Rabbit Stew

By JAY COCKS

BUGS BUNNY SUPERSTAR Directed by LARRY JACKSON

Now this particular rabbit had a fast line of back talk, a keen sense of irony and an indomitable lust for survival. Cartoon heroes, if you think about it, tend to be victims. Either that or insufferable, like Mickey Mouse. Only Bugs Bunny managed to triumph in his struggles against an assortment of splenetic aggressors without ever getting smug.

Staring down the double barrels of Elmer Fudd's shotgun or outrunning some improbably hirsute monster in sneakers, Bugs simultaneously courted disaster and mocked it. His wiseacre bravado caught the tone of the times. His was the attitude of the perennial winner, so it is not surprising that Bugs found his greatest popularity during and following the second World War.

Scant Attention. Bugs receives at least part of his due in this compilation of ten cartoons, cut together with some historical material about how they were made. The cartoons are representative, but they show Bugs only at his intermittent best. Many of his finest efforts are missing because rights were not available. Vintage home movies of the animation unit are fun, but Filmmaker Jackson relies too much on the reminiscences of Cartoon Director Bob Clampett to fill in the facts. Clampett pays scant attention to his contemporaries--Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones--and endeavors to portray himself as Looney Tunes' brightest light. The two best cartoons in the show, however, are the work of others.

Freleng's Rhapsody Rabbit features Bugs as a concert pianist laying waste one of Liszt's Hungarian rhapsodies. Hair-Raising Hare, directed by Jones, pits Bugs against both a Peter Lorre prototype and the sneaker monster, showing the rabbit at his most unflappable. As he struggles to hold a wooden castle door closed against his pursuer, he calls out: "Is there a doctor in the house?" A silhouette appears on the screen, as if from the audience, and says: "Yes, I'm a doctor." Bugs, suddenly taking an insouciant munch on a carrot and ignoring the peril outside the door, inquires: "Eh, what's up, Doc?"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.