utgard14
Trying to replicate his success with Duck Amuck, Chuck Jones returns to the "breaking the fourth wall" routine with this short. Here Bugs Bunny fights with his unseen (until the end) animator, who has a grudge against him. It's not a bad cartoon and I don't really fault Chuck Jones or writer Michael Maltese for ripping off their own idea. After all, ideas were (and still are) recycled all the time in cartoons. But this one does suffer by comparison, as well as the fact that, as other reviewers have mentioned, the plot is more suited to Daffy than Bugs. No one watches a Bugs short to see him frustrated and one-upped at every turn. We like to see him get the upper hand and outsmart his foes. At one point Bugs even mimics Yosemite Sam by using the word "idjit." Still, there are some amusing bits here and there. The animation, music, and voice work are all top notch. On a related note, there was a video game for the Super Nintendo called Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage that was released in the 1990s. It was obviously inspired by this short, both in title and plot. I haven't played it since I was a kid but I recall liking it.
YouHaveAShortMemory
In this semi-sequel to Chuck Jones's excellent "Duck Amuck", Bugs Bunny, the mastermind behind Daffy Duck's systematic breakdown in the previous film, is struck by karma when another mastermind pretty much does to him what he had done to Daffy two years prior.This cartoon is not quite as good as its predecessor, mainly because Daffy generally works better as a flustered loser than Bugs does, but it's still solid stuff, thanks in no small part to its great animation and funny gags (the "shrunken head" gag in particular is priceless). In any case, "Rabbit Rampage", much like Freleng's "The Hare-Brained Hypnotist" and Clampett's "Falling Hare", is an interesting character study of how Bugs Bunny hates to lose. The real humor of the cartoon lies in that Bugs is also much more in-control here than he normally is in most other "loser Bugs" cartoons (he THINKS he is, at least), thus making his barely-contained rage and desperation even funnier in an odd way.When I first saw this cartoon, I expected the mastermind to be either Daffy or Cecil Turtle. The decision to have it instead be Elmer, the last character you would ever expect to play such clever and cruel tricks on Bugs, is a stroke of pure Jonesian genius.
TheLittleSongbird
Even before reading the reviews on here, I could see a number of similarities to Duck Amuck. Duck Amuck is definitely superior to Rabbit Rampage; I consider Duck Amuck not only one of the Daffy's best cartoons but also one of the best Looney Tunes cartoons in general, while for Bugs I would put What's Opera Doc?, Broom-Stick Bunny, Rabbit Seasoning, Rabbit Fire, Rhapsody Rabbit and Water Water Every Hare over this.In general, the animation was not too bad, Bugs himself looks somewhat odd, but the colours, backgrounds and visual tricks are very nice. In fact, like Duck Amuck what actually made Rabbit Rampage were the visual gags, they were clever and funny. That and Elmer's last line at the end, which I was not expecting. The music is also a nice touch, the dialogue is amusing, Mel Blanc is superb and the pacing is secure enough. Overall, not Bug's best by all means, but worth watching. 9/10 Bethany Cox
Lee Eisenberg
Sort of a re-imagining of "Duck Amuck", "Rabbit Rampage" has Bugs Bunny getting tormented by an unseen animator (whom he apparently recognizes at the beginning). Whereas the original cartoon made use of Daffy Duck's explosive personality, Bugs obviously can't do that. It seems to me that he behaves here more like Heath Ledger's version of the Joker in "The Dark Knight".Overall, I can't quite figure out why Chuck Jones repeated the story from one of his greatest cartoons. It's not a bad cartoon, and we certainly shouldn't lower our opinions of Jones for it. But other cartoons were definitely better.
