{"id":47736,"date":"2025-05-21T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=47736"},"modified":"2025-05-17T14:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T18:18:10","slug":"every-bugs-bunny-ever-baby-buggy-bunny-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/21\/every-bugs-bunny-ever-baby-buggy-bunny-1954\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Baby Buggy Bunny (1954)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baby Buggy Bunny<\/strong> (1954)
\nDirected by\tCharles M. Jones
\nStory by\tMichael Maltese
\nAnimation by\tKen Harris, Abe Levitow, Lloyd Vaughan, Ben Washam
\nMusic by\tMilt Franklyn<\/p>\n

Of all the adversaries who challenged Bugs Bunny, Baby Face Finster was arguably the most inventive concept of a villain. The idea of an adult (and rather butch) midget disguising himself as a baby was pure genius, and Finster\u2019s fracas with Bugs was among the most original and invigorating in the history of the character\u2019s films.
\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBaby Buggy Bunny\u201d starts with gusto \u2013 a tall, shadowy figure in a trench coat robs a bank and flees down alleyways as sirens blare. In an alley, the miscreant opens his coat to reveal he is a midget on stilts. The crook throws his bag of stolen money into a baby carriage, dons the clothing of a toddler, and climbs into the carriage. As the cops race down the alley, he displays a face of pure innocence \u2013 the cops ignore him in pursuit of the tall bank robber.<\/p>\n

Finster\u2019s first mistake is getting out of the carriage to check that the cops are out of sight. In leaving the carriage, he accidentally sets it off down a steep hill. Finster gives chase, but the carriage hits a rock and the bag of money sails through the air and into Bugs Bunny\u2019s hole-in-the-ground residence. Bugs gives off a shout of pain \u2013 the bag obviously bonked his head \u2013 but then he pops out holding handfuls of money while crowing about his newfound wealth.<\/p>\n

Finster infiltrates Bugs\u2019 subterranean home by setting himself up as an abandoned baby in a basket. Bugs\u2019 paternal instinct kicks in and he takes Finster into his bachelor home \u2013 which, inexplicably, has a high-chair, playpen, toys and a cradle. (Our long-eared hero also doesn\u2019t see anything wrong with a rabbit raising a human baby.)<\/p>\n

Bugs takes a long time to figure out something is odd with this foundling \u2013 Finster shoots him at point-blank range, bangs the satchel of money over his head and whacks him with a baseball bat when Bugs turns off the light for Finster\u2019s bedtime. Yet despite this violence, Bugs thinks little Finster is “a cutie.” Even when Bugs discovers Finster\u2019s secret \u2013 he peeks through a bathroom keyhole to find a tattooed, muscular Finster shaving and smoking a cigar \u2013 Bugs still thinks Finster is a baby. It isn\u2019t until a TV news broadcast about the police search for \u201cAnt Hill Harry, alias Baby Face Finster\u201d that Bugs realizes the infant is a dangerous imposter.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the beauty of \u201cBaby Buggy Bunny\u201d \u2013 Bugs is played for a good-natured chump for too long, and when he gets his revenge it is deliciously cruel. Bugs violently shakes Finster for misbehaving, drops him in a washing machine, tosses him high until his head hits the ceiling and then lets him fall face-down on the floor. After Finster tries to stab Bugs \u2013 he stabs his own backside and curses over the mistake \u2013 Bugs gives Finster a vigorous over-the-knee spanking causing the crook\u2019s guns and bullets to fall from his baby clothing.<\/p>\n

Credit needs to go to writer Michael Maltese and director Chuck Jones for resisting the obvious and not giving Finster any significant dialogue outside until the cartoon\u2019s closing, when Finster demands his release from prison \u2013 he is seen wearing convict stripes and locked in a playpen-sized cell. If the adult Finster spoke during his time in Bugs\u2019 home, the impact would have been spoiled. Instead, Finster has baby babble and one brief exclamation of \u201cDada\u201d while underground with Bugs \u2013 this is the perfect example of achieving more with less.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Mel Blanc\u2019s voice performance as Bugs is among his best work, with a diverse range of inflections ranging from his joyful hysteria at his unexpected wealth to his baby-talking playfulness as the unlikely surrogate parent to his bewildered agony at Finster\u2019s assaults to the revenge-tinged calling \u201cOh Finster, oh Finster baby\u201d after realizing he was played for a fool to the final facetious tinge when he reminds the incarcerated Finster that \u201c99 years isn\u2019t forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two quickie trivia notes: \u201cBaby Buggy Bunny\u201d is the rare cartoon where most of the action takes place in Bugs\u2019 home, and it is the first time that television is part of the story \u2013 remember, these cartoons were made for theatrical release, and in 1954 it was uncommon for a character in a movie to be seen watching television.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baby Buggy Bunny (1954) Directed by Charles M. Jones Story by Michael Maltese Animation by Ken Harris, Abe Levitow, Lloyd Vaughan, Ben Washam Music by Milt Franklyn Of all the adversaries who challenged Bugs Bunny, Baby Face Finster was arguably the most inventive concept of a villain. The idea of an adult (and rather butch) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":47737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3068],"tags":[99,3707,167,2078,1317],"class_list":["post-47736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bugs-bunny-ever","tag-animation","tag-baby-face-finster","tag-bugs-bunny","tag-cartoon","tag-chuck-jones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47736"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47741,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47736\/revisions\/47741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}