Acrobatty Bunny

A circus moves on Bugs Bunny's home.He goes up from his cozy hole, and finds himself from a lion's cage.So starts a chase between a lion and a bunny.Nero the Lion wants to eat the bunny, but it's easier roared than done.At least when that bunny happens to be Bugs.Acrobatty Bunny is a Looney Tunes short from 1946.It's directed by Robert McKimson.Mel Blanc's voice work is as good as always.The movie, even though not lasting very long, manages to have several funny gags.Like when the lion uses the elephant to get inside the cage, where Bugs is.But Bugs uses a fake mouse to frighten the elephant, and he hits it using the lion.Or Bugs the clown trying to make the lion laugh, using unorthodox methods.And what about the lion as a cannonball! It's a riot!

In this Looney Tunes cartoon, Bugs wakes up in his hole and finds the circus has been built over it. And that a lion's cage is the one that's directly above him so he has to deal with that cage's inhabitant. Plenty of gags concerning how one gets out or in the cage, a cannonball, a trapeze swing, a scene from Pinocchio, an elephant and how one gets rid of one, a toy rodent, a hula dance, etc. Robert McKimson keeps things pretty funny throughout. Of course, Mel Blanc is quite the charmer as that wascally wabbit. I watched this short on the A Night in Casablanca DVD. Okay, I'm running out of things to say but since this is supposed to be ten lines for this to be submitted, I'll just now say that Acrobatty Bunny is worth a look.

Once again, Bugs Bunny sacred home is violated by careless people. This time the traveling circus put a lion's cage right over the rabbit's hole. So Bug's has to come out of the hole and face Nero (that's the name of the lion), which he does in his usual hilarious style. After a slow and rocky beginning to the cart, it keeps getting better and better and winds up being quite hilarious. Nero the lion turns out to be a pretty good foil for Bugs and that turns this short into a highly memorable one, if still shorn of a classic. This animated short can be found on Disk 1 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3.

My Grade: A-

When the circus moves in to the area, all the banging above ground wakes Bugs up. However, when he comes up to the surface to complain he finds that a lion cage has been placed right on top of his burrow hole, complete with one hungry lion.

This short starts really badly and it put me on guard for some time in regards the quality of the overall product. The problem is the low grade animation; the people in the circus look blocky and Bugs himself is not drawn with as much care as he has been at times – here he looks very simplistic and lacking quality.

The comedy however works well despite the shaky start. Bugs does his usual stuff and the lion is capable for quite a few good laughs – better than I expected actually! The film raises a few laughs and I was glad that this film managed to have had more effort put into it's material than it had into it's animation.

Overall this cartoon is not classic Bugs but it is still funny enough to be worth watching despite the animation lacking the care and attention that it should have.

If you love Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes then you will love Acrobatty Bunny. While it starts off a little rocky, with some disappointingly blocky animation, the cartoon gets better and better, and the animation does as well so by halfway through it is much more colourful and solid. The music throughout is absolutely great, I loved the dialogue and the sight gags were both hilarious and awe-inspiring. What I also loved about Acrobatty Bunny was how quickly it went, it didn't feel rushed, but it skipped along with consummate ease. As for Bugs I had no problem with his performance whatsoever, he's still the funny, arrogant and charming rabbit I fell in love with when I was six years old. Mel Blanc does a stellar job with the vocals, so overall I don't think other than the rocky start that you will be disappointed. 9/10 Bethany Cox