pixrox1 Review of Hot Cross Bunny

Hot Cross Bunny (1948)

Not as racist as many "Merrie Melodies" cartoon shorts . . .

[7/10 · 19 January 2014]

. . . such as the one I viewed previously to HOT CROSS BUNNY, which was called something such as 8 BALL BUNNY. In the latter 'Toon, Bugs goes on a road trip with a penguin. The pair are first confronted in a box car by a murderous Black hobo who will murder anyone for fried chicken. Later they are briefly threatened by a tribe of scantily-clad gyrating natives chanting gibberish in South America. On the other hand, HOT CROSS BUNNY would be guilty at most of racism and sexism by omission, as the horde of doctors pictured in the White male physician's laboratory theater seem to be a homogeneous collection of fellow pale men. Setting that aside, this short also is more clever than 8 BALL BUNNY, which features a title obtuse if not inexplicable. With this pastry title, however, leaving off the final two letters yields "hot cross bun," the name of a confection available in foreign countries, according to kids' stories of the 1940s. The Double Entendre here is that the evil doctor plans on using crossing "hot" (or electric) wires to switch Bugs' brain with a chicken's. You can probably guess how this experiment ACTUALLY ends (and if you can't, you need to view a lot more Merrie Melodies).