8 Ball Bunny (1950) User Reviews

This one has a lot going for it-some great lines, some good sight gags and Bugs singing calypso!

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 11 December 2006]

This is a very good Bugs Bunny short which illustrates that no good deed goes unpunished. Because I want to touch on several details, this is a spoiler warning:

This short opens with the star attraction of an ice show, a penguin, being left behind, trying to catch up to the truck and winding up falling into Bug's hole and disturbing an honest rabbit's slumber. At the sight of the penguin in tears, Bugs promises to get him home-a promise he'll have repeated cause to regret for the rest of the short.

They hop a freight, where a hobo looks at the penguin and observes that "Penguins is practically chickens" and starts planning the dinner menu. Bugs gets rid of him with some balletic moves which would earn him an audition with the ABT.

Bugs puts his charge on the Admiral Byrd, provisioned with "some ice cubes you can munch on the way", only to later discover that the ship is bound for Brooklyn. He swims to the ship in time to find that the poor little guy is once again viewed with an eye toward the culinary. Bugs rescues him once again and they set off on a series of adventures.

The highlights of this section for me include Bugs playing a guitar and singing a calypso song while the penguin labors with an ax to hollow out a tree to fashion a crude boat and a scene where our heroes are in a boiling pot surrounded by singing and dancing natives (this time, they're both on the menu). Both scenes are punctuated by the running gag-Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, uttering the immortal line, "Could you help out a fellow American who's down on his luck?", which happens several times.

After several gags and a montage, Bugs finally gets the penguin to the South Pole, only to learn that he's not from the South Pole, causing Bugs to throw a fit. The closing gag is hilarious, so I won't spoil it here.

This short is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 and is well worth seeing. Recommended.

good 'toon - weird title

[awblundell · 6/10 · 27 December 2002]

Bugs bunny meets a lost penguin and sets out to get him home to the south pole. Naturally there are a few slips along the way, but the indestructible bunny is equal to all challenges.

Better than average bugs bunny cartoon but what a strange title. It doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with the cartoon. Chuck Jones does seem to go in for odd choices of title but this one beats them all!

Oooh! I'm dyin'!

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 7/10 · 10 May 2006]

Bugs Bunny's peaceful sleep is interrupted by a stray baby penguin. Unable to turn away such a little cutie, with big, sad eyes, Bugs makes it his duty to take him back home. When he finds out home is actually in the South Pole he wishes he hadn't.

So begins a long trek south, through Mexico and jungles and mountains. It's quite funny and Bugs' antics are wonderfully amusing as usual. I'm not sure what the deal is with the hobo who looks like Humphrey Bogart but it's obviously a reference to a movie I've not seen.

Like the best of Looney Tunes cartoons, this one ends with an hilarious twist.

One Of The Top Bugs Bunny Cartoons Of All Time

[ccthemovieman-1 · 10/10 · 27 August 2007]

Bugs and an ice-skating penguin: now there's a new storyline. The penguins is part of the "Brooklyn Ice Frolics." One problem: the show closed and they left without the little guy! He wanders around and winds up falling into Bugs' hole outside the city.

Bugs freaks out: "It's a boid - a boid in a tuxedo!! Hey, playboy, what's the idea of crashing in here in the middle of the night and disrupting an honest rabbit's slumber?"

To make a long story short, the little penguin's tears get Bugs' sympathy so he takes him to where he thinks all penguins belong: the South Pole. They begin by hitching rides aboard a train, a la hobos, headed for "the Deep, Deep South."

Their adventures take them to the steamship "Admiral Byrd" and a few other spots. I won't divulge any more because there is still over half the story to go, at this point.

Suffice to say Bugs' is both funny and a very good protector of our little guy, who applauds every time something good happens. It's very cute and a really great cartoon overall with plenty of laughs and charm. Bugs adds to the humor just by the way he pronounces a lot of words in here. Having Humphrey Bogart make a guest appearance didn't hurt, either!

This is outstanding entertainment.

A wonderful, epic travel adventure

[phantom_tollbooth · 9/10 · 9 January 2009]

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.

"Say, pardon me, but could you help out a fellow American who's down on his luck?"

[slymusic · 30 October 2007]

Written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones, "8 Ball Bunny" is quite an unusual Bugs Bunny cartoon. Bugs has such a large heart that his conscience forces him to help a shy little penguin return to his antarctic home, all the way from Brooklyn! Of course, upon traveling southward with his little companion, Bugs gets himself in all kinds of physical peril!

Highlights: Several times in this cartoon we see a clever caricature of Humphrey Bogart as the down-on-his-luck Fred C. Dobbs character from "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948), asking Bugs Bunny for some spare change. The penguin takes delight in seeing Bugs physically defeating a big ravenous galoot on the southbound train. While on a South American island, Bugs wears some cheap clothing and adopts a humorous accent as he strums a guitar and sings a song about his predicament with the penguin.

"8 Ball Bunny" is a very good cartoon that shows the more humane qualities of Bugs Bunny. He may at times be annoyed at the poor, innocent little penguin, but he has the sheer determination to get him home.

Can you help a fellow penguin in need?

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 29 June 2007]

Bugs Bunny had gotten acquainted with a penguin once before (in 1949's "Frigid Hare"), but this time he goes all out. After a penguin gets left in a performance hall, Bugs agrees to take the little guy to the South Pole. The journey down proves to be quite far from what anyone expected, especially given the Panama Canal tax and encounters with a certain movie star.

