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Barbary-Coast Bunny is a 1956 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones.

Plot[]

Bugs tunnels cross-country to meet his cousin, only to run head first into a boulder that turns out to be made of pure gold. While Bugs celebrates this stroke of luck, he then realizes that he will have trouble safeguarding the gold and attempts to get it sent to the bank to make small deposits.

Nasty Canasta sees this and prepares to steal it by setting up a simple stand to claim to be a banker who can safely store Bugs' boulder. The rabbit falls for the ruse. However, when Bugs decides to ask for his gold back upon noticing Canasta tying Bugs' gold on the back of his horse, Canasta claims the bank is closing and traps the rabbit in the folded up stand while he rides away with the gold, laughing evilly. Furious, Bugs vows revenge claiming "You realize that this is not going to be unchallenged."

Six months later, Canasta has used his ill-gotten gains to start a casino in San Francisco ["Nasty Canasta's Gambling H--l"] which is shamelessly rigged in the house's favor. As Canasta prepares for his crooked business, Bugs enters the casino in the role, playing a hopelessly naïve country boy who confuses a slot machine for "one of them new-fangled tele-o-phones". When Bugs uses it to phone his mother for some money, unaware that it's not a telephone, he hits the jackpot and is buried in coins to Canasta's shock. Hoping to recoup this loss, Canasta convinces Bugs to stay for a game and thinks he is maneuvering the apparently easy mark into playing a game of roulette on the pretense of it being a game of marbles. To build his would-be victim's confidence, Canasta arranges for Bugs to win on his first spin, but Bugs develops a winning streak on the same number (#23). Having nearly lost everything, Canasta covers #23 with a block of wood and sets the wheel up for the marble to stop on #00, but when it does his subsequent striking the table in triumph causes the ball to bounce and hammer into the knot of the block of wood, thus landing on #23 yet again for Bugs to win.

Now desperate to win back Bugs' now massive winnings, Canasta convinces Bugs to try playing draw poker and Bugs secretly builds the villains' confidence when he pretends to think the contest involves literally drawing a picture of a fireplace poker. Bugs then follows up on the pretense by pretending to misinterpret Canasta's description of the importance of having the biggest hand to win means blowing up his glove into a giant balloon, causing Canasta to lose his temper at his would-be victim's obtuseness. "Cut it out, can't ya?!" Bugs uses this as a pretext to walk out, forcing Canasta to grovel in order to coax Bugs to return to the game. Canasta soon regrets doing that when Bugs, after staking all his money, promptly wins with a four-of-a-kind consisting of Aces, "A pair of ones, and another pair of ones", trumping Canasta's full house.

Now with his casino's bank irreparably broken at the hands of this simpleton who seems physically incapable of losing, Canasta decides to rob Bugs at gunpoint on the pretense of it being another game of chance. Bugs, still keeping in character, naively spins the revolver bullet cylinder like a slot machine and a mass of coins inexplicably pours out the gun's barrel.

As Bugs' departs with seemingly all the casino's funds and more, Canasta greedily tries to win money from his gun, only to shoot himself in the attempt, and collapses. Bugs pops in and says, "The moral of this story is, 'Don't try to steal no eighteen karats [carrots] from no rabbit.'"

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Goofs[]

  • When Bugs turns his head at one point, the right whiskers disappear. In the next scenes, the whiskers are restored.

Censorship[]

  • The ending where Bugs (dressed as a naive country boy) thinks a gun is a slot machine and wins the rest of the gold (in the form of coins) and Nasty Canasta ends up getting shot after doing the same thing was edited on three channels in three different ways due to gunfire violence:[1]
    • On CBS, the cartoon keeps in Bugs winning the gold from Canasta's gun, cuts out Canasta doing the same and getting shot, and resumes at the end with Bugs' "18 karats" line.
    • The version shown on the FOX and first-run syndicated version of Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends replaced Nasty Canasta getting shot in the face with a frozen shot of Bugs's face (from the last part of the cartoon).
    • For a time on Cartoon Network and its sister channel Boomerang in the early-to-mid 2000s (American feeds only; international airings have aired this short uncut) the entire ending was replaced with a repeat shot of Nasty Canasta's upset face after Bugs beats him at poker intercut with Bugs carrying his winnings in a wheelbarrow, making it seem as if Canasta got upset over Bugs taking him for everything he had in the poker game[2]. As of 2011, the original ending has been restored on both Cartoon Network and Boomerang.[3][dead link]

Notes[]

  • This is one of a few cartoons where Bugs does not munch a carrot.
  • Most of this cartoon was used in the TV special How Bugs Bunny Won the West.
  • This is the only cartoon where Nasty Canasta is paired with Bugs Bunny instead of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. Unlike his previous two appearances, "Drip-Along Daffy" and "My Little Duckaroo", Canasta has been redesigned in this cartoon, giving him a fatter physique and dopier look. This redesign of Canasta would reappear in both The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries episode "B2 or Not B2", where he is voiced by Jim Cummings, as well as his brief cameo appearance in "Carrotblanca" 39 years later.
  • The background music playing at the scene when Bugs develops a winning streak on the same number (#23) in the spin game is re-used in Cartoon Network's 2001 June Bugs marathon bumpers, which tell trivia about each Bugs Bunny cartoon shown in the marathon.[4][5][dead link]
  • This cartoon was used in the 1988 opening for Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon (the scene of Bugs first finding the gold nugget after mistaking it for a rock was used, only the gold nugget was digitally colored orange with the Nickelodeon logo on it).
  • As of this short, all of Chuck Jones' cartoons would credit him as "Chuck Jones" instead of "Charles M. Jones".
  • Vitaphone release number: 2644[6]

