Es war einmal zur Weihnachtszeit

Bonanza Bugs is not quite one of my favourite Bugs Bunny cartoons, but it is still thoroughly enjoyable. The animation is colourful and fluid, one of the better looking "late" Bugs Bunny cartoons in my view. The music is still of the lively energy you'd expect, with lovely orchestration. The writing is witty with both Bugs and Jacque having their share of great lines, and the gags while not the most imaginative still amuse me highly. The story is on the routine side, but still crisply paced and never dull. Bugs is smart and somewhat arrogant, in short this is Bugs at his best. Jacque is a worthy foil, though I do agree to some extent that it is a role that Yosemite Sam could have done easily and perhaps even better also. Mel Blanc's voice work is stellar. All in all, thoroughly enjoyable. 9/10 Bethany Cox

1896 in Dawson City gold rush fever is at a fever pitch with the roughest men in the West digging in the mountains. When Bugs Bunny arrives in a bar, complaining about the fact that he has been digging for carrots and could only find yellow rocks, he immediately gets the attention of all the people in the bar - in particular, wanted criminal Black Jacques.

At the start of this film I had assumed that this was a cartoon with Yosemite Sam and, in a way, I was right except Sam was not in this one. In his place is a French accented outlaw called Black Jacque who does a reasonable job of doing the same stuff as Sam would have done. Bugs is as good as he always is and is nice and tricky.

The routines and gags are the run of the mill fare that you get in these shorts. They aren't that imaginative but they are still funny enough to be watchable. Overall it's a good cartoon but you will have seen the same gags done better in other cartoons with Yosemite Sam as the support character.

Bugs mines a fortune in gold rocks (mistakenly thinking when people were talking about carats, they meant carrots) and finds himself being robbed by French Canadian claim jumper Blacque Jacque Shellacque. Enjoyable Bugs short from Robert McKimson but not a great one. Excellent voice work from the incomparable Mel Blanc. Nice music from Milt Franklyn. Showing the state Warner Bros. animation was in at the time, some of the animation in this is recycled from earlier shorts. Overall the animation is colorful but sketchy. There are some funny gags and lines but it's never hilarious. How much you will like it depends largely on how amusing you find Blacque Jacque.