Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes, Hanna and Barbera and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons. Actually appreciate it even more now through young adult eyes, thanks to broader knowledge and taste and more interest in animation styles and various studios and directors.
Chuck Jones deserved, and still deserves, to be considered one of the best, most legendary and most influential animation directors/animators. While not quite as distinctive in directing style as other directors from the same era, in his prime era he was responsible for some of the best cartoons ever made. Bugs Bunny is one of my favourite characters in animation and ever, he and Elmer Fudd are such a classic pairing and Mel Blanc was one of the greatest voice actors ever.
'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bunny' is not a terrible cartoon by any stretch. It's also not very good either, another one of those watchable but not particularly inspired 80s Looney Tunes efforts.
Certainly there are good things. The animation has brightness and colour with some inventive moments, if not always refinement with some of the drawing scrappy. The music is lively enough and doesn't sound too cheap.
Bugs is always worth watching, and that's an understatement, and he is still interesting and not out of character. A few amusing lines of dialogue and lively chemistry, especially agreed the sequence/exchange regarding being offered wine, and Mel Blanc shows voicing Bugs that he has definitely not lost it.
However, there is nothing new here despite a fairly neat concept and not much is amusing let alone funny, nothing is imaginative either. The gags feel stale and the timing has very little energy, fatigue and lack of inspiration is all over here. Still love Blanc as Bugs but with him voicing Elmer it just isn't the same without Arthur Q. Bryan.
Elmer is not as interesting as he usually is and his chemistry with Bugs has sparkled far more in the cartoons when Looney Tunes were in their prime. Some drawing is scrappy and the whole cartoon is far too talky with nowhere near enough gags, with too much of the dialogue being nothing to write home enough this is a big problem.
Overall, not terrible but not much great here, Blanc's voice work and Bugs are the best assets. 5/10 Bethany Cox
