Once again, a thoroughly enjoyable Looney Tunes cartoon. The animation is great, you can never go wrong with lovely backgrounds and audacious, crisp colours, and this cartoon had both. The music is lively and energetic as always, while there is a good story, a wonderful script and some funny sight gags. Not to mention an invigorating pace, in fact Barbary-Coast Bunny may be a little too short, however there is so much that compensates so this is a minor issue in comparison. Bugs is a delight here, I loved both his dialogue and his facial expressions which were priceless and Nasty Canasta is a surprisingly good foil. Once again, Mel Blanc is superb with the voice characterisations, is there anything this man cannot do. Overall, delightful and hugely enjoyable. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Chuck Jones's 'Barbary Coast Bunny' is a hilarious cartoon which benefits greatly from a terrific script by Tedd Pierce. Jones goes for a minimal look in his layouts which proves to be a wise choice since 'Barbary Coast Bunny' is very much a cartoon based heavily around the interaction of two characters. This interaction, as per usual, is realised with impeccable timing by Jones. When Bugs Bunny accidentally finds an enormous gold nugget, the villainous Nasty Canasta (a dopier re-imagining of the villain from 'Drip Along Daffy') steals it and uses it to build his own casino. Bugs turns up at this casino, disguised as a know-nothing out-of-town type and proceeds to get more than his money back. The gambling sequences get progressively funnier as Bugs manages to win money even from sources that are not supposed to dispense it! 'Barbary Coast Bunny' was a cartoon that I loved as a child and its unexpected twists and deftly imaginative script ensure that I still love it equally as much as an adult.

This is one of my favorite Bugs Bunny shorts, which deftly illustrates one of Chuck Jones's rules for his Bugs cartoons, which was that Bugs should never go after anyone for no good reason-he has to be the aggrieved party first in some way and merely evening the score with a bad guy. Because I want to discuss some of the details, this is a spoiler warning: The short opens with Bugs on his way to meet his cousin Herman when he runs into a boulder-sized gold nugget. After whooping it up about his good fortune ("I'm rich beyond the means of avarice!"), Bugs suddenly turns paranoid and protective, none of which escapes the notice of Nasty Canasta, who opens up a "bank" where Bugs foolishly deposits his gold. Thinking better of it, he goes back to get his gold, only to have Canasta literally close the bank facade on and around him, trapping him inside. Placing a boulder on the cube encasing the rabbit, Canasta rides off with Bugs's gold, leaving only Bugs's eyes visible and we hear him say, "You realize that this will not go unchallenged!" and we know that Canasta is in deep trouble.Some six months later, as Canasta is marking a deck of cards in preparation of the opening of his saloon and casino, who should come in but our hero, suited up as a hayseed with his hair full of hay? If you said Bugs, you win a carrot! He asks if he can use Canasta's "Telio-phone", pointing at a slot machine. Canasta chuckles and says "Sure!", at which point Bugs hits the jackpot and a huge pile of coins pours out. Canasta urges him to stick around and play some games.We all know who's going to win-Bugs is the hero here, after all-the fun is in watching just how Bugs makes Canasta the patsy, when Canasta thinks he's got a live sucker ripe for the fleecing. They play "marbles, Frisco style", with Bugs winning a penny bet on 23, being told that here, the customer always wins, Bugs placing a huge stack on 23 again and Canasta not only nailing a block of wood in place over 23 (so no one else-in an empty casino-can bet on 23), but using a rigged wheel, only to have the ball go into 23 because of Canasta's actions.They then play poker, with a few cute puns and Canasta says, "I got a full house-what you got?", to which Bugs says, "Does that beat two pair? I have a pair of red ones (aces) and a pair of black ones (also aces) and Canasta is visibly stunned at losing. As Bugs is getting ready to leave, Canasta pulls out a revolver, Bugs then spins the cylinder and hits another jackpot. After a predictable (but still funny) final visual gag, Bugs leaves with a final funny line, which I won't spoil here.This short is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 and is well worth having. Highly recommended.

During the credits we are treated to some nice landscape shots of Bugs tunneling away to visit his cousin Herman in San Francisco. His travels are cut short when he bumps into a big lump of gold. That was the most enjoyable part of "Barbary Coast Bunny". Almost immediately after this Bugs gets coined out of this fortune by a suitable loathsome villain named Nasty Canasta. Next we cut to San Francisco, six months later, where Nasty is about to open a saloon on Barbary coast road. Apparently it has taken Bugs all this time to catch up with Canasca and to set up his revenge. Naturally Nasty fails to recognize the Bugster because of his brilliant disguise: a suit and tie and a bowler hatBugs spends the rest of this cartoon winning back his money at Nasty's slot machine, and all subsequent card games Canasta throws at him. But since he simply wins every single time, the games soon become tiresome and the victories hollow. There are no obstacles for Bugs to overcome at all, his disguise is never even blown. This cartoon has only two characters, two locations and two jokes. After the opening, not much effort seems to have been spent on backgrounds and animation, as if they ran out of money after the first minute or so.3 out of 10