Big Top Bunny

I love Bugs Bunny and I love Looney Tunes, but I am sorry to say I am not a fan of Big Top Bunny. It definitely wasn't awful, but it is one of my least favourite Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Starting with the good things, I did like the animation in general. The colours are great, as are the backgrounds and Bugs looks fine. The music has its usual energy and quirkiness, while the dialogue is reasonably amusing and the sight gags while slightly lacking in originality are decent especially with the idea with the heights. And as always Mel Blanc's voice work is superb.

However, there are things that make Big Top Bunny somewhat decidedly lacklustre. The story is incredibly predictable and offers little to no surprises, while the pacing is uneven, it starts off slow and then it suddenly feels as though a bomb has hit it and it doesn't slow down. My main problem with Big Top Bunny is the character of Bruno. I do not like him... at all. In this cartoon, Bruno's character design is the only one I don't care for, it is ugly and I think inconsistent too, while the voice was rather tiresome and some of his dialogue did little for me either.

Overall, not terrible but sadly not particularly good either. 6/10 Bethany Cox

A lot of people don't seem to like this short, which I'm ok with(after all it's just their opinion) but me. I actually really like this short, the jokes/gags were pretty funny, the animation's great, and the voice acting sounded good. The only thing I didn't like about this short is on how annoying Bruno was, I didn't really liked him. But overall great short so it is a 8/10

Sorry if I find it a little hokey when they make Eastern Europeans the antagonists in movies; they do that in "Big Top Bunny", as Bugs Bunny ends up in the circus and gets paired with a jealous Slovak bear. Bugs plays some funny tricks on the big guy - hell, with this big doofus, it's a cinch - but I would like to see a movie or cartoon in which Eastern Europeans are not the antagonists. I know that this cartoon was produced only a few years into the Cold War, when we were supposed to view the Soviet bloc as the evilest place of all time, but it just seems dated (particularly to someone like me, a student of Russian). Otherwise, it's a pretty funny cartoon, especially the diving scene.

When the circus hires Bugs Bunny as an attraction, Bruno-an Eastern European bear, gets jealous and tries to sabotage him. He succeeds the first time but the rabbit catches on. The gag where Bruno ends up in the band's kettle drum isn't funny but everything else is. I especially liked the one when Bugs, after being given a handle with bear hands by Bruno on his trapeze, uses that handle and "peddles" his way back to the bear's starting base. Robert McKimson didn't make the greatest Warner Bros. cartoons compared to Chuck Jones, Friz Freling, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, or Frank Tashlin but because of all that talent that surrounded him, he could still make good animated shorts that can be entertaining in themselves. Big Top Bunny is one of them.

It is Colonel Korny's World Famous Circus. Bruno is the star Slobokian Acrobatic Bear. The Colonel is offered a performing rabbit and decides to combine the rabbit with Bruno's act. Bruno is not happy. The rabbit is Bugs Bunny. During their act, Bruno starts playing tricks on Bugs, but Bugs smells the rat right away.

I really like this battle under the big top. I would like a bigger name for the Colonel Korny role. The best gag is the high dive platform. I love that they have to ratchet up the platform in such a hilariously non-sensical way. It is great in so many ways especially visually. This is great.