Hare-Breadth Hurry

The last (and least) of the Bugs Bunny & Wile E. Coyote pairings is basically a sub-standard Road Runner cartoon with Bugs being chased by Wile E. while constantly yammering away to the audience. I can't believe Chuck Jones had anything to do with this. None of the gags are funny. Heck, the entire premise is flawed from the get-go. Why did they have so much trouble in the later years making good Bugs cartoons? The animation is poor, as it often was in the 1960s Looney Tunes shorts. The colors are okay, I'll give it that. The music from Bill Lava is TV quality and does not fit the action well. It's just an 'off' cartoon from start to finish. Watchable for fans, I suppose, but it's really not good.

In this cartoon, that starts as a Road Runner vs. Coyote, we see that it is not the Road Runner who is chased by the Coyote, but Bugs Bunny. Bugs explains to us how he is standing in for the Road Runner because he had to be somewhere else. Bugs who tries to run as fast, and even says "Beep, beep", talks to us about the efforts of the Coyote in a pretty funny way.

This is a terrific cartoon. It is quite funny and to have Bugs explain in a cartoon that he is standing in for another cartoon character is great. The Coyote, who tries to catch Bugs with a cannon, a gun and an anvil that gives us the best gag, finds out that he is not the only one to retrieve things from Acme.

In this short, Bugs Bunny takes the place of the Road Runner because of an injury (no doubt work-related, for which the Road Runner was probably on Worker's Compensation) and Wile E. still has no more luck at chasing rabbits than he does Road Runners. More dialogue than the typical Road Runner short, but has lots of sight gags in any case. Well worth watching. Recommended.

Like anyone else watching Hare Breadth Hurry, I was expecting Roadrunner vs. Coyote. Instead, we got the one and only Bugs Bunny in his last of his collaborations with the devious Wile E. Coyote. The story admittedly is nothing special, being somewhat predictable, and it is not the fastest paced Looney Tunes cartoon ever made. But it is very funny without being exceptional. The animation is nice enough, especially with the backgrounds, and the music has enough energy to delight even the fussiest Looney Tunes fan, and anyone who knows me will know how particular I am about my music. The dialogue sparkles with wit, even if there is a lot more of it than anticipated, and the sight gags are unpredictable and funny. Both Bugs and Coyote are stellar, as are Mel Blanc's vocals, so overall, a very nice watch without being a masterpiece. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The final teaming of Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote puts Bugs in the injured Road Runner's place, with WEC never talking. Bugs spends the cartoon offering commentary on the coyote's lamebrain attempts to catch Bugs (and we can guess what the result always is).

OK, so we could be cynical and say that the series had long since passed its prime by this point and "Hare-Breadth Hurry" was little more than a placeholder. I say that the cartoon is still really funny, and that's what truly matters. In other words, with this series, that'll never be all, folks.

So yes, you never want to get cut off during a long fall.