Napoleon Bunny-Part

Entertaining Bugs Bunny short directed by Friz Freleng. In this one Bugs once again makes a wrong turn while tunneling and ends up in France. While there he meets Napoleon Bonaparte (or so it seems) and spends the rest of the cartoon irritating the little dictator. Napoleon (or "Nappy" as Bugs calls him) is not the greatest foil for Bugs but he is amusing enough. His dimwitted guard is worth a few laughs, as well. This isn't going to impress anyone who's seen a lot of Bugs cartoons as it's all pretty predictable. It is fun, though. The animation is very nice with bright, rich colors. Energetic music from Carl Stalling. Great voice work from Mel Blanc. Not one of Bugs' best but good.

When Bugs make a wrong turn (no, not the famous one), he ends up in Napoleon's mansion.

Not the most memorable of the Bugs shorts, but the needed comedy relief can be found in Rocky's sidekick Mugsy, who shows up as Captain of the Guard.

Well paced, but Nappy doesn't work too well against Bugs.

6/10

One of those Bugs cartoons virtually never mentioned in discussions of the rabbit's supreme efforts. Everyone who worked on this short simply shines--Freleng's designers, Pratt & Wyner, outdo themselves for all time with their settings. Mel Blanc does his usual brilliant work, with a supremely strident Napoleon, a kind of surrogate for Yosemite Sam. The animators do exemplary work: Art Davis (who did all the scenes of Nappy & Muggsy being jabbed in the ass), Gerry Chiniquy (who did the very opening where burrowing Bugs topples the palace guards), and Virgil Ross (who did the opening & closing dialogue scenes...fine personality animation not readily apparent to most viewers). Oh yes--and Freleng's superb timing and cutting, especially when he cuts away to those long shots of Muggsy leaping in the air when he's jabbed.

Bugs Bunny takes a wrong turn and ends up in the palace of Napoleon in the midst of battle plans. Mistaking the place for a movie theatre, Bugs accidentally upsets Napoleon and finds himself in a battle of wits in the palace grounds.

Bugs Bunny is a strong enough character and has a strong enough basic repertoire to overcome a potentially weak cartoon. Here this is a potentially weak cartoon. The animation is not great and even Bugs himself looks like he was drawn in a bit of a rush and Napoleon looking like the original drawing got crumpled up in someone's pocket.

The plot too is silly and (at the end) loses itself in it's own logic (was it real or a mental hospital - it can't have it both ways) but it creates a few funny moments. Bugs does OK despite having a few wobbly moments - his aside to Napoleon about the location of the troops on the map is very funny.

Overall this is a reasonable effort despite the many weaknesses. The plot lacks logic or structure and the animation is all very much of a muchness, but it has just enough going for it to be worth seeing. Poor ending though.

In "Napoleon Bunny-Part", everyone's favorite rabbit takes a wrong turn and meets up with the famous (or is that "infamous"?) French leader. He proceeds to make Napoleon's life a living Hell, and there's not much that Napoleon can do about it.

Maybe this wasn't the greatest Bugs Bunny cartoon of all time, but it's still some good comic relief. I guess that any wacky comedy has to incorporate the French emperor at some point or another ("Bewitched", "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" all did). Pretty silly, but still worth your time. After all, who doesn't like to see a world leader get foiled by a sly, playful rabbit?