Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales (1982)

Too much of everything

the audience applauded

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

At 18, I am a huge Looney Tunes fan. As a little girl, I loved watching them and laughing at the manic wit, marvelling at the colourful animation and admiring the playful and energetic music, not to mention loving the witty characters(especially Bugs and Daffy) and the fresh dialogue. Even if some cartoons were a little predictable in the story, I know some of the Speedy Gonzales cartoons were on the predictable side, I still loved them. And I still do, I've finished school now, and one of my guilty pleasures is watching Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo on Boomerang, I can't help it and I still love them.So as a huge fan of Looney Tunes, I heard there were a few movies and compilation films and thought I would like to check them out. I had an inkling I had seen parts of 1001 Rabbit Tales before, as the parts in the palace struck a big bell with me, but I insisted on seeing the whole film. Overall, I enjoyed 1001 Rabbit Tales. I agree it is uneven, not a huge surprise for me as I have found in the past that compilation films have parts that work and parts that don't quite, but I liked it.First of all, it was a delight seeing all those cartoons. I love a vast majority of the cartoons featured, especially One Froggy Evening, Bewitched Bunny, Ali Baba Bunny and Tweety and the Beanstalk, which have great animation, music, dialogue and sight gags. The ones that didn't strike me as quite as memorable was Mexican Boarders and Apes of Wrath(though Bugs and the drunken stork elevated it), Mexican Boarders because although it was an improvement over most Speedy cartoons it was my least favourite cartoon featured. I did like Goldimouse and the Three Cats too, it starts off slow but gets better as Sylvester falls victim to his own traps.As for the film itself, it was pretty good, though it is the case where the shorts and characters are better than the story itself in my opinion. The animation on the whole is pretty good, admittedly better in the shorts than in the edited bits, which had a good "scratchy" style but the animation in the cartoons was much more fluid and colourful. The music was highly enjoyable throughout, very playful and energetic, and I loved the humour. The humour in the edited bits stuck to the style of the early cartoons, with the interplay between Bugs, Yosemite and the Prince standing out. Though when it comes to the cartoons themselves, I loved the dark humour of Bewitched Bunny, how Sylvester Jnr in Goldimouse and the Three Cats was named "spoiled brat", the running joke that Bugs ends up somewhere other than he wants due to a wrong turn and the hilarious ending of Red Riding Hoodwinked(not to mention the Big Bad Wolf's short-term memory).It was a huge delight to see all the Looney Tunes characters, Bugs and Daffy of course are the stars of the show, Bugs having more to do, while Yosemite is a delight as the Sultan, they pretty nail what he was like in the earlier cartoons with the hot temper and the fact he is always up to no good. Porky and Elmer aren't given as much to do, but they are good enough, while Speedy is a lot less annoying in two of his better cartoons(The Pied Piper of Guadalupe being the other). The drunken stork and Witch Hazel also give delightful contributions. And all of these characters are brilliantly voiced, Mel Blanc deserving the most credit.However what I didn't like so much was that the film is too short, for me anyway, and I think it should have been better finished than it was. The story is a good idea, contrary to what has been said already, however it takes a bit of a while to get going but when it does get going it is fine. The pacing is uneven here I think, not in the cartoons but parts at the beginning could have been better paced. Finally while I loved the characters, there was one character I didn't like and that was the Prince. I just found him irritating, not his dialogue(which was great actually) but how he was voiced and animated, too loud and abrasive and blocky when it comes to the animation. I understand he was meant to be irritating, but not that irritating.Overall, despite its faults, I liked it. When it comes to the compilation films, I felt Daffy Duck's Quackbusters had the better story and it felt better paced, but the humour and a vast majority of the cartoons here work splendidly. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This was the last Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies compilation film made up of loads of already made cartoons, concocted into a story. Basically Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are working for a book selling company. They split up to sell books in different areas, however Daffy wants to head south to migrate. Bugs meets Daffy after mistakingly being given to gorillas by the Stork and chased by Elmer Fudd, and they both end up in Arabia. Bugs finds a kingdom run by Yosemite Sam. He is told to read his 1001 stories for his prince, or face being boiled in oil. This is obviously an excuse to use many good episodes involving fairy tales, e.g. Jack and the Beanstalk, Hansel and Gretel, a Pied Piper story, and a Singing Frog. Daffy Duck was number 30, Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies number 20 and Bugs Bunny number 10 on The 100 Greatest Cartoons. Worth watching!

After the creative team that made the classic Looney Tunes cartoons stopped making original cartoons, they made compilations of varying quality (after they all died, the cartoons turned into total garbage). "Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales" has Bugs and Daffy as book salesmen who go their separate ways to try and sell books. Eventually, Bugs arrives in the Arabian desert, where Yosemite Sam is the sultan and has a spoiled brat son. So, Bugs agrees to read to the boy, under the threat of bathing in boiling oil if he fails.I guess that overall, this compilation is pretty harmless. If nothing else, they still had Mel Blanc doing the voices. But are compilations really that necessary?

Another one of the quick-fix movies by the Warner Bros. studio to make some fast money off the famed Looney Tunes characters. Old cartoons starring most all the major characters are held together by an unfunny new cartoon that has book salesman Bugs Bunny telling stories to Yosemite Sam's young brat of a son in a palace in the middle of the desert. Naturally there is also Daffy Duck trying to survive the harsh desert environment. It is tough to survive this harsh cut-and-paste mess. Watch the Cartoon Network instead. 2.5 out of 5 stars.