Bunny Hugged

It is a wrestling championships and it is the fearsome, muscle packed Crusher versus the dainty, light and silly Ravishing Ronald. An assemble of people come to announce the arrival of Ravishing Ronald, including Bugs Bunny, who, not that surprisingly, is scoffing carrots in a large carrot dish. Ravishing Ronald is having a huge amount of trouble a minute later in the contest and Bugs Bunny decides to take his place, having quite a lot of heart. Madcap intelligence and slapstick follow...

I like this episode because, it has good animation of the audience and the slapstick, the episode has a clever plot outline, there are clever twists of the plot, the slapstick is good (animation- wise of course - and entertainment wise) and the "Masked Terror" is a good character and believable.

I recommend this episode to people who like slapsticky Bugs Bunny episodes + wrestling. Enjoy "Bunny Hugged"! :-)

Bugs Bunny has to go Mano-a-rabbito as "the Masked Terror" for a wrestling bout with the Crusher after he easily pummels his former opponent and Bug's source of income, Ravashing Ronald. The rascally rabbit is also outmatched physically, so he has to pull some cunninggly clever yet somewhat devious tricks from his sleeves. I liked this cartoon a lot and it makes me chuckle every single time I see it. This animated short can be seen on Disc 1 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2. It also features an optional music and effects only track.

My Grade: A

Bunny Hugged (1951)

*** (out of 4)

Spoof of wrestling has Bugs Bunny jumping into the ring after his owner is destroyed by The Crusher. Once inside the ring the rabbit is totally out of his league so he must use his brains to try and bring down the best. There's quite a bit that happens inside the seven-minutes of this short. There's pretty much action from the start to finish and most of it is very good. The best sequence is early on in the picture and doesn't even feature the hero Bugs. It's a scene where The Crusher destroys the other wrestler, a "pretty boy" type and the way he's destroyed is just hilarious. The violent action is another plus as is all of the animation, which looks extremely well.

Almost half a century before everyone got really obsessed with wrestling, that carrot-chomping rascal engaged in it...with a vengeance. After belligerent wrestler The Crusher clobbers a challenger, Bugs Bunny quickly enters the fray. At first, The Crusher has the upper hand, but of course Bugs has some tricks up his sleeve. Some of Bugs' antics seem a little risqué, especially for 1951, but there's nothing offensive here. These sorts of cartoons are the REAL definition of "family fun". As Chuck Jones once noted: "Bugs Bunny does what most of us would like to do, but don't have the nerve to do." Splendid.

Chuck Jones's 'Bunny Hugged' is a moderately amusing sequel to the superior 'Rabbit Punch'. In that cartoon Bugs Bunny had found himself in the boxing ring, in this one it's the wrestling ring. Pitted once again against The Crusher (hey, in cartoon land a rabbit and a hare are the same thing so it follows logically that so are a boxer and a wrestler!), Bugs spends the whole first half of the cartoon getting viciously pummeled. When he finally breaks out the heckling as his means of beating the physically undefeatable Crusher, 'Bunny Hugged' picks up a little. The jokes are fairly standard and too much faith is placed in The Crusher's dopey reactions to being clobbered but overall its adequately entertaining if largely uninspired stuff. The climactic gag, however, is one of the worst and least funny closing images of any Warner cartoon I can think of. I'm not a huge fan of 'Bunny Hugged', then, but it's an decent time passer and never sinks to the levels of tedium of, say, 'Big Top Bunny'.