8 Ball Bunny (1950)

. . . or however many dozen of the Bugs Bunny "Merrie Melodies" cartoon shorts have been locked up in vaults for decades because what was agreed to be "funny" by the majority of Americans in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s has been Blacklisted by the cultural elite as being incompatible with free speech today. Very few people now alive, therefore, have seen EVERY "Merrie Melodie" ever released. In order to decide for yourself what you should have access to watch, you either need to be about 100 years old (which theoretically would enable you to have seen each of these censored cartoons during their initial release; let's hope that you're not one of the 90% of your age group suffering from Old People's Disease) or you must be a "researcher" belonging to the cultural elite, in which case you probably can even read the stuff locked away from Tom Hanks in THE DA VINCI CODE movie. Still, it's hard to fathom WHY the Black hobo in the boxcar willing to murder anyone for fried chicken and the gibbering South American tribesmen gyrating in circles did not put 8 BALL BUNNY behind the proverbial Eight Ball on the cultural elites' S--- List.

I love 8 Ball Bunny, it was both funny and extremely cute. The animation is beautiful, very colourful and lively, with nice backgrounds especially. The music is rousing and sweet too, and the dialogue sparkles with wit and zest, Bugs has the best lines but the repeated line said by Humphrey Bogart sure was funny. The sight gags are like the cartoon, funny and cute, especially when the little penguin cried or clapped. The characters are great, Bugs is both caring and reluctant, but the penguin held my attention the most. Maybe it's because I have a thing for penguins, but this particular penguin was adorable and melted my heart immediately. Overall, wonderful, well worth watching I think for the penguin alone. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Chuck Jones's '8 Ball Bunny' is a terrific sequel to the excellent 'Frigid Hare'. It's the second of two shorts which feature a cute character who came to be known as Playboy Penguin. A mute baby penguin dressed in top hat and bow-tie, Playboy is a great character whose cuteness is played up for exaggerated laughs, unlike Friz Freleng's sickening cutification of Tweety, which was mostly played for unsuccessful "awwwwws"! 'Frigid Hare' had played out as a traditional chase film with Bugs defending the penguin from a grotesque Eskimo stereotype. '8 Ball Bunny' widens the scope, presenting us with an epic road movie in which Bugs must travel across half the globe in order to return the penguin to the South Pole. Along the way he gets into numerous scrapes and continuously encounters a caricature of Humphrey Bogart in 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'. Although it was probably a wise choice to retire Playboy Penguin after just two appearances, both the cartoons that feature him are brilliant and, with its epic adventure story, '8 Ball Bunny' stands out as the best of the two.

This has got to be one of my all-time favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons, mostly because it's one of the first ones that we actually feel really sorry for poor Bugs. After coming across a lost little penguin who was accidentally left behind, he promises to help him find his way home... only to discover that penguins live at the South Pole! Bugs and the little penguin set off to bring the little penguin home, through starving hobos, a tax to cross the Panama Canal, getting attacked by a hungry tribe of cannibals, not to mention getting followed by a certain celebrity from The Treasure of Sierra Madre, they finally make it to the South Pole. However, Bugs discovers one tiny little problem: this penguin was raised in captivity in Hoboken, New Jersey!!!If you're like me, you'll fall in love with that cute little penguin (who can resist melting when he cries ice cubes?) and laugh as Bugs strains himself to help him out. Definitely a classic to love and watch over and over.