Bugs Bunny's Third Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales

By Tammy La Gorce

If Bugs Bunny were to direct his signature inquiry--"What's up, doc?"--toward the modern-day Warner Bros. creative team, he wouldn't be far off. For 1001 Rabbit Tales, they've doctored up a batch of classic cartoons featuring the carrot muncher and his bumbling comrades and bundled them, near seamlessly, into a feature-length film. Here's the premise: Bugs and Daffy, both book salesmen, are competing to sell the most copies of a kids' book. Instead of burrowing a beeline to his sales territory (he should have made a left at Albuquerque), Bugs ends up in the castle of Yosemite Sam, here a harem-leading honcho. Sam's pain-in-the-spurs son, Prince Abalaba, needs somebody to read him stories; Bugs, who'd sooner take the job than suffer the alternative, that involving being boiled in oil, signs on. Each rabbit-read narrative replaces a sedate story with a Loony Tunes favorite: In "Jack and the Beanstalk," a canary-keeping giant bellows "Fee, fi, fo, fat, I tawt I taw a puddy tat"; the witch in "Hansel and Gretel" develops a hankering for rabbit stew; "Goldilocks" goes feline as Sylvester swaps his porridge for suffering succotash on behalf of his bratty son. In the end, the varmint finds a way to vamoose, but, being a generous sort of bunny, he doesn't keep the address from his commission-hungry coworker. From there, the feathers fly, as does the rest of this feature, which is undiluted fun for fans of these cartoons from way back as well as those just getting to know the loopy Looney Tunes gang.

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