Baseball Bugs

Baseball Bugs (1946)

**** (out of 4)

This here has always been one of my favorite Looney Toons. Bugs is at a baseball game where he starts heckling a team of outlaws who soon forces the bunny to play them. I'm not sure how many times I've watched this in my life but I remember as a kid I'd always stop was I was doing whenever I heard the sports commentators intro. I think there are plenty of non-stop jokes in this from the umpire being hit over the head and then apologizing for calling a strike to the final out with Bugs taking a trip across the city to get to a ball.

Bugs is watching a one sided baseball match and is giving the winning team a lot of verbal about their skills or, in his opinion, lack of them. When the team surround him and call his bluff, Bugs is forced to play them himself – in all positions!

Bugs' antics are as good as ever here even if he has no one single foil to battle. The plot sets him up to outwit the baseball team of thugs and win his bet. The jokes are good as they always are, but they do tend to get a little repetitive and it quickly runs out of things to do within the confines of the stadium and the sport.

The characters are all good. The baseball bruisers are the same sort of make up as most of the thuggish characters which populate these cartoons, but Bugs deals with them well in a mix of physical comedy and quick wit!

Overall this is typical of Bugs Bunny's style and will be enjoyed by fans. Only thing to note is that it is a bit lacking in imagination after a short while and is not the best example of a fine Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Classic Bugs Bunny short, directed by Friz Freleng and written by the great Michael Maltese. It's an exciting day at the ball field as the Gas-House Gorillas are playing the Tea Totallers. Things aren't going the Totallers' way, so Bugs steps in and takes on the Gorillas single-handed. Hilarity ensues. It's quite simply one of the best baseball cartoons ever made. Possibly even THE best. Solid voice work, nice music, and excellent animation. Love the colors. The cartoon moves at a fast pace and all of the gags connect well. As I said, it's a classic. Any Looney Tunes fan worth their salt will have seen it at least a few times. I've lost count of how many times I've seen it since childhood but it never gets old to me.

...if you want to see Bugs in a sports milieu. You'll see Bugs takes care of his own business as opposed to kidnapping a popular, talented athlete to do it for him. You won't see Bugs nabbing Joe DiMaggio, say, to help him against the Gashouse Gorillas. But I digress.

I think the comments on this toon are a bit too analytical. The fact is this is a classic and just plain fun; a toon that I always enjoyed as a kid (and I wasn't even a baseball fan at the time).

Notice how the Gorillas start out as the visiting team, then end up as the home team. Also, note how Bugs, when following the Gorillas' would-be game-ending long fly to try and catch it, gets off the cab that's "going the wrong way" and gets on a bus that appears to be heading in the same direction. These "bloopers" were probably due to error and/or a limited budget but they only add to the hilarious charm of this classic cartoon.

This is the one you remember from when you were growing up and watching Saturday morning "Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner" cartoons. I recently watched this cartoon a 15 years at least since I last saw it and laughed out loud at all the pranks that Bugs pulled out of his hat. I know I must have used some of these jokes when I was playing baseball as a kid.

And the cameo at the end of America's perennial first lady was a hoot - and Bugs goes and lampoons her on the spot!

Classic is the only word for this one.