oscaralbert Review of Big House Bunny

Big House Bunny (1950)

BIG HOUSE BUNNY combines the plots of Warner Bros. feature films . . .

[7/10 · 23 December 2015]

. . . UP THE RIVER, EACH DAWN I DIE, I WAS A PRISONER ON A CHAIN GANG, SAN QUENTIN, and WHITE HEAT into a single Bugs Bunny animated short in which Yosemite Sam's turn as "Sing Song Prison" guard "Sam Schultz" inspired John Banner's later television situation comedy portrayal of "Sgt. Schultz" in HOGAN'S HEROES (1965-1971). Though Sam Schultz meets the same fate as James Cagney's character in ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (with this coming AFTER he experiences Dana Andrews' OXBOW-type INCIDENT), he proves much more resilient than either of these live-action feature film characters. Since Sam makes a big point of swinging about his "tool of ignorance" (or long gun) from time to time here, it's clear that Warner Bros.' unarmed hero Bugs Bunny will out-think his benighted foe in the slammer. The secondary point Warner Bros. is making in BIG HOUSE BUNNY is that any member of the so-called American Law Enforcement Community is far likelier than the normal citizen to be verging on incarceration themselves. After his pair of mock executions, Sam himself winds up chipping away at the rock pile (for real) here.