Bowery Bugs (1949) User Reviews

Fantastic Artwork Deserves Recognition

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 27 May 2007]

What a beautiful animated rendering of the Brooklyn Bridge! We get a little history of it and a comment about "Steve Brody making his sensational leap from it into the East River." Bugs is looking at the sign commemorating the event when an old-timer asks him, "What in tarnatiion did he do that fer?"

Bugs tells him in flashback form. Suddenly we see the Bower back in 1886. What artwork! This looks prettier than a postcard. Anyway, Bugs relates the story of Brody.

Brody, looking for a rabbit's foot to change his luck, is even dumber than Elmer Fudd. Have you noticed how Bugs' foes are always about the dumbest people on earth. They make our bunny look like Albert Einstein, in comparison. Even Bugs remarks near the end, "What a tara-ra-goon-de-ay," which I assume means "big, stupid goon."

To me, the best feature of his animated short was that colorful and well-drawn artwork. Kudos to animators Basil Davidovich, Philip DeGuard, Emery Hawkins, Bill Melendez and Don Williams, along with director Arthur Davis.

Art Davis's ONE Bugs cartoon still runs circles around all of the McKimson directed ones

[movieman_kev · 8/10 · 3 November 2005]

Director Arthur Davis's solitary Bugs Bunny outing has the rascally rabbit telling an elderly man that he's giving a tour of the Brooklyn Bridge to the story of an Irish gambler who wanted the foot of his because he hopes for it to bring him good luck. The rabbit who kind of likes to keep his foot, attempts to con the simpleton. Amazing that Davis with ONE Bugs short under his belt, what Robert McKimson couldn't do in years, which is of course make a really good cartoon starring the famous rabbit. This is never laugh out loud funny but is very humorous and has a good story to boot. This animated short can be found on Disk 1 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3 and includes an optional commentary by Micheal Barrier.

My Grade: A

Warner Bros.' main purpose in releasing BOWERY BUGS . . .

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 6 July 2016]

. . . is to debunk the Practice of Astrology, a con game which has led many gullible emperors into losing vast armies of men. (Napoleon even lost two!) Instead of doing their homework about "all of Gaul being divided into three parts," weak-minded geezers such as King Macbeth or Adolph Hitler seek out all manner of witches, wizards, seers, and Zodiac Killers to read their tea leaves, decipher their palms, untangle their goats' entrails, and chart their Horror Scope (or, as often contracted today, "Horroscope"). The American Zodiac had twelve signs, until Bugs Bunny invents a Lucky Thirteenth here--"Lobo, sign of the wolf." Bugs approaches "Astrology" with the exact amount of reverence this "science" deserves--that is, none. With his client "Steve Brody" clueless as to his birthday, Bugs simply spins a Wheel of Zodiac Fortune, chanting "Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows." Though Bugs tells the highly credulous Steve that he's a Lobo, viewers sense that Bugs could have just as easily persuaded Brody that he was a Limpet, Hydrant, Macaroon, or Transom. How so many Hollywood Faces (such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta) can subscribe to such nonsense never ceases to amaze.

Pretty excellent

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 3 October 2010]

Bowery Bugs is a thoroughly enjoyable Looney Tunes cartoon, without it being the best. The music is as usual energetic and quirky, the sight gags are clever, the pacing is brisk and the dialogue a vast majority of the time is hilarious("that's you fathead"). The best part of Bowery Bugs though is the animation, it is brilliant with the colours especially impressive. Bugs is still rascally, arrogant yet likable, while Brodie is a good adversary who takes Bug's wisecracks well. And then there is the voice work from Mel Blanc and Billy Bletcher, which is nothing short of superb, then again that didn't surprise me as such as the voice work is always good in the Looney Tunes cartoons. Overall, hugely enjoyable and excellent cartoon, making the most of a slightly unexceptional story. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Not just the one Art Davis Bugs Bunny cartoon, it's also Davis's near-masterpiece!

[phoenix2rachelsummers · 9/10 · 4 February 2006]

To paraphrase what kev keefe has already observed in his comment, Art Davis's one Bugs Bunny cartoon is funnier than all of Bob McKimson's Bugs cartoons combined. It was one of the worst errors in judgment on the part of the people running Warner Brothers that, when the 50s started and they could no longer afford four animation units, they dissolved Davis's unit instead of McKimson's.

"Bowery Bugs" was one of the last cartoons Davis directed for Warners, and it shows that he was just starting to hit his stride. This cartoon is both hilarious and beautifully crafted. It's a darkly funny re-telling of a New York City urban folk tale about Steve Brody, an Irish roughneck whose run of bad luck led him to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge in the late 19th Century. In this version, Bugs Bunny gets involved after Brody threatens him, thinking a rabbit's foot will bring him good luck. Quick-thinking as ever, Bugs talks Brody out of it and sends him on a wild ride of deeper and deeper misfortune, with Bugs using his disguise abilities to pose as everyone from a Middle Eastern fortune-teller to a gambler to a lady to a baker to a gruff Irish cop. The suicidal implications (although in real life, Brody survived his jump) would make a cartoon like this impossible to get made these days, and that's a sad sign of how much this nation has lost its sense of humor.

