While I'm not usually a fan of Elmer Fudd, this was one of my favourite Warner Brothers' cartoons when I was a child even though at the time I had no idea that it was based on the music of Wagner.It is great seeing Elmer Fudd singing about how he is going to kill the wabbit with his spear and magic helmet before falling in love with Bugs after the latter slips into a disguise as an operatic heroine. Of course the disguise slips and Elmer summons lightning bolts to strike down the fleeing Bugs.Here Chuck Jones has given us one of the best cartoon shorts that I've seen, they certainly don't make them like this any more sadly.

To many critics and cartoon fans this is considered not only the best to feature Bugs Bunny, and by Warner Brothers, but is the single greatest cartoon short ever made. This masterpiece basically spoofs the fourteen hours of the opera Der Ring Des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) by composer Richard Wagner, into six minutes thirty-something seconds. The story sees Elmer Fudd as a viking that can summon lightning and thunder storms, and his pursuit for Bugs. After seeing his tracks, he finds the rabbit hole and repeatedly sings "Kill the wabbit!" So Bugs comes along to enquire as to how he will get the "wabbit", and it is only after seeing the power of the helmet that Bugs runs away. Elmer stops to see a beautiful woman wearing a viking helmet on a beautiful steed, well, Bugs is drag on a plump white horse, Elmer thinks it's "Bwunhilde". "She" slips into his arms, they have a little dance and frolic, until Bugs' helmet and locks falls off, and he runs away stuffing Elmer into his helmet. After getting the helmet, Elmer in anger summons a huge storm and smug to kill Bugs, and it looks like he succeeds. Elmer carrying the dead Bugs to the top of a distant mountain, and the film ends with Bugs getting up and saying "well what did you expect in an opera, a happy ending?" Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies were number 20, and Bugs Bunny number 10 on The 100 Greatest Cartoons. Very good!

I absolutely love this cartoon! I though it's one of Bugs Bunny's best cartoons ever and also Chuck Jones' finest cartoons too. I especially love the "romance" scene when Bugs dresses in drag as the Valkyrie Brunhilde and Elmer/Siegfried falls for it. As a kid I used to record the love song "Return My Love," play it on my tape player and pretend to be a beautiful princess standing on the balcony waiting for her Prince Charming; I am a hopeless romantic (*sigh*).All-in-all, the animation, the backgrounds and the music put into this cartoon are excellent! I would love to say: "R.I.P Chuck, we will miss you."

I cannot even find the words to describe the greatness of this cartoon. It is officially listed as the greatest cartoon ever, and it darn well deserves it. As I have said, it was simply beautiful. The elegance and detail that went into it surpasses that of anything I've ever seen. Everything from the lightning storm to the end gag was breathtaking. Chuck Jones is the Einstein of animation direction, without a doubt. It was also hilarious, not the laugh-out-loud hilarious of other great Bugs Bunny cartoons, but with subtle irony and ridiculousness ("Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!"). The sensitivity astounds me, it's a metaphor of the whole Elmer/Bugs scene, the subconscious trust and dependency they have in each other beautifully represented by the ballet, and love song, and the consequences of Elmer's short-sightedness and Bugs' naivety tragically displayed in the finale. The little touches, like the intricately designed ballet scene, the tension of the helmet falling down the stairs, and the chilling image of the dress floating behind Bugs as he flees vainly from his doom, all accompanied by musical gags, timing, and style that has only been contested by my favorite "The Rabbit of Seville", sets off the scenes perfectly. The ending was for sure the crowning point of the whole cartoon, the sequence of the terrible lightning attack, Bugs' limp, crumpled corpse in the midst of the splintered mountain, (one of the greatest moments of animation history), Elmer's "Poor wittle wabbit" mourning, and, too top it all, the magnificent finale of Elmer carrying Bugs through the golden radiance to Valhalla, and, inevitably, Bugs' last quip, tops off this exquisite expression of greatness. This is also, I believe, the only cartoon tragedy I have ever seen, Bugs DOES die, the wabbit IS finally killed by Elmer, while Bugs did not do anything to deserve it it: the very definition of a tragedy. And yet, Bugs does not "lose", Elmer gets his comeuppance, the guilt of killing him, and his character break of "well, what did you expect in an opera, a happy ending?" still asserts that even his own death cannot defeat the great rabbit. He is a god, the Trickster god, and although mortal, cannot be beaten. There has never been, and will never be, another cartoon like this one.