"8-Ball Bunny" is far from the greatest cartoon. It seems like one of the shorts that they made to fill in the gaps between the really famous ones (1950 also saw the release of "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" and "The Rabbit of Seville"). But no matter, it's got some neat scenes, namely the penguin's tears freezing. Worth seeing, if only once.

Hoboken. Maybe he knew Frank Sinatra.

Gee, that little penguin sure made MY heart melt!

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 17 June 2010]

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

Unlike some people on here...

[Mightyzebra · 7/10 · 30 June 2008]

...I didn't like this Looney Tunes short all that much. I agree with Lee Eisenberg, this is far from the best cartoon. However, it is very sweet and worth watching at least once, but only for the cute penguin. Bugs Bunny has a few lines which are quite good, but he is better in a great deal of episodes.

In this short, an ice skating penguin in Hoboken is left behind by the rest of his company when they leave once the show has closed down. By accident, he lands in Bugs Bunny's burrow (in the middle of the road, funnily enough) and the rabbit wakes up in a rather irritated manner. Seeing the adorable "pengi-win" crying at Bugs Bunny's approach, the kind-hearted rabbit decides to take pity on him and help take the wee penguin back home...

I recommend this to people who like watching Looney Tunes shorts with a cute penguin, a Humphrey Bogart spoof (He is quite good, even though I have never actually seen the real Humphrey Bogart) and for people who like meagre Looney Tunes episode (a.k.a light). Enjoy "8 Ball Bunny"! :-)

7 and a half out of ten.

P.S This short can be found on the same disc as "March of the Penguins", which is rather useful.

"Hit the road!"

[utgard14 · 8/10 · 9 August 2016]

Classic Bugs Bunny short directed by Chuck Jones from a story by Michael Maltese. This one tells of Bugs' efforts to get a little penguin home to the South Pole. The journey involves hobos, cannibals, crocodiles, Humphrey Bogart, and more. The animation is crisp and attractive with some great action. Love the colors. The music is exciting and fits the action well. The voice work is phenomenal. In addition to the incomparable Mel Blanc, here we have the talents of impressionist Dave Barry doing a perfect Bogart (he had previously voiced Bogart in 1947's Slick Hare). It's a hilarious short with an adorable character that doesn't get in the way of the laughs, as sometimes happened when Looney Tunes got too cute. The Bogart caricature, for me, is the highlight. Love those scenes.

Apparently not racist enough to be counted among the "Forbidden 89" . . .

[pixrox1 · 6/10 · 19 January 2014]

. . . 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.

The Bogart Cameos Make it for me!

[robert-atkinson4 · 10/10 · 27 July 2022]

Bugs is awakened from a sound sleep by a penguin that falls into his hole. The little penguin is lost and Bugs feels sorry for him, promising to take him home without first learning where home actually is! When Bugs discovers that penguins live at the South Pole, he exclaims: "Oooh,I'm dying'!", but sets out to keep his promise to bring the little guy home. During the journey, much hilarity ensues. Humphrey Bogart's character from "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" (1948), Fred C. Dobbs, makes several brief appearances, including the ending scene, uttering his famous line from the earlier film, "Say, could you help out a fellow American who's down on his luck?". I don't want to give away the ending, but I still laugh no matter how many times I've seen it!

That little pen-guin will melt your heart!!!

[PeachHamBeach · 8 September 2003]

If you're a bird lover like me, that is. Otherwise, he's pretty cute, but kind of ditzy. A professional ice skater, this little bird is accidentally left behind when the Ice Frolicks leave town, and he appeals to Bugs to help him find his way "home". Unfortunately, Bugs' only source of info is an encyclopedia and he assumes that this little pen-guin is from The South Pole.

The two endure many misadventures, running into Humprey Bogart several times along the way!!!

The tears that turn into ice cubes really get to me. I don't know why, it's only a cartoon...but they do.

The same little bird starred in the earlier BB cartoon, "Frigid Hare".

exceptional and cute Bugs Bunny film

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 14 June 2006]

I like this cartoon a lot. Much of it is probably due to just how gosh darn cute the penguin is who co-stars in the cartoon! Bugs is minding his own business asleep at home when a tiny penguin comes falling into his hole. The penguin missed his truck when the show he was in folded and Bugs feels sorry enough for him he vows to help bring him home. They go across the globe getting into some awful scrapes in order to get the little guy home. At one point, they have to fight off hobos who want to eat the penguin ("they taste practically like chickens"), headhunters and being shipwrecked! Finally, they make it to the South Pole, at which point the penguin gives Bugs a copy of a newspaper clipping indicating he was born in Hoboken, NJ!

One of my top 10

[griffin84 · 29 October 2003]

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.

Bugs, Bogie and the Penguin

[Michael_Elliott · 2 February 2012]

8 Ball Bunny (1950)

*** (out of 4)

A small penguin gets separated from his traveling circus but thankfully he runs into Bugs Bunny who agrees to take him back home to the South Pole. This Warner/Looney Tunes short isn't going to be mistaken for a masterpiece as it doesn't contain enough laughs or action but there's no denying that the story itself is cute enough as is the penguin. For the most part this short moves well enough and the pacing is certain good enough to make the 7-minute running time go by very quickly. The highlight of the film is the rather funny map that shows the progress that the two are making. Of course, the scenes in between the maps really aren't all that clever or funny. One such example is a scene where Bugs is playing guitar while the penguin makes them a boat. It's just not funny. The one thing that does work is a few cameo spots by Humphrey Bogart playing the character from THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.