Mel Blanc is in his usual fine form as Bugs, but a special mention must be made of the uncredited voice performance of Billy Bletcher as Brody. Bletcher is one of the unsung heroes of cartoons from the early-to-mid 20th Century, the voice behind countless ruffians with deep, loud, raspy voices, including Papa Bear from Chuck Jones's Three Bears cartoons from Warners and Peg-Leg Pete a.k.a. Black Pete for Disney cartoons.

The cartoon is filled with wonderful details, from Bugs narrating over imitation woodcuts, to a bouncer who's nickname is Gorilla because he really IS a gorilla, to a little puppy who licks Brody's face out of sympathy, but then acts disgusted. And overlying the cartoon is native New Yorker Davis's sincere but sardonic affection for his gritty hometown.

Davis never again directed a cartoon this good, but if he had been able to continue directing for Warners, I think he would have rivaled Chuck Jones as the studio's best cartoon director of the 50s. As reality turned out, Davis spent the 50s demoted to an animator for Friz Freleng's unit, but at least his final Warners' credit was as a director, for 1961's "Quackodile Tears." That one's nothing special, but it's good by Warners' early 60s standards. In the late 60s, Davis joined De Patie-Freleng as a director and made a couple of the best Pink Panther cartoons, "In the Pink of the Night" and "Pinkcome Tax", but "Bowery Bugs" will always be his finest achievement.

bridge over hilariously troubled water vs. a potential "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers"

[lee_eisenberg · 9/10 · 29 September 2007]

I think that I'd heard of Steve Brody before I'd seen Arthur Davis's "Bowery Bugs", but I wish to call this cartoon the coolest way to know him. The plot has Brody suffering a bout of bad luck, so he decides to find himself a rabbit's foot. While we should immediately be able to guess which rabbit he tries to get it from, we still haven't seen what Bugs Bunny makes the poor sucker do! It goes to show that Bugs was a New Yorker all the way.

Truth be told, what Bugs does to the guy towards the end reminds me of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", how Kevin McCarthy's character starts finding that everyone has been taken over by the aliens and doesn't know whether or not he can trust anyone. But that's just me.

While I have to admit that Arthur Davis is not the Warner animation director who first comes to my mind, he did helm some fairly interesting cartoons during his few years as a director: "Mexican Joyride", "The Stupor Salesman" and "Porky Chops" are the ones that I know aside from this one. All in all, this is one that you're sure to like.

A funny Bugs Bunny cartoon

[ja_kitty_71 · 10/10 · 10 November 2009]

This short is a funny Bugs Bunny cartoon directed by Arthur Davis, and with the talents of Billy Bletcher (Steve Brody). And one note is that this short is the only Bugs Bunny directed by Arthur Davis.

I love the scene where Steve thinks everyone in town is turning into rabbits and jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge, which is the end of the flashback portion of the cartoon; that was hilarious stuff. Another scene I love is when Steve visits the "Swami Rabbitina" to help him with his luck streak, after Bugs gives him the Swami's business card. Then we heard a voice saying: "Enter, Oh seeker of knowledge." A punching-bag pendulum hits Brody across the head and...*WHOMP!* "THAT'S YOU, FATHEAD!"

So anyway, all I have to say is I love this Bugs Bunny short.

"Enter, oh seeker of knowledge. That's you, fathead!"

[slymusic · 28 July 2009]

"Bowery Bugs" is an enjoyable Bugs Bunny cartoon directed by Arthur Davis. Unique in its segue into flashback via a series of paintings, this film tells the story of a big, burly, down-on-his-heels gambler named Steve Brody. After putting up with Bugs' crazy shenanigans, Brody finally jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in the year 1886.

My favorite scenes from " Bowery Bugs": Posing as a swami, Bugs paints Brody's palm red and sees to it that he has quite a few bumps on his head. Listen to what the mustachioed Bugs chants as he rolls Brody's dice. When Brody gets thrown out of the Bowery Social Club, a stray dog licks his face, make a nice face of his own, and spits in disgust. And Brody is hilarious shouting "What's up, Doc? What's up, Doc? What's up, Doc?" as he hops toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

And finally, "Bowery Bugs" benefits from the fine vocal talents of Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny and Billy Bletcher as Steve Brody.

I actually feel sorry for Brodie on more than one occasion here!

