El Gran Científico

Bugs finds himself in a laboratory where Peter Lorre is housing a monster. The monster isn't all that frightening and bugs sort of has him for lunch. There are continuous chase scenes and typical schtick. Nothing new to this, but, then, Bugs is Bugs. This episode has him yelling, "Is there a doctor in the house" with predictable results.

I love the big hairy monster guy. He might not have any arms but you just want to hug him, even tho he won't hug back. The Doctor guy who owns him however, HE is scary. With a grotesquely over-sized head and massive eyes he makes Stewie Griffin from Family Guy look normal.

There's always some insane reason for Bugs Bunny to wander into his castle and get involved in a chase and that's exactly what happens. However, in the end Bugs and the monster become pals and the evil doctor gets what he deserves.

It's been done before and this cartoon is only one version of this same old plot but it's still very funny as anything with Bugs Bunny is. Daffy is still my fave tho.

There are so many reasons why I loved this cartoon. One significant reason is the characters, I loved all of them. Bugs is great here, he is drawn well and he has some great lines, but this is one instance when he is overshadowed by not one but two characters. One is the monster who looks very like the one in Water Water Every Hare, he is scary at first, but he is very fuzzy and cute as well. The other is the scientist, he looks and acts exactly like Peter Lorre, and he is priceless, his looks, his voice, everything. I also loved the animation, it isn't the very best looking of all the Looney Tunes cartoons, but the opening sequence is suitably atmospheric and there are some nice backgrounds, lovely simple colours and crisp character features. The music is great too, I always look for this and I wasn't disappointed, it had some haunting moments but it was also fun. The dialogue is inspired and really funny, the story is well constructed, the visual gags are just as funny as the dialogue and the pacing is fine. Oh, and Mel Blanc's vocals are superb. Overall, a wonderful Looney Tunes cartoon. 10/10 Bethany Cox

The most astonishing and visually audacious of the early Bugs Bunnies, a Chuck Jones masterpiece, that uses the cheap target of the Universal horror movie, long since wallowing in parody, to create some extraordinary effects. The tale is the usual - Bugs being chased by a relentless predator; but is given added piquancy by the horror setting. Bugs is often at the root of his own troubles, whether by arrogant egocentricity, disarming androgyny or slippery playfulness goading the less gifted into violence; but in this case it is Bugs' lust that does him in, as he is led to a castle, with 'Evil Scientist' blaring in neon over its portals, by a beautiful mechanical doll, unsurprisingly, considering our hero's narcissism, very similar to himself (what do you mean all rabbits look the same?!). This mixture of the erotic and the machine prefigures Ballard and Cronenburg, of course, but also reaches back to modern horror's roots, the perverse tales of E.T.A. Hoffman.

The evil scientist, supposedly a take on Peter Lorre, lures Bugs as pet-food for his fearsome monster, who turns out to be a rather cute carpet beast, a dim-witted giant Bugs makes rather heavy weather of. The variations on the chase are vertiginously invigorating, Jones' art is at the zenith of its inventiveness, mocking the horror genre, yet managing to evoke its resonances and themes. In possibly the greatest sequence in Warners animation, the Monster chases Bugs and sees the long hall he occupies reflected the mirror. He also sees himself - his reflection is horrified by him, and runs away out the reflected hall door. This sequence is, er, mirrored, by a later scene, when Bugs, about to be eaten, reveals the watching audience to the Monster, who, exposed, flees through the never-ending castle walls in shame and terror.

This theme of the doppelganger, the shameful double that usually represents all the dark side of our natures we have repressed, is also brilliantly represented in the short's treatment of surveillance. Our first image is of Bugs emerging from his hole, so powerful that the entire forest is his bedroom. and yet he is afraid that he is being watched. Suddenly, he is framed by a screen, which startles the audience (well, me anyway) into a guilty realisation of what it is doing; when the screen belongs to the evil scientist, and the audience is linked to his madman who seeks to murder Bugs, the act of looking, spying, is linked to death - Bugs is in danger as long as he is trapped in the frame, as long as he is being watched. Freedom only is possible when he leaves, and the short is over; but this is a kind of death anyway, as Bugs is a cartoon character who only exists in a cartoon. (Do I need to mention McCarthy?)

The dark colours are beautiful; the playing with perspectives ingenious; and the excuse for a 'What's Up Doc?' is as ingenious as Hitchcock's cameo in 'Lifeboat'.

What a wonderful Bugs Bunny cartoon! Apart from great production values and writing, this movie marks the first appearance of the cute giant orange hairy monster that will later appear in other Warner cartoons.

Bugs is in an old creepy castle when he realizes that the crazy doctor (clearly patterned after Peter Lorre) is trying to kill him for his evil experiments. Bugs fleas and the doctor unleashes his secret weapon--a giant hairy orange monster wearing tennis shoes! He's really awfully cute, though also quite intent on capturing Bugs. Well, Bugs responds by using his cleverness to beat the monster and escape. A wonderful and funny cartoon. It especially excels when it breaks through the fourth wall--and involves the audience!

If you liked this cartoon, try watching WATER, WATER, EVERY HARE (1952)--a follow-up to this movie.