Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales

Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales is a 1982 Merrie Melodies film with a compilation of Warner Bros. cartoon shorts (many of which have been abridged) and animated bridging sequences, hosted by Bugs Bunny.[2]

Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales
Theatrical poster
Directed byclassic cartoons:
Friz Freleng
Chuck Jones
Robert McKimson
Produced byFriz Freleng
Written byWarren Foster
Michael Maltese
Tedd Pierce
Starring
Music byRob Walsh
classic cartoons:
Musical directors:
Carl Stalling
Milt Franklyn
William Lava
Orchestrator:
Milt Franklyn
CinematographyNick Vasu
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
November 19, 1982
Running time
77 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$78,350 (domestic)[1]

Plot

Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck have to sell books for Rambling House. They go their separate ways and experience many wacky things. For instance, while flying through a winter storm, Daffy ran into a house owned by Porky Pig and briefly stayed there while taking place of a stuffed duck which he merely destroyed. Meanwhile, Bugs burrowed his way to a jungle where he pretended to be a baby ape to an ape couple. One half of the couple wanted to do Bugs in, but manages to divert him after he accidentally dropped a boulder on his wife's head.

After a little while, Bugs and Daffy reunite and burrowed their way to a cave at a dry desert. Inside, were treasures consisting of gold, jewels and stuff. The greedy duck tries to take the treasure, but he ran into Hassan the guard and made a mad dash back to Bugs who tricked Hassan into climbing into the clouds. Daffy ran back into the cave in excitement.

Later, Bugs comes across Sultan Yosemite Sam's palace in the Arabian desert. Sam needs someone to read a series of stories to his spoiled brat son, Prince Abba-Dabba. When Bugs first meets the tyke and gets mocked, he objects to the idea of reading to him. Then, Sam threatens to make Bugs bathe in boiling oil, at which point Bugs agrees to read to Abba-Dabba. Bugs tries to escape in a variety of ways but to no avail. At one point, Bugs even escaped on a flying carpet from the palace, but Sam catches him.

Meanwhile, Daffy tries to make off with the treasure. As he finished with it, he makes a quick check to see if he missed anything. That's when he encountered a magic lamp with a genie inside. Initially he rubbed the lamp thinking that with a little spit and polish, it would bring a few more bucks but it instead releases a genie whom Daffy pushes him back down thinking he was trying to steal the treasure. But the genie does not like what he was doing and chases him out of the cave by casting dangerous spells on him. Daffy then wanders through the desert in a desperate search for water.

Back at the palace, Bugs is fed up with reading stories to the prince, so he dumps his book in the fire. As he was being threatened to be dunked in boiling oil, Bugs warns Sam not to throw him in a nearby hole which Sam eventually did as a trick. Little did Sam and Abba-Dabba realize that this was Bugs' ticket to freedom. So Bugs luckily escapes and ran into Daffy. Daffy was pleased to see Bugs and soon sees the palace, hoping to sell books there. Bugs tries to warn Daffy about the palace, but he would not listen. He found out the hard way and the two walk off into the sunset with Daffy missing all of his feathers. Daffy asks Bugs if he brought some suntan oil for him.

As the movie closes, the 1956 Merrie Melodies "That's all, Folks!" end title sequence appears with the 1955 Looney Tunes rendition of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", before seguing into the movie's closing credits on a red background.

Included shorts
  • Cracked Quack (Daffy's line, "We'll just put it away in the storage for the winter", is replaced with, "Thermopolis will just have to wait")
  • Apes of Wrath (Bugs' line, "So I'll be a monkey", is replaced with, "I'll sell books later", and the ending with Daffy being delivered as a baby to Bugs via stork is removed)
  • Wise Quackers (The opening where Daffy is flying and crash-lands like a plane on a farm and encounters Elmer.)
  • Ali Baba Bunny (ending to cartoon appears later on with Bugs removed, and Daffy does not shrink via the genie's magic)
  • Tweety and the Beanstalk (Bugs narrates the closing events of the cartoon)
  • Bewitched Bunny (ends abruptly after the prince takes his leave)
  • Little Red Rodent Hood (Bugs reads the narrator's lines)
  • A Sheep in the Deep (Bugs tells the story of a "wolf in sheep's clothing") *Note: Currently cut out for time constraints.
  • Red Riding Hoodwinked (Bugs again narrates the opening)
  • The Pied Piper of Guadalupe & Mexican Boarders (with the story starting in the middle of the former after Sylvester had learned to play the flute before shifting to the plot of the latter and going back to the ending of the former)
  • One Froggy Evening (the ending is not shown)
  • Aqua Duck (footage is mirrored and only shown up to the point where Daffy realizes a pool of water is a mirage)

Notes
  • Most of the rest of the movie consists of the stories played out as classic cartoons. Some of the classic cartoon shorts were abridged. In the One Froggy Evening sequence, the ending where the construction worker from 2056 finds Michigan J. Frog and makes off with him was cut, making it seem as if the cartoon ended with the construction worker from 1955 getting rid of the frog and running off.
  • This was the first Looney Tunes compilation film to use a completely original story and treat the included cartoon shorts as part of the story, as opposed to having the characters introduce the cartoons.
  • The original 1983 VHS release and early television airings (like the Disney Channel in the 1990s) of the film had one sequence that was cut on its 2001 VHS and current television airings for time constraints. It took place after Bugs finished reading the story of Goldimouse and the Three Cats to Prince Abba-Dabba, when he told the next story to Abba-Dabba, the "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" which featured the 1962 Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog cartoon A Sheep in the Deep.

Voice cast

Production
  • The main plot point, setting up Bugs and Daffy as Scheherazade-like figures, is in itself similar to the 1959 short Hare-Abian Nights, which itself used considerable stock footage and also featured Yosemite Sam as the sultan.
  • Another interesting aspect of this film is that many voice artists that were not credited in the original shorts are billed as "additional classic voices". For the first time, 23 years after his death, Arthur Q. Bryan finally receives credit on a Warner Bros. production, even if it does fail to credit him as the voice of Elmer Fudd.
  • The film marks the first time that a Warner cartoon compilation feature used classic cartoon footage from more than one director. One Froggy Evening, Bewitched Bunny and Ali Baba Bunny were directed by Chuck Jones, and Aqua Duck was directed by Robert McKimson, while all other classic shorts included were directed by Friz Freleng.

Reception

Carrie Rickey, reviewer for the Village Voice, remarked that Bugs and Daffy "used to be burrowers, explorers; now they're traveling salesmen imprisoned by the nuclear family."[3]

Home media

The film is included on the 2005 Looney Tunes Movie Collection DVD from Warner Home Video.

References
  1. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=1001rabbittales.htm
  2. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. p. 170. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  3. Beck, Jerry. The Animated Movie Guide (2005). Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Review Press.
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