Bully for Bugs

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Bully for Bugs

Directed By: Charles M. Jones Produced By: Eddie Selzer Released: August 8, 1953 Series: Looney Tunes Story: Michael Maltese Animation: Ben Washam Lloyd Vaughan Ken Harris Layouts: Maurice Noble Backgrounds: Philip DeGuard Film Editor: Treg Brown Voiced By: Mel Blanc Music: Carl Stalling Starring: Bugs Bunny Toro the Bull Matador Preceded By: Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century Succeeded By: Plop Goes the Weasel! Bugs Bunny - Bully For Bugs

Bully for Bugs is a 1953 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones.

Plot

Burrowing his way to the Coachella Valley for the "big carrot festival therein", Bugs Bunny surfaces in the middle of a bullring during a bullfight between Toro the Bull and a very nervous matador who is being booed by the crowd for running away from the bull. Bugs famously declares he "shoulda make a left toin at Albuqoique". As he asks the matador for directions, the matador escapes into the stands, leaving Bugs to fend for himself against Toro. After irritating, Bugs Bunny gets in trouble for slapping at Toro the Bull for "steaming up [his] tail," Toro rams the rabbit out of the bullring. As Bugs is hurtled into the air, mutters his famous line, "Of course you realize, dis means war," before landing miles away.

Toro takes his applause for claiming his latest victim, but it is short-lived because Bugs re-enters the bullring in matador garb. Bugs defeats Toro using an anvil hidden behind his cape. While Toro is still dazed from his collision, Bugs makes the bull follow the cape up to a bull shield where his horns pierce it. Bugs hits and bends the horns like nails and makes fun of Toro using puns ("What a gulli-bull, what a nin-cow-poop"), not knowing that the bull can detach his horns and strike back. While Toro sharpens his horns, Bugs interrupts him by placing an elastic band around the horns and using it as a giant slingshot to smack him in the face with a boulder. Toro charges back at Bugs. Bugs then returns, this time in a large sombrero doing a little dance and slapping Toro on the face to the tune of "Las Chiapanecas". Toro tries to punch him twice but is slapped each time. Bugs dances more and then disappears under the sombrero, but not before pinching Toro's nose.

While Toro once again sharpens his horns, Bugs has prepared a booby trap for the bull, composed of a double-barreled shotgun hidden behind the cape. Toro charges towards the cape, and somehow the shotgun previously in Bugs's hand enters Toro's body and stops at his tail, firing a bullet from one of Toro's horn when he flicks his tail (and the shotgun) on the ground. Now having the upper hand, Toro chases Bugs shooting at the hare, but Toro eventually runs out of bullets. Toro "reloads" by swallowing several "elephant bullets" (with explosive heads) but when he attempts to test-fire, he instead explodes, gun and all.

Bugs taunts Toro once again by calling him, among other things, an "ultra maroon," but realizes that he is cornered by the bull behind barred gates. Awaiting certain death (he writes a will and says his last prayers), Bugs miraculously opens the gates like a garage door, sending Toro out of the bullring and into the horizon. Toro runs back to the bullring, not anticipating that Bugs has laid axle grease, a ramp, and some platforms on the bull's path. The grease and ramp send Toro airborne over some glue, a sheet of sandpaper, a protruding matchstick, and a barrel of TNT which explodes when Toro flies by. Still in the air and in shock, Toro finally crashes into a wooden bull shield.

With the unconscious bull's hindquarters sticking out of the shield, the victorious Bugs holds up the cape with the words "THE END" etched on it.

Availability

• (1985) VHS - Bugs Bunny's Wacky Adventures
• (1990) VHS - Looney Tunes Collection - Bugs Bunny (UK)
• (1990) VHS - Bugs Bunny - Volume 2 (Italy)
• (1996) VHS - From Hare to Eternity
• (1998) VHS - Looney Tunes Presents: Bugs Bunny: Big Top Bunny (Europe)
• (1999) LaserDisc - Bugs Bunny: Winner by a Hare: 14 of Bugs Bunny's Best
• (2000) VHS - Mil-Looney-Um 2000 - Bumper Collection (UK)
• (2001) DVD - I Love Tweety
• (2003) VHS - Bugs Bunny (UK)
• (2003) DVD - Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1, Disc One (low-pitch 1998 "THIS VERSION" transfer)
• (2011) DVD - Looney Tunes Super Stars' Bugs Bunny: Wascally Wabbit (low-pitch 1998 "THIS VERSION" transfer)
• (2014) Blu-ray, DVD - Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3, Disc 1 (low-pitch remastered)

Censorship

• The version of this short shown on ABC's The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show cut the following parts:
  • The bull swallowing a box of bullets after getting a rifle stuck inside him and gaining the ability to shoot through his horns.
  • The entire end where the bull slides up a greased ramp, gets glue brushed on his underside, gets sandpaper stuck to his glued underside, and passes by a match, which lights a fuse attached to a giant keg of dynamite, and blows the bull up was cut so severely that all that was shown was the bull going up the greased ramp and crashing into the wall, with Bugs covering his butt with a cape that reads, "The End".
• CBS' version shown in the 1970s and 1980s as part of The Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Show left in the part where the bull swallows bullets to try and reload the rifle inside him (only to blow up), but cut the end gag with the greased ramp-glue-sandpaper-match-lit fuse-barrel of TNT like ABC did. Unlike ABC, CBS showed the bull sliding up the greased ramp and getting glue and sandpaper on his underside, but cut the match, lit fuse, and barrel of TNT and instead cut to the bull hitting the wall.

Notes

• The music from scene of Bugs makes the bull follow the cape is called "La Cucaracha".
• The music from scene of Bugs dances provoking Toro is called "Las Chiapanecas".
• This cartoon was used in The Bugs Bunny Road-Runner Movie. Clips of this cartoon were also used in "Mexican Cat Dance" and Bugs Bunny's Easter Special.

Gallery

Lobby Card

"Stop steamin' up my tail! What're ya tryin' to do, wrinkle it?!"

External Links

Bully for Bugs on the Sound Effects Wiki