Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears

These Three Bears cartoons, of which "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears" is the first, barely squeak past modern-day TV censors, and couldn't get made today. They feature a domineering patriarch who beats his child and browbeats his wife. Never mind that the cartoon hardly approves of his behavior. These are deadly serious subjects that must ... not ... be ... mocked!

This point of view has two errors. One, deadly serious subjects are the meat of comedy; certainly in Warner Brothers cartoons where the barely hidden themes are death, dismemberment, mayhem, sexual perversion, greed, humiliation, lust, abuse of power and so forth. As Steve Allen often said, comedy is tragedy plus time. Two, Papa Bear is not beating a helpless child or berating a gentle-spirited lady. Baby Bear is enormous, and he's stupid enough to blunt our sympathy. Mama Bear is a drip - and not even a nice drip. She's happy to go along with Papa Bear's cruel scheme to pulverize Bugs Bunny.

That scheme is odd, by the way. Baby Bear assumes they're doing it for food. But there's a strong suggestion that Papa Bear is just looking for some cruel fun. After all, they're not after a rabbit. They re-enact the "Three Bears" story to attract Goldilocks!

They get Bugs Bunny, who handily outwits them. But is Bugs a sexist, as modern scolds would have it? Bugs compliments the alleged beauty of Mama Bear in order to distract her from killing him. Later, when she lustily pursues him, he backs off in terror.

First, Bugs had every right to do what he could to save his life. He certainly didn't owe his would-be murderess an honest appraisal, i.e. that she's repulsive. Second, despite modern-day cant about inner beauty and unconventional beauty, Mama Bear has nothing to offer anyone. She's a homicidal drip.

Then again, audiences never hate her. You have to admire the spirit of a woman who gets one compliment, then immediately blocks every doorway against her admirer, while she wears various would-be attractive garments, or even wears nothing (!), and then shows up at his home to smother the unwilling suitor with kisses. Mama Bear, you're a multifaceted woman.

The animation in this cartoon is oddly crude for Warner Brothers and its director Chuck Jones. Otherwise, this is a top-notch, very funny short and highly recommended to all but prudes, scolds and P.C.-thinkers of all varieties.

This short is available on DVD on "Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume Three," Disc 3.

Three bears are hungry; nothing to eat in the entire house except a few old carrots. Papa Bear comes up with an idea: "Let's pretend this is Goldilocks and The Bears." When "Goldilocks" comes, I guess the plan is for the bears to eat their prey.

Mama Bear makes carrot soup. The aroma travels down into Bugs' hole where he literally floats to the house and slurps up all the porridge, er soup. The rest of the animated short involves the bears trying to get Bugs. However, our hero compliments Mama Bear about her eyes and looks....and she's easily taken in with the compliments.

However, that leads to an unsatisfactory end of this story for Bugs!

Overall, a fast-moving story but so-so at best in the humor department.

There are Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. The bears are hungry and they make porridge. It is too hot. They take a walk to let it cool off. It turns out to be a trick as they hide under the stairs. Bugs Bunny gets lured in by the smell of the food.

This is Bugs Bunny doing Bugs Bunny things... at first. It is interesting that the Bears are laying a trap for him. It is a different path than the traditional Goldilocks story. I like it. The middle is what I expect from Bugs as he gets the upper hand against the Bears. The ending is less like Bugs and it feels a bit off. I like the more standard story where Bugs wins.

One thing I disliked about this cartoon was the slowness of it. The jokes were slow (not necessarily bad, just slow), the plot moved along slowly and even the animation was slow (in most places, anyway). This was the main thing I found mediocre.

"Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears" has an odd mix of humour. On the one hand, you have very funny and witty verbal jokes, funny Bugs Bunny acts and you have almost "cringey" slapstick and primarily unfunny sight gags. There is a great deal of originality in the cartoon (for those days anyway), which was very entertaining, fun and interesting to watch. On the whole, I thought it was an unusual Looney Tunes cartoon in quality of the different aspects, never have I had the same opinion of each aspect in a LT cartoon before (at least in my memory).

Anyhow, in this cartoon, we meet a small, grumpy father bear, a mummy bear and an utterly impossibly-biologically over-sized baby bear (he is bigger than either of his parents). The father bear is thinking of something or other, while baby bear waits impatiently for breakfast. They eventually decide to do the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Unfortunately they do not have porridge, so they have carrot soup instead. Not surprisingly, this attracts the Bugs Bunny rather than Goldilocks... Cartoon capers commence...

I am not sure whether I will watch this cartoon again, but it was perfectly pleasant at the time. I recommend this to people who like unusually slow Looney Tunes cartoons and to people who like Looney Tunes slapstick. Enjoy "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears"! :-)

7 and a half out of ten.

I have a very hard understanding why this cartoon short only has an IMDb score of 7.1, as it's an amazingly funny cartoon--one of the best Bugs Bunny appearances you can find. In this installment, Bugs' foes are the Three Bears--and these hilarious (and totally politically incorrect) characters are wonderful. Junyer Bear is a complete idiot and Papa Bear is a very short-tempered and ill-tempered father who spends most of the cartoon slapping his son around and trying to catch the bunny. Sure, child abuse isn't really funny--but here is is. I especially loved when the bears were recreating the Goldilocks story and Junyer kept saying "Duh....who's been sleeping in my porridge"--at which point, Papa goes ballistic. As for Momma Bear, she says and does very little...until Bugs woos her! All in all, a very funny and creative short. Well-animated and just plain fun.