El Gran Concierto

A ghoulish mixture of Liszt, murder, violence and carrots, 'Rhapsody Rabbit' is an exuberantly inventive Bugs Bunny cartoon which manages to explode the boundaries of its single setting. Bugs is a famed pianist, the kind of fastidious virtuoso you still find today, but worshipped in the 40s because arrogant eccentricity somehow signalled class. Having removed his many gloves, Bugs, a proto-Glenn Gould seats himself down in near-religious preparation, only to be interrupted by two loud coughs. He shoots the culpable party.

The film is full of gloriously unpredictable moments like this, helping it transcend the immediate object of satire, which has dated, now that Hollywood has given up as unprofitable the attempt to educate audiences in high culture. So Bugs interrupts his playing to chomp on a carrot, or play with his feet. One lovely sequence has him gathering all the keys and throwing them back in perfect rhythm. Like Fischinger's 'Allegretto', 'Rhapsody' is animated music, full of a strange, mercurial, yet elegant fluidity.

The centrepiece is a Tom-and-Jerry-like battle between Bugs and a small mouse who tries to undermine Bugs' pretensions, changing the solemn rhapsody for swing at one point. Despite the violence and disruption, conflict, as so often in music, leads not to chaos, but harmonic rapture. Freleng is no Tex Avery - his use of colour and camerawork is restrained - but the relative plausibility of his composition have a pleasure all of their own.

This is another very good Bugs Bunny and one of a few where he is involved in classical music (others are "A Corny Concerto" and "Baton Bunny"). Unlike those other ones I have seen of Bugs Bunny playing music, here he combines some of his more slapstick-style humour as well as verbal humour, along with his various styles of playing the piano. The episode references to some past and future Looney Tunes jokes and makes new jokes with an original style. All the humour in this episode is very good and works well.

In this episode, Bugs Bunny begins to play Lizst's second Hungarian Rhapsody, when a mouse, who lives in the piano, interrupts Bugs Bunny and the rabbit begins to play various other tunes (not all classical), all very well. Bugs Bunny constantly tries to battle with the mouse and make him stop interrupting HIS show, but does the mouse pay any heed..?

My favourite joke in the cartoon (I found it even funnier when I realised that it was Lizst's music Bugs Bunny was playing), is when Bugs Bunny receives a call in the middle of the show. At Bugs Bunny's end we hear, "Franz Lizst? Nah, never heard of him."

I highly recommend this cartoon to anyone who likes music, Bugs Bunny and cartoons. Enjoy "Rhapsody Rabbit"! :-)

I had the pleasure of meeting Virgil Ross once at a public appearance, and I was able to talk with him briefly. He mentioned that this was the cartoon he had the most fun to work on, so I sought it out, curious to see it. I must say, it does look like it would have been fun to make, because it's really fun to watch. Even by today's standards, this is a very clever and humorous piece, free of cliches. I liked it!

Bugs Bunny is a musician playing Franz Liszt's 'Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2' for apparently a large audience. First Bugs has some problems with a coughing guy in the audience, he knows how to solve that, then with a mouse who plays parts of the rhapsody.

The way this cartoon makes fun of the preparation of a musician, the way Bugs solves the problem with the noisy audience, the way the mouse is used are hilarious. When the piano slowly changes into other things (typewriters) and the keys begin to move it gets even funnier. The music put together with the animation is a good reason to see this cartoon, the great gags make sure you will like it even more!

This is a truly wonderful and imaginative cartoon. The animation is very effective and beautiful if rather simple. The music is a real highlight, I love the cartoons that feature classical music, and this is no exception. Franz Lizst's "Hungarian Rhapsody no 2" (amongst others) is a real treat, but extremely complicated to play on the piano and put to really clever use. Bugs is not as funny as he usually is, but he does a stellar job, courtesy to some brilliant vocal characterisations from Mel Blanc. During his performance of "Hungarian Rhapsody no 2", Bugs has to overcome many obstacles, such as the coughing audience member and being upstaged by a musical (and cute) mouse in a Tom and Jerry-like scenario. The minimal use of dialogue is good, the funniest gag of the cartoon was the telephone call where Bugs says "Franz Lizst? Nah, never heard of him!" Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this, it mayn't be Bug's very best but it is great fun. 10/10 Bethany Cox