{"id":49818,"date":"2025-10-01T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=49818"},"modified":"2025-09-28T20:34:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T00:34:59","slug":"every-bugs-bunny-ever-bedevilled-rabbit-1957","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/01\/every-bugs-bunny-ever-bedevilled-rabbit-1957\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Bedevilled Rabbit (1957)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bedevilled Rabbit<\/strong> (1957)<br \/>\nDirected by Robert McKimson<br \/>\nStory by Tedd Pierce<br \/>\nAnimation by Ted Bonnicksen, Keith Darling, George Grandpr\u00e9<br \/>\nMusic by Milt Franklyn<\/p>\n<p>When the Tasmanian Devil \u2013 or Taz, as his friends know him \u2013 debuted in the 1954 \u201cDevil May Hare,\u201d producer Edward Selzer took a dislike to the character and ordered director Robert McKimson not to use him again. However, studio chief Jack L. Warner later intervened by pointing to the surplus number of fan letters asking when Taz would be in another cartoon. Three years passed after \u201cDevil May Hare\u201d before he returned in \u201cBedevilled Rabbit,\u201d which was the best of the Bugs-Taz pairings.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBedevilled Rabbit\u201d gets off to a great start when Bugs arrives in Tasmania via an airdrop of a crate of carrots destined for a plantation. The crate crashes in a jungle by mistake and Bugs emerges from the wreckage wondering what happened to him after he fell asleep in a carrot patch. He spots a sign that that informs him of his Tasmanian location and then watches a stampede of unlikely animals \u2013 including a lion, a moose, an ostrich, a monkey, and bear \u2013 rush by him. Bugs stops an alligator who turns himself into a handbag while warning Bugs to avoid the Tasmanian Devil. Bugs is unfamiliar with the animal and the alligator gives him a pamphlet that lists every animal that the Tasmanian Devil feasts upon.<\/p>\n<p>Taz comes zooming through the jungle in a cyclonic burst and eats Bugs\u2019 pamphlet before pursuing him. Taz unexpectedly captures Bugs and ties him up while sticking an apple in his mouth. As Taz is tossing a giant salad, Bugs offers to make him a \u201cwild turkey surprise.\u201d Taz unties Bugs and he prepares the meal \u2013 which consists of three large TNT sticks arranged to look like a roasted turkey. Taz swallows it whole, and the TNT expands his stomach briefly and creates an indigestion belch that he meekly apologizes by muttering \u201cPardon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Upset at being tricked, Taz chases Bugs again. Bugs ducks into a \u201cTrader Mac\u201d store and creates a drag disguise using a mop for a blonde wig, a steel trap for jaws that he frames with bright red lipstick, a floppy sun hat, and a pink towel for a dress. Bugs emerges from the store as the soundtrack samples \u201cOh, You Beautiful Doll\u201d and Taz is enchanted by the \u201cTasmanian She-Devil.\u201d Taz and Bugs-in-drag kiss, with Bugs\u2019 steel trap closing on Taz\u2019s outstretched lips. Taz is in ecstasy until a female voice yells out \u201cClaude!\u201d It\u2019s Taz\u2019s wife, who starts whacking him about the head with a rolling pin, chasing him away from Bugs.<\/p>\n<p>In some ways, Taz is a limited villain \u2013 his dialogue is mostly oversized grunts and growls with a deadpan complete sentence added at unexpected moments, and his capture of Bugs is due to careless overconfidence by the long-eared protagonist rather than the predator\u2019s cunning. But on the other hand, he represents a zany feral energy whose gluttonous hunger fuels his chronic antagonism. And Bugs\u2019 drag segment might be among the funniest of the cross-dressing gags in this series \u2013 especially when Taz goes into wild whistling and cheering for this unlikely femme fatale before abruptly breaking the fourth wall to give an uncharacteristic growl of lechery.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, Taz only became an occasional presence in the Warner Bros. cartoons \u2013 he turned up later in 1957 in \u201cDucking the Devil\u201d where he was badly paired with Daffy Duck, and didn\u2019t show up to menace Bugs again until a pair of early 1960s cartoons when the studio\u2019s output was in decline. \u201cBedevilled Rabbit\u201d is Taz\u2019s peak, and the quality of this cartoon compensates for the minimal quantity of appearances he was given.<\/p>\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\">\n  <iframe src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player.html?video=x8mjkgb\"\n    style=\"width:100%; height:100%; position:absolute; left:0px; top:0px; overflow:hidden; border:none;\"\n    allowfullscreen\n    title=\"Dailymotion Video Player\"\n    allow=\"web-share\"><br \/>\n  <\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bedevilled Rabbit (1957) Directed by Robert McKimson Story by Tedd Pierce Animation by Ted Bonnicksen, Keith Darling, George Grandpr\u00e9 Music by Milt Franklyn When the Tasmanian Devil \u2013 or Taz, as his friends know him \u2013 debuted in the 1954 \u201cDevil May Hare,\u201d producer Edward Selzer took a dislike to the character and ordered director [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":49819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3068],"tags":[99,167,2078,3668,3676,1175],"class_list":["post-49818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bugs-bunny-ever","tag-animation","tag-bugs-bunny","tag-cartoon","tag-robert-mckimson","tag-tasmanian-devil","tag-warner-bros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49818","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=49818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49821,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49818\/revisions\/49821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}