Olé, Torero!

"Bully for Bugs" is a very good Bugs Bunny cartoon--which is no surprise since the franchise was going very strong at the time. Receiving a score lower than 8 actually would have been a surprise--these films were that consistently good. However, in one way this isn't exactly the typical sort of Bugs Bunny cartoon--as his nemesis is a lot more successful against him than normal.

The film begins in a bull ring in Mexico. After dispatching the matador, the bull is ready for another fight when, suddenly, up pops Bugs. He naturally made a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up in the ring. As I mentioned above, however, the bull often gets the best of Bugs...that is, until the end. Overall, it's a high quality cartoon--with nice animation and plenty of laughs. Worth seeing.

Bugs Bunny finds fun and hi-jinks at the big Carrot Festival in the Coachella Valley—or he would have had he not taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Instead, he ends up in a Mexican bullring during what can only be described as a bull-flight: the matador is a coward and the bull is one mean machine. Bugs is less impressed, but when he slaps the bull's face for steaming up his tail, the bull butts him out of the ring. "Of course you realize this means war." It will be a war of wits fought with such tools as an anvil; a slingshot; a rifle, elephant bullets; axle grease; and a crude Rube Goldberg device that employs TNT. Think the bull's brawn is a match for Bugs's brain? "What an ultra maroon!"

Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese made a bullfighting picture because their boss told them never to make bullfighting pictures; and we end up with this funny, memorable short that gives Bugs one heck of an intimidating opponent. This huge black bull is scary; and he seems to be forever posing for a toro edition of Muscle Magazine. Bugs has more nerve than I do. Give me Elmer Fudd as an adversary any day.

This short is available on the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One," Disc 1.

This is one of my all-time favourite Bugs Bunny cartoons -- it contains everything that sets the classic Warners animation stuff apart from the stuff that's mass produced today. I especially love the way that the fortunes of Bugs and the bull waver back and forth; I also love the synchronization with the "La Cucaracha" music (see also "Rabbit of Seville (1950)") and the elaborate contraption that Bugs builds.

If you're trying to show someone a classic WB cartoon, this is a great one to start with.

It has been reported by Chuck Jones that Edward Selzer (then Warner Bros. cartoon producer) saw his drawing of a bull and immediately said, "no bullfighting pictures!" Lucky for us that Jones and his crew ignored these hasty words, because what resulted was one of the best Bugs Bunny cartoons ever made.

We are fortunate that Bugs never learned how to read a map, because this time out, his "wrong turn at Albuquerque" brought him into a Spanish bullfighting arena with the bull chasing the matador around the ring. We are also indebted to Jones and Michael Maltese's other famous words they put into the rabbit's mouth, "Of course you know this means war!" And with those words, Jones and co. build around this situation as no one ever has before or since.

The bull is noteworthy as being only a one-shot character, but one of the many Looney Tunes "character actors" that we do not soon forget.

A brilliant Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny short that finds Bugs accidentily becoming a bull fighter and having to fight El Toro after he takes a wrong turn at the same place he always does. This is a hilarious Loony Tunes short and Even though this is El Toro's one & only appearence, He is still a fondly remembered character in the Looney Tunes stable. And rightly so.This cartoon is uncut on Disk 1 of the 'Loony Tunes Golden Collection' and also has a commentary track . On a side note as a kid, I enjoyed playing the one level of a Loony Tunes videogame for the PS2 that was based on this short as it was fun.

My Grade: A+