[llltdesq · 9/10 · 11 August 2006]

This short would be very difficult to discuss without talking about specific details, so there be spoilers here:

This short has far more funny lines than it has visual gags (though there is one beautiful bit with a little dog expressing its opinion of Steve Brodie in a very visual and hilarious manner), with even Brodie getting a few good lines. Bugs is everywhere here (literally) as he makes Steve Brodie a very unhappy man through the course of the short. One of the funniest lines here is spoken by a disembodied voice, when Brodie first visits Swami Rabbitima: "Enter, O seeker of knowledge...(pause)...That's YOU, fathead!" and Brodie is then struck on the head! Brodie then drops into his very own nightmare-The Land of a Thousand Rabbits (or perhaps just one a great many times). Along the way, he's bounced by a gorilla (and not just any gorilla, but one wearing a starched collar) called a masher, beaten by a cop and baked in an oven. Just one of those days, I guess! There's a framing sequence which bookends the body of the short that's rather cute as well.

This short is on Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 3 and is well worth getting. Recommended.

Davis's sole Bugs Bunny cartoon is thoroughly unremarkable

[phantom_tollbooth · 4/10 · 3 November 2008]

Arthur Davis's 'Bowery Bugs' was the director's sole Bugs Bunny cartoon but it's hardly his finest hour. Davis's cartoons have become cult artefacts but 'Bowery Bugs' is a rather lifeless effort in which Bugs relates the tale of Steve Brody, the man who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886. As Bugs tells it, Brody was driven to take the dive by Bugs's own heckling as he poses as a Swami to exploit the man's superstitious nature. The gags that spring from this situation are mostly unfunny and there are several abrupt cuts which give the cartoon a jerky, cheap feel. The cartoon only really comes alive in the closing moments as Brody sees Bugs everywhere leading to his dive from the bridge. There's also a priceless moment in which a passing dog licks Brody and then spits in disgust. Other than this, however, 'Bowery Bugs' is not especially noteworthy in any way. In fact, every time I see this cartoon I'm really glad when it finishes. It doesn't plumb the depths of Davis's nadir, 'Porky Chops', but it is nevertheless thoroughly unremarkable.

Wise-cracking Bugs carries an average cartoon

[bob the moo · 19 March 2004]

Bugs tells the story of the luckless Steve Brodie who, in 1886, decided he needed a good luck charm to break his run of bad luck. There is a plaque by Brooklyn Bridge to commemorate him jumping from there - an event, we learn, that was caused by Bugs outwitting him when Brodie decided he would adopt a rabbit's foot as his charm.

Bugs Bunny doing his well loved wise cracking, tricky stuff is always worth seeing and here it is pretty much the saviour of a cartoon that trades almost entirely on Bugs' New York mannerisms and con-appeal. The plot sets time back simply to set up the punchline (which works well so no problem), and the material is the usual stuff we've come to expect from Bugs. He dresses up, he is everywhere at once and he runs rings out the luckless Brodie. It is pretty funny but it doesn't quite have as much in the way of imagination as one would hope for from Bugs.

Bugs is the saviour here and he really carries the short himself. He is omnipresent, one step ahead and very funny. Brodie is OK as a big Irish thug but I prefer Bugs' partners to have a bit more to them that simply being a patsy.

Overall this is still worth seeing as Bugs is on good form - it's just a shame the material lacks the spark and imagination that so many of his cartoons thrive on.

A definitive Bugs Bunny Classic.

[lukeneedssand · 10/10 · 28 June 2021]

At least to me. I loved this one as a kid, seeing it air on TV, and This cartoon is surely going to give you some laughs all around, It is the Definitive Bugs bunny Costume persona Short. The animation is Fast, Witty, and Needs to be, because with such a complex story of why someone jumped off a bridge, the story that gets you to that point needs to grab your attention with comedy and good animation, especially when its Bugs bunny. This is a pretty unique setting for him as well, a City isn't always the spot you'll see bugs in. The Villain Character for this one is also quite funny, and must have been fun to animate, and Mel blancs voice acting is absolutely perfect, No kidding.

All in All, Well done Davis, you've made a Classic In My book.

9.8/10.

Bugs Bunny and a hapless man

[Petey-10 · 27 October 2011]

Bugs Bunny tells a story to an old man.It is a story about a man who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge back in 1886 and survived.This man, called Steve Brody, was a down-on-his-luck gambler and needed a rabbit's foot.For good luck, you know.And Bugs, being a rabbit and all...But Bug's foot ain't for sale.And Bugs assures the man rabbits' feet aren't lucky.He tells him to go see Swami Rabbitima.He can help him become luckier.But he looks awfully much like Bugs...Bowery Bugs (1949) is directed by Arthur Davis.Mel Blanc provides the voices for Bugs, Old Man and Little Pool Hall Man.Billy Bletcher is the voice of Steve Brody.This is pretty funny Bugs Bunny short, where we can see Bugs wearing a few disguises (including Bugs in drag).But Bugs may have been too rough on that poor fellow.In one scene he hits Brody- six times- so that he can read the bumps on his head.That's a funny scene, but was it necessary to hit him six times? Wouldn't five have been enough?