Ballot Box Bunny

Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam run against each other for mayor in a small town. Needless to say, they have all sorts of dirty tricks to play on each other; Karl Rove has got nothing on these guys. I wish to assert that politics would be better if it was more like what "Ballot Box Bunny" portrays. Sure, you may say, politics is already dirty enough - especially with George W. Bush getting us into the Iraq War and the recent revelations of Mark Foley's creepy activities. But seriously folks, wouldn't you prefer Bugs and Sam's actions to politicians running touchy-feely ads telling us how they'll lead us through prosperity and adversity? All in all, a classic cartoon. And don't forget to vote on November 7!

Yosemite Sam is running for mayor. One of his campaign promises is "to rid this country of every last rabbit." Bugs chokes on his carrot when he hears this.

"Hey, this calls for strategy. I'll fight fire with fire," he proclaims. He decides to run against "Honest Sam."

Talk about smear campaigns! Mainly, what these two guys try to do is the blow the other guy up, with dynamite stuck in everything from watermelons to pianos. It's the usual fare, but that means some clever gags and Bugs usually outwitting the loud and obnoxious Sam.

In the ending, well, let's just saw a "dark horse" surprises both candidates.

Friz Freleng's 'Ballot Box Bunny' was one of my favourite cartoons as a child and watching it today it's easy to see why it appealed to my anarchic young mind. Barely a minute goes by without some kind of explosion, be it from a joke cigar, a cannon, a stick of dynamite or a booby trapped piano. The premise of Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam running against each other in the Mayoral elections is just an excuse for these various time-honoured routines. The most famous gag, used again and again in cartoons, is the piano with the booby trapped key which sets off some TNT. This old joke takes so long to tell that it always bores me nowadays unless it is timed impeccable. In 'Ballot Box Bunny' it is performed in a pretty uninteresting manner. There's a few other slip ups in timing throughout this cartoon, most noticeably the ludicrously late spit-take Bugs does at the beginning of the short. Despite relying on safe, predictable jokes for the most part, 'Ballot Box Bunny' is a fast paced cartoon which manages to avoid being dull despite the audience being one step ahead of every scene in Warren Foster's script. The plus side of this is that it makes the brilliant, slightly macabre ending all the more unexpected and funny.

Bugs Bunny chooses to run against Yosemite Sam for mayor, after Sam runs on a platform of exterminating all the rabbits and two rabbits in every pot. Of course Bugs doesn't wan't to share his pot with anyone. So he sets off to win the election. Like real politics dirty tricks abound. Most of them quite humorous. The funniest being the classic piano gag. But at the end it's all for naught as a dark horse candidate wins. This funny cartoon is on Disk 1 of the "Loony Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1" I'm happy that the Russian roulette gag is here at the end, as whenever the short is on Cartoon Network it's omitted.

My Grade: A

Ballot Box Bunny (1951)

*** (out of 4)

Another winning Looney Tunes episode this time finds Yosemite Sam running for Mayor when Bugs Bunny shows up and decides to run against him. With the two in a battle for the job you just know one of them are going to get blown up. The word explosion is the key here because there are many throughout the short and all of them get some very big laughs. We have an exploding cigar, piano, canon and all of them give some hysterical laughs. Sam's character is wonderful here and really steals the film, although there's no doubt he was one of Bug's greatest co-stars. What I also enjoyed was the look of Sam after being blown up countless times. Each time gave Sam a new look and I loved all of them.