O Coelho Matador

Bunny Hugged (1951)

*** (out of 4)

Spoof of wrestling has Bugs Bunny jumping into the ring after his owner is destroyed by The Crusher. Once inside the ring the rabbit is totally out of his league so he must use his brains to try and bring down the best. There's quite a bit that happens inside the seven-minutes of this short. There's pretty much action from the start to finish and most of it is very good. The best sequence is early on in the picture and doesn't even feature the hero Bugs. It's a scene where The Crusher destroys the other wrestler, a "pretty boy" type and the way he's destroyed is just hilarious. The violent action is another plus as is all of the animation, which looks extremely well.

We are in a packed arena waiting for the World's Heavyweight Wrestling Championship to take place between the champ, "The Crusher," a snarling, growling beast of man with rippling muscles on his muscles, and "Ravishing Ronald," the denatured boy (whatever that means.). Ronald comes out in the best Roman tradition: on a platter, eating grapes. He has a mascot named "Bugs," who tells us, "Hey, it's a living."

In no time The Crusher literally makes a punching bag out of Ravishing Ronald. Bugs, "Yikes, there goes me bread and butter. I've got to do something."

What happens afterward, as Bugs becomes "The Masked Terror," is mostly funny. The stitching scene was kind of stupid but the rest of it was typical outlandish Bugs humor.

Chuck Jones's 'Bunny Hugged' is a moderately amusing sequel to the superior 'Rabbit Punch'. In that cartoon Bugs Bunny had found himself in the boxing ring, in this one it's the wrestling ring. Pitted once again against The Crusher (hey, in cartoon land a rabbit and a hare are the same thing so it follows logically that so are a boxer and a wrestler!), Bugs spends the whole first half of the cartoon getting viciously pummeled. When he finally breaks out the heckling as his means of beating the physically undefeatable Crusher, 'Bunny Hugged' picks up a little. The jokes are fairly standard and too much faith is placed in The Crusher's dopey reactions to being clobbered but overall its adequately entertaining if largely uninspired stuff. The climactic gag, however, is one of the worst and least funny closing images of any Warner cartoon I can think of. I'm not a huge fan of 'Bunny Hugged', then, but it's an decent time passer and never sinks to the levels of tedium of, say, 'Big Top Bunny'.

If it hadn't been for this cartoon, I would have never watched professional wrestling today, watching Legends and Superstars like Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Randy Savage, Mick Foley, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Goldberg, The Rock, and more! Bugs Bunny made his "debut" as a pro wrestler with the gimmick called "The Masked Terror," substituting Ravishing Ronald's position as challenger for the World Title. The champion at that time was a bald and bearded heel (bad guy) named the Crusher. At the end, with a "little strategy," Bugs Bunny took off his mask and knocked out the champion with a safe and went for the pin. That is why I'll worship Bugs Bunny forever, along with Mickey Mouse, Hulk Hogan, and more of the greatest heroes there had ever been.

It is a wrestling championships and it is the fearsome, muscle packed Crusher versus the dainty, light and silly Ravishing Ronald. An assemble of people come to announce the arrival of Ravishing Ronald, including Bugs Bunny, who, not that surprisingly, is scoffing carrots in a large carrot dish. Ravishing Ronald is having a huge amount of trouble a minute later in the contest and Bugs Bunny decides to take his place, having quite a lot of heart. Madcap intelligence and slapstick follow...

I like this episode because, it has good animation of the audience and the slapstick, the episode has a clever plot outline, there are clever twists of the plot, the slapstick is good (animation- wise of course - and entertainment wise) and the "Masked Terror" is a good character and believable.

I recommend this episode to people who like slapsticky Bugs Bunny episodes + wrestling. Enjoy "Bunny Hugged"! :-)