Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: February 2, 1946
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

Baseball Bugs © Warner BrothersIt seems an almost certain loss for the age-old Tea-Totallers, who get plastered by the tough team of the Gas-House Gorillas…

Bugs Bunny, who’s watching the game, wearing an innocent straw head, boasts that he can beat the Gas-House Gorillas single-handed, so he gets himself a game. Playing in every position he manages to win the ball game in this wild and hilariously funny cartoon, which is noteworthy for its great dialogue, excellent animation, and superb timing. Especially when Bugs Bunny starts batting, the gags role in in a remarkably fast tempo.

Highlight among the many gags may be Bugs’s constant jabbering. Some of it was copied by Jones in ‘Rabbit Punch‘ (1948). ‘Baseball Bugs’ reuses several gags from the Woody Woodpecker cartoon ‘The Screwball’ (1942), but with much better results, making it a classic, where ‘The Screwball’ was not. If the short has one flaw, it’s that it’s over before you know it, with the end coming all too soon.

Notice the advert for ‘Michael Maltese, Ace Dick’ in Bugs Bunny’s first scene.

Watch ‘Baseball Bugs’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Baseball Bugs’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’

This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 35
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare Tonic
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare Remover