Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare

No, this is not another Looney Tunes take on the Robert Louis Stevenson story. Instead, this is another Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil short. I'm not the biggest fan of Taz. He was a pretty one-note character and was probably best served as a one-off foil for Bugs. But he was brought back a few more times in the classic era and then, of course, found popularity during the modern era because...well, let's just say tastes changed and leave it at that. Anyway, pretty standard stuff for a Bugs/Taz short. The cartoon starts with Taz rampaging through the jungle and all the terrified animals running for their lives. All except Bugs, who finds himself alone with the Devil. Compare this to Taz's first appearance in Devil May Hare, which starts with pretty much this same routine but with drastically better animation. Not that this animation is terrible. For its time, it's actually not bad. I certainly appreciate the bright colors, as often during this period the colors were muddy and cheap-looking. So the animation isn't bad but it's a pale shadow of what it was a decade before. Also, if you see Devil May Hare you don't really need to see this. So go watch that instead. This is the kind of cartoon with lame gags like Bugs holding up a Picasso-type painting in front of Taz and telling him it's a mirror, which leads Taz to think he must be sick. All the gags are corny like that. Anyway, watch it if you're a Bugs or Taz completist but don't expect much. It's worth mentioning that this was the last appearance of Taz until the 1979 TV Christmas special Fright Before Christmas.

I am a fan of Bugs Bunny and of Looney Tunes, so I did like Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare on the whole, though it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I can't say I am a fan of the Tasmanian Devil, though I don't hate him either, but I do agree that he is quite limited here. Yes he gets to grunt and growl, but he hardly does anything interesting here. Also I had mixed feelings on the animation, the backgrounds and colours were handsome enough and Bugs was animated fine, but the Tasmanian Devil isn't as successful, being a little too forced in the movements and was I imagining things or was he changing colour on occasions(ie. brown to grey)? The pacing was quite leisurely in comparison too. That said, the music is fine, very rousing and energetic, Bugs's dialogue is witty, fresh and funny and the gags especially the ending are amusing. While Taz was on the bland side, Bugs was great as usual, while Mel Blanc's voices are stellar. Overall, decent if lacking that extra something. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Bugs is taking a bath in the forest when the Tasmanian Devil moves in. The devil pores hot sauce over Bugs who, believing himself cut, cries out for medical help. The devil runs to the hospital where he is bamboozled by Bugs in the guise of various doctors.

Made in the Sixties, this cartoon immediately sets out it's stall by visually lacking real quality in animation. The backgrounds and even the characters lack detail and are mostly in blank, blocked colours. This mars the cartoon a little as it feels like less effort has been put in.

In fairness the antics and trickery of Bugs are still quite amusing but somehow the cartoon failed to really tickle me. I think it was due to the dynamics of the relationship between the two lead characters rather than any lack of effort from Bugs' side. The Devil is simply quite a limited character, here he is given more grunting dialogue to open things up but even still he fails to really act as a good foil for Bugs' trickery.

The physical routines are OK but the involvement of some form of Frankenstein near the end doesn't really work – better are the bits where Bugs continually changes character and pushes Taz around the cartoon!

Overall this was enjoyable enough but the poor quality animation made it hard to get into and the weak partnership between the two didn't help things very much.

This is the fourth and last Bugs versus Taz done in the 1960s and is almost as good as the first one was. Although most of the gags are visual (including the closing one, a very good one indeed), there are verbal jokes as well and the dialogue is good. They made relatively few of these, I suspect because Taz's motivation was limited and therefore there wasn't anything they could do here that wasn't being done (to better effect) with the Wile E. Coyote and the Road-Runner series of cartoons. This one's very good and the ending is very funny (unless you're Bugs Bunny). Recomended.