There are volumes of Warner Brothers cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, but those fans know and love are often products of an era known as the Golden Age of Animation. For a period of roughly 40 years, between the 1920s and 1960s, American animators produced some of the best, most groundbreaking, and innovative cartoons in the world. Many of these innovations came from a certain team of animators working on a trailer nicknamed Termite Terrace, and these artists had a reputation for being subversive, satirical, and apologetic.
Most of the Bugs Bunny shorts that have stood the test of time sport the universal themes of parody, satire, and thinly veiled political commentary. Thanks to our hero Bugs Bunny, any ridiculous problem or obstacle will be defeated with a healthy mix of sarcasm, crazy props and clever tricks.
10 8 Ball Bunny (1940)
Bugs Bunny may be lazy, sneaky, and cruel to those who cross it, but he’s a compassionate guy among all of that. So if he finds a lost penguin, he’ll take on a duty to see the little guy get home safely. The problem is, you can’t take too much of where someone comes from these days.
After an epic trip to the South Pole that seems like one mistake after another, it turns out that this little penguin is just as American as its Brooklyn-born counterpart. The moral of the story is that you have to do the right thing, even if it’s impractical or completely counter-logical.
9 Haredevil Hare (1948)
This classic is so iconic that even people who have never seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon will recognize the characters. It introduces the fan favorite, the quirky Marvin the Martian, an image of aliens as nerdy, soulless bureaucrats as opposed to hideous monsters, a concept that’s even more terrifying. Marvin is upset because the earth is blocking his view so he will blow it up, easy and cheap solution.
Haredevil Hare has a lot of vintage charm and remains relevant as a science fiction satire, offering a more realistic take on animal shooting in space. It brings some humor to the whole concept of going to the moon years before the space race begins, and mocks the trend of monster movies at the time when space was used as a backdrop.
8th Bonanza Bunny (1959)
Bugs Bunny is often depicted in environments that look suspiciously like the sparse forests and hills outside of Hollywood. Hence, this cartoon short film that puts him in the middle of the Yukon gold rush is instantly more fun. Since villains like Yosemite Sam or Elmer Fudd would be out of place here, Bugs has to reconcile the mind with the French-Canadian stereotype Black Jacques Shellacque, which tries to surpass its claims.
This plot, like the main character, is smarter than it looks. Bugs Bunny wanders into town with a bag of shiny yellow stones, pretending not to understand the value of what he’s found. He has a bit of fun with the slippery Jacque before blowing him up and confessing that the yellow rocks are just painted like gold, which shows that all along he knew what he was doing and just wanted to see how crazy the gold rush really was.
7th Transylvania 6-5000 (1963)
From time to time the animators at Termite Terrace had fun with movie or television parodies. Transylvania 6-5000 mocks the monster horror genre and also refers to an archaic system in which a phone number was partially written as letters. It is actually a pun on a song associated with Glenn Miller, Pennsylvania 6-5000.
Count Blood Count, the unfortunate vampire who pursues Bugs for most of the conspiracy, is no match for our hero’s sharp wit. An example is when the count tries to impress Bugs by turning himself into a bat, only to turn Bugs into a baseball bat and take the antagonist for a few line drives. He’s a monster and can’t be hurt so it’s okay to laugh.
6th Beanstalk Bunny (1955)
There are a few different Bugs Bunny cartoons featuring giants or a beanstalk, and in this one, Bugs doesn’t just have an epic fairytale adventure where he can play out his tighter friend Daffy Duck. This could also be an episode that counts for the often vicious Daffy Duck, but the title card gives her bugs.
Our hero minds his own business and literally sleeps soundly in bed with a beanstalk carrying him several hundred feet in the air. Daffy climbs past him, claiming that everything up there is his and hers alone. The opposite beetles follow him up the beanstalk and there is amusement.
5 What is Opera Doc? (1957)
Termite Terrace animators liked to make fun of so-called “high art”, an example of which is opera. The plot begins like in other episodes in which Elmer Fudd hunts rabbits and chases a specific quarry into the opera house.
Except that it is not really an opera house, but an alternative dimension that is a fusion of Wagner’s most famous work, namely the ring cycle. The music used in the short film consists of authentic sequences from different operas, which are slightly adapted to the satirical context. The animation is impressive too, providing a fluid, imaginative backdrop with costumes, Greek temples, and big, fat horses.
4th Monkeys of Wrath (1959)
The name of this short film comes from an earlier Bugs Bunny cartoon called “Gorilla My Dreams” in which a very civilized primate reads a book with the same Punny title. The plot is similar too; Bugs is adopted by two gorillas who thought he was their own baby. In this version, the animators up the ante, turning the catalyst for all this mess into a drunken stork who kills bugs and drops him into the gorilla’s house.
It’s actually a daring premise for a kids cartoon, and the wasted stork is nothing short of hysterical, but that just goes to show how these were secretly made for adults.
3 A Witch’s Tangle (1959)
In a short film that may have inspired Tom Stoppard, Bugs takes up both Shakespeare and fairy tales before modern films like Shrek made it cool. This is also one of many hacks Termite Terrace would use against Disney, which was considered a producer of higher quality animation at the time.
The short film opens with an unfortunate Shakespeare dealing with writer’s block, but follows the hilarious banter between Witch Hazel and Bugs Bunny. By the end of the short film, Witch Hazel and Sam Crubish, Shakespeare was the character we were led to be and we roam over number “2B” together. Or wasn’t it 2B?
2 Rabbit of Seville (1950)
It’s even funny if you don’t know anything about opera, but those viewers familiar with Mozart’s work will understand more of the jokes. An opera about a hairdresser, really? What could you possibly sing about? Well, Bugs Bunny has the answer.
Elmer Fudd actually chases Bugs Bunny into the amphitheater this opera is set in, and they comfortably stumble onto the set just as the curtain opens. As is his style, Bugs subjects Elmer a close shave, a tonic hair treatment, and even a pedicure before dropping him into a cake. Meanwhile, the music from Figaro’s wedding plays along.
1 Bully For Bugs (1953)
This short film got # 1 not only because it shot bullfighting before it was cool, but because it was the result of those damn, meddling animators who did the exact opposite of what they were told. Apparently, producer Eddie Selzer came into the studio once and banned anyone from ever making cartoons about bullfighting. Since Selzer was wrong about almost everything, Chuck Jones and his company immediately went Bully for Bugs.
One of the best things about this short film is that when it gets lost and ends in a bullfighting ring, it starts with bugs on the way to the Coachella Valley for a festival. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Fortunately, one thing that has changed is that bullfighting is no longer half as popular as it used to be, so it’s easier to laugh about now.
