is an inventive comeuppance to his ridiculous actions.