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In spite of the many excellent contributions from such directors as Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones remains Bugs Bunny's best-known director. This is partly due to his penchant for placing the star in rarified cultural circumstances, a passion which endeared him to those critics who might otherwise have dismissed Hollywood cartoons as mere programme-fillers. This justly-celebrated short marks the culmination of Jones's interest in classical music as a context for comedy, as the familar Bugs and Elmer rabbit hunt is played out as opera, with dialogue sung to music from Wagner's Ring Cycle and Tannhäuser. Although the vulgarity of the cartoon chase is intended to puncture the pomposity of the setting, Jones and his team ensure that proper respect is paid to the occasion, with over a hundred striking designs by Maurice Noble (nearly twice as many as the average cartoon), meticulously researched dance animation by Ken Harris, and Carl Stalling and the Milt Franklyn's magnificent condensation of Wagner's epic. The result is a milestone in Hollywood animation that impresses and amuses even today.

A homage to Hollywood screwball comedy that by and large gets its pace and cartoon/slapstick timings right, this began... read more on Time Out