Wackiki Wabbit

While not my favourite Bugs Bunny or Chuck Jones cartoon, Wackiki Rabbit is still a great cartoon with lots of colour, great humour and a wonderfully odd atmosphere. One does wish that Bugs had more to do here, despite being the star he does agreed play more of a secondary character to the castaways, albeit a very memorable and funny one at that.

The cartoon does on the other hand some really colourful visuals with beautifully bold colours, impeccably detailed backgrounds, some inventive 'surreal' physical comedy and well-drawn characters (Bugs' design is in early stages but while different he's drawn well and moves easily). The music by Carl Stalling is typically outstanding, giving the cartoon so much energy while also being richly and cleverly orchestrated throughout, it's also a perfect match with the visuals, humour and action and even elevates them to a greater level. The writing is fresh, razor sharp and brilliantly funny, some of it is bizarre but in a hugely entertaining way, while the gags are oddly surreal but inventive and quite hilarious, especially when the castaways are first introduced to Bugs, with the cooked chicken and the ending.

Story-wise, it's crisply paced, has a constantly colourful atmosphere and it's not too routine or predictable because the humour is so well done. Bugs is as always great fun though as said he should have had more to do, while the castaways (caricatures of Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce, who also voice the characters) are a hilarious and an oddly-but- well-matched double act. Mel Blanc, Maltese and Pierce all give fine vocal characterisations.

Overall, colourful, hilarious and wonderfully odd. Definitely worth seeing at least once. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Two shipwrecked shipmates are aimlessly floating about at the mercy of the waves before being washed up on a tropical island, where they find Bugs Bunny. They think they'll have roast rabbit, but Bugs objects (what would you do?).

The two shipwrecked sailors are voiced by Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce, and they look like them, too. In case you didn't know, they're two of the three chief Bugs Bunny writers. Imagine humiliating them so blatantly in theaters! I'm not surprised they ended up wanting to get away from the rabbit.

I saw this cartoon yesterday on the Looney Tunes marathon on Cartoon Network, and it refreshed my memory. Mel Blanc, of course, is excellent as the rabbit, but the bunny is quite basic. He'd only been around for three years, you know. The layouts are detailed and interesting, including a panoramic view of the tropical island, and the detailed jungle environment. Some sequences are truly hilarious, but it doesn't really stick in the memory. The concept is original, and the jokes are fresh and new. Bugs was never seen as a puppeteer before was he?

WACKIKI WABBIT (1943) is a great second or third cartoon to show in a Bugs Bunny history, since it's the first cartoon in my memory to show the rabbit at his best in an under-developed form.

We see something unusual right off the bat in this cartoon: a quick picture of something that isn't animated. In this case, it's a giant hamburger. That's what one of two starving guys on a raft out in the ocean sees, instead of his partner. The other guy soon is hallucinating, too, seeing food where human body parts are! Thankfully, they are spared from these gruesome things as they spot an island and race there in their suddenly-speedy raft.

Bugs Bunny, probably the only living thing on the small island, spots this ravenous duo and quickly sets his brain in motion. How he does NOT become dinner is the focus of this story. Along the way are some funny bits with graphics regarding language translations. It's also interesting that the two LT writers are the guys characterized in the cartoon! Good for them! It's always good to be able to laugh at yourself, so kudos to Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce.

I agree with the reviewers here: this is a classic cartoon, full of inventive sights that are guaranteed to make you laugh. No sense describing all of them. Suffice to say all three main characters are good in here. The ending's a little sappy, but it's hard to get everything perfect.

One of the most surreal and abstract Bugs Bunny cartoons: the scenes jump in vibrant and bold colors, swirling and changing in a mad scramble on a lush,tropical island. At one point Bugs breaks into fluent Hawaiian and says "humuhumunukunukuapua'a"! This is the name of the former state fish of Hawai'i (pending reinstatement as of April 2006). This little fish was a favorite at the Waikiki Aquarium hence, presumably, the title of the cartoon "Wackiki Wabbit". It's always refreshing when modern art, hallucinations, and ethno-linguistics join in a comic romp! Another interesting development is the characterizations of the castaways. Visually they play off each other in a Laurel and Hardy way, with a thin, tall man vs. fat, short man. As noted, they are the likenesses of the writers Pierce and Maltese, who also do the voices. This was a hallmark of the many Bugs cartoons that show real-life people on the cartoon "stage" via wonderful caricature---think Peter Lorre, Edward G. Robinson and Lauren Bacall, to name a few. This is one of my very favorites, and, I like to say "humuhumunukunukuapua'a"!

In the beginning of this Merrie Melodies cartoon we see two castaways adrift on a small raft.Then they find land.But there, on that tropical island, is also Bugs Bunny.And what do these two men want to do, when they see a rabbit? They want to eat him.Wackiki Wabbit is a Chuck Jones direction from 1943.Mel Blanc can be heard as the voice of Bugs Bunny, as usually.Michael Maltese does the voice of Fat castaway.Tedd Pierce provides the voice for Thin castaway.He is also behind the story.The drawing used for the backgrounds is fascinating.It looks most abstract.We see a lot of wacky stuff here, like those two fools seeing each other as food.And the chicken marionette, hilarious.