Gallery[]

External Links[]

References[]

Preceded by
Napoleon Bunny-Part
Bugs Bunny Cartoons
1956
Succeeded by
Half-Fare Hare
Bugs Bunny Shorts
1938 Porky's Hare Hunt
1939 Prest-O Change-OHare-um Scare-um
1940 Elmer's Candid CameraA Wild Hare
1941 Elmer's Pet RabbitTortoise Beats HareHiawatha's Rabbit HuntThe Heckling HareAll This and Rabbit StewWabbit Twouble
1942 The Wabbit Who Came to SupperAny Bonds Today?The Wacky WabbitHold the Lion, PleaseBugs Bunny Gets the BoidFresh HareThe Hare-Brained HypnotistCase of the Missing Hare
1943 Tortoise Wins by a HareSuper-RabbitJack-Wabbit and the BeanstalkWackiki WabbitFalling Hare
1944 Little Red Riding RabbitWhat's Cookin' Doc?Bugs Bunny and the Three BearsBugs Bunny Nips the NipsHare Ribbin'Hare ForceBuckaroo BugsThe Old Grey HareStage Door Cartoon
1945 Herr Meets HareThe Unruly HareHare TriggerHare ConditionedHare Tonic
1946 Baseball BugsHare RemoverHair-Raising HareAcrobatty BunnyRacketeer RabbitThe Big SnoozeRhapsody Rabbit
1947 Rabbit TransitA Hare Grows in ManhattanEaster YeggsSlick Hare
1948 Gorilla My DreamsA Feather in His HareRabbit PunchBuccaneer BunnyBugs Bunny Rides AgainHaredevil HareHot Cross BunnyHare SplitterA-Lad-In His LampMy Bunny Lies over the Sea
1949 Hare DoMississippi HareRebel RabbitHigh Diving HareBowery BugsLong-Haired HareKnights Must FallThe Grey Hounded HareThe Windblown HareFrigid HareWhich Is WitchRabbit Hood
1950 Hurdy-Gurdy HareMutiny on the BunnyHomeless HareBig House BunnyWhat's Up Doc?8 Ball BunnyHillbilly HareBunker Hill BunnyBushy HareRabbit of Seville
1951 Hare We GoRabbit Every MondayBunny HuggedThe Fair Haired HareRabbit FireFrench RarebitHis Hare Raising TaleBallot Box BunnyBig Top Bunny
1952 Operation: RabbitFoxy by Proxy14 Carrot RabbitWater, Water Every HareThe Hasty HareOily HareRabbit SeasoningRabbit's KinHare Lift
1953 Forward March HareUpswept HareSouthern Fried RabbitHare TrimmedBully for BugsLumber Jack-RabbitDuck! Rabbit, Duck!Robot Rabbit
1954 Captain HareblowerBugs and ThugsNo Parking HareDevil May HareBewitched BunnyYankee Doodle BugsBaby Buggy Bunny
1955 Beanstalk BunnySahara HareHare BrushRabbit RampageThis Is a Life?Hyde and HareKnight-Mare HareRoman Legion-Hare
1956 Bugs' BonnetsBroom-Stick BunnyRabbitson CrusoeNapoleon Bunny-PartBarbary-Coast BunnyHalf-Fare HareA Star Is BoredWideo WabbitTo Hare Is Human
1957 Ali Baba BunnyBedevilled RabbitPiker's PeakWhat's Opera, Doc?Bugsy and MugsyShow Biz BugsRabbit Romeo
1958 Hare-Less WolfHare-Way to the StarsNow, Hare ThisKnighty Knight BugsPre-Hysterical Hare
1959 Baton BunnyHare-abian NightsApes of WrathBackwoods BunnyWild and Woolly HareBonanza BunnyA Witch's Tangled HarePeople Are Bunny
1960 Horse HarePerson to BunnyRabbit's FeatFrom Hare to HeirLighter Than Hare
1961 The Abominable Snow RabbitCompressed HarePrince Violent
1962 Wet HareBill of HareShishkabugs
1963 Devil's Feud CakeThe Million HareHare-Breadth HurryThe UnmentionablesMad as a Mars HareTransylvania 6-5000
1964 Dumb PatrolDr. Devil and Mr. HareThe Iceman DuckethFalse Hare
1979 Bugs Bunny's Christmas CarolFright Before Christmas
1980 Portrait of the Artist as a Young BunnySpaced Out Bunny
1990 Box Office Bunny
1991 (Blooper) Bunny
1992 Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers
1995 Carrotblanca
1997 From Hare to Eternity
2004 Hare and Loathing in Las VegasDaffy Duck for President
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