Buccaneer Bunny (1948)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Michael Maltese
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Manuel Perez 

Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of–Ma’s old fa-shioned ci-der! Ma’s old fa-shioned ci-der!

I have great sentimental value for “Buccaneer Bunny” as it’s one of the array of Bugs Bunny shorts that were often played during the Bugs and Daffy Show every Saturday morning when I was a kid. “Buccaneer Bunny” is edgy enough to still be hilarious but never crosses any lines. And we also get Yosemite Sam once again! That’s always a plus. Watching this short takes me back to when I was a child winding down from Saturday morning cartoons and greeting the early afternoon with the hour block on ABC Network. “Buccaneer Bunny” is still utterly hilarious and stands as one of the shorts from Bugs that hasn’t aged a bit.

Even with its stripped-down premise, the short is a masterclass in the excellent dynamic that Bugs and Yosemite Sam have together.

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Rabbit Punch (1948)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Ted Pierce
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Phil Monroe

The bad new is that Chuck Jones re-uses a lot of the material from “Baseball Bugs” for “Rabbit Punch.” The good news is that “Rabbit Punch” ends up being very funny and memorable just the same. If you watch this and “Baseball Bugs” back to back you’ll see the obvious cut and paste, but this short is helped by the hysterical animation which really helps punctuate the hilarious physical gags and sight gags. There are some subtle bits of comedy that I still chuckle over. The frame as Bugs is hit by The Champ’s brick fist is absolutely priceless, and the POV of The Champ getting hit with a boulder by Bugs’ slingshot is just genius.

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A Feather in His Hare (1948)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Michael Maltese
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Ken Harris

We’re so late in the game and we’re still doling out these hideous racial stereotypes for these Looney Tunes shorts. “A Feather in his Hare” reminded me a lot of “All This and Rabbit Stew” except this short elicits a ton of hideous Native American stereotypes without ever actually building an interesting villain. By now we’ve had Elmer, Yosemite Sam, and many more foils, and we’re still being fed this kind of muck. And it’s not just that “A Feather in His Hare” is awfully racist, but it’s awfully unfunny as well. It’s just a lot of exploring how many Native American stereotypes can be squeezed in to eight minutes, and none of it ever amounts to even a mild chuckle.

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Gorilla My Dreams (1948)
Directed by Bob McKimson
Written by Warren Foster
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Charles McKimson

It’s interesting to review “Gorilla My Dreams” as it’s a fun introduction of the ape villain Gruesome. While Warren Foster does a good job of bringing us new Bugs Bunny foil, Gruesome and this whole premise was applied so much better in the 1959 remake “Apes of Wrath.” I could swear I had seen this short before, but for a long time it was always the aforementioned. It goes without saying that set up for “Apes…” is so much cleverer than the one we get in “Gorilla My Dreams.” That’s not to say that this short doesn’t bring with it its own merits. It’s not a terrible short at all, all things considered.

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Slick Hare (1947)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Tedd Pierce
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Virgil Ross

“Slick Hare” is one of the best Bugs Bunny shorts ever made. It’s also one of my all time favorites. It’s hilarious, it’s clever, it’s sharply written, and if you’re a fan of classic Hollywood, you’ll adore all the cameos from famous Hollywood heavyweights of the time. Hell, one of the icons of Hollywood, Humphrey Bogart, plays a large role in the short and helps set off the chain of events that involves Elmer Fudd trying to snatch Bugs and make him in to dinner.

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Easter Yeggs (1947)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Written by Warren Foster
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Charles McKimson

The 500^th animated short released from Warner Bros., “Easter Yeggs” is so much funnier than I remember it being, as I always typically found it kind of obnoxious in the past. Recently it’s earned a place in the tops list mainly for the fact that it’s so chaotic, and delights in delivering so many funny gags. To make things more interesting, “Easter Yeggs” has three villains, all of whom are scheming to make Bugs’ life difficult, and it amounts to a hilarious challenge for the character. One of the earliest holiday themed shorts from Bugs, it’s only a drop in the bucket of a long line of Warner animated shorts that took myths, legends, and fairytales and distorted them for the sake of comedy and or chaos.

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A Hare Grows in Manhattan (1947)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Michael Maltese
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Virgil Ross

Happy New Year!

For this installment, we’re looking at “A Hare Grows in Manhattan” one of the more underrated Bugs Bunny shorts ever produced. It’s hysterical, it’s quotable, and it features another one and done villain but one of his most common foes: The dog. The dog has always been a very multi faceted villain for the Warner universe, as the dog is always the predator for traditionally prey like rabbits, ducks, and chickens. By now Bugs has come face to face with at least a dozen dog foes, all of whom we were either working with Elmer Fudd, or working on their own.

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