Stuff I Grew Up With: Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales (1982)

Like The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, I remember seeing a little bit of this when I was a very young kid; in fact, I'm pretty sure that I might've seen it first. I know for sure that I saw it one Friday afternoon, after my aunt had picked me up from school, as she did on that day for many years. I also know I was very young because, during my lifetime, she first lived in an apartment, then across three different houses, up until she died in 2013, when I was 26, and this was when she was living in the first house. Regardless, I always remembered the framing device, where Bugs Bunny is forced to read stories to this spoiled prince, whose father was Yosemite Sam as a sultan. I especially remembered the last third of the movie, with the two Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester cartoons, Bugs having to stop the prince from getting his father on him when he calls him a "dummy," then telling him the story of One Froggy Evening (which may have been when I first saw that cartoon), Bugs escaping, and Daffy ending up in his place at the end. I didn't see the movie again, nor did I know what it was called, until, as you've already guessed, I saw it on Cartoon Network's Cartoon Theatre, with its first airing being in February of 2000 (they actually showed it before they first showed The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie). I knew what it was as soon as I saw the promo for it and, like The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie and Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, I always attempted to watch it whenever they played it. However, looking at it now, as an adult, while I would still say I enjoy it more than the previous one, this is on the lower end of these Looney Tunes package movies. It's the first one to have an actual story tying the classic cartoons together, rather than acting as a theatrical clip-show or anthology, but the main part of the story doesn't even come around until 21 minutes into this 73-minute movie, with Bugs and Daffy having their own unrelated and random misadventures beforehand. There's not even a resolution to the story, either; the movie just ends. Also, the meshing of the new material with the old is more jarring than before, and the editing of some of the old cartoons is really awkward. It's still a fun way to kill an hour and some change, but it's clear that there was less and less time and money being spent on these movies as they went along.

Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are sales representatives for Rambling House Publishing Company, and their boss tells them that the company is offering a grand prize for whoever has the top sales record of the year. The two of them are then each assigned their own sales territory: Bugs is to go to Pismo Beach, California, and Daffy to Thermopolis, Wyoming, and they set out on their separate journeys. However, with winter coming soon, Daffy decides to join up with a flock of ducks and fly south, planning to head on to Thermopolis in the spring. Getting separated from the flock in a blizzard, he ends up at the home of Porky Pig and takes the place of a stuffed duck on the fireplace mantel in order to stay there for the winter. However, Porky's dog, Rover, proves to be a nuisance, and Daffy is eventually chased out of the house. Bugs, meanwhile, ends up burrowing his way to a jungle and decides to camp there for the night. Unfortunately for him, a drunken stork, who's meant to deliver a baby gorilla to his parents, loses the baby and decides Bugs would be a suitable replacement. Finding himself in this situation, he decides to go along with it, realizing he could have some fun due to the mother gorilla's maternal instinct protecting Bugs from the father, Elvis, who wants to get rid of him. Eventually, the stork finds and delivers the real baby gorilla, and Bugs has to run for it, escaping back to the hole he burrowed. Elsewhere, Daffy, weary from all the flying, ends up on the farm of Elmer Fudd, who intends to shoot him. Running from Elmer's hunting dogs, Daffy dives into a hole in the ground and finds Bugs at the bottom. He decides to join him on his journey to Pismo Beach, but they instead end up in a cave in a desert, filled with valuable treasure. Daffy, getting greedy, decides to keep all the treasure for himself, while Bugs continues on without him. He finds his way to a palace ruled by Sultan Yosemite Sam, who's just lost the man he had imprisoned and charged with telling stories to his son, Prince Abba-Dabba. So, when Bugs shows up at the palace door, with the book, 1,001 Tales for Toddlers, Sam immediately drags him inside. Now, Bugs has to read all 1,001 stories to Abba-Dabba, or else, be boiled in oil.

Weirdly, there's no director credit here, as the credits end with, "Produced by Friz Freleng." Regardless, like with the previous movie, Freleng not only produced and directed this one but also co-wrote it with John Dunn and David Detiege. In addition, the latter worked as a sequence director, along with Bill Perez, an animation veteran who'd done the same on a couple of Christmas-oriented Looney Tunes TV shorts, both of which were directed by Freleng (along with Chuck Jones on one of them). Speaking of directors, 1001 Rabbit Tales also differs from the previous Looney Tunes movies in that the cartoons utilized are a mix of different directors' works. The majority of them were directed by Freleng, but there are also several by Chuck Jones in here as well (including Ali Baba Bunny, which had already been featured in The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie), and a little bit of one by Bob McKimson.

As per usual, between him and Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny is much more laid back and easygoing in his capacity as a salesman for the Rambling House Publishing Company. While Daffy goes on and on about how he's going to win the prize for the best sales performance, Bugs just lets him talk, content to head on to Pismo Beach, while Daffy goes to Thermopolis. While his journey isn't quite as troublesome as Daffy's, he still runs into his fair share of problems. As per usual, his sense of direction is far from perfect, as he first winds up in a jungle. When he decides to camp out there for the night, he has the misfortune of getting knocked out by a drunken stork and delivered to a gorilla couple as a replacement for their baby, who wandered off. At first, Bugs isn't having it and tries to run, but when he sees how the mother gorilla not only accepts him, despite his looking nothing like a gorilla, but is determined to protect him from her fierce mate, Elvis, who wants nothing to do with him, he decides to have a little fun and goes along with it. However, he pushes his luck too far, and when the stork brings them their real baby, Bugs has to run for his life. He manages to get back to his burrowing hole and, somehow, goes from a jungle to Elmer Fudd's farm, where he runs into Daffy. And then, traveling together, they end up in the desert and the cave of riches, where Daffy stays in order to indulge his greed, while Bugs continues on alone. That's when he finds his way to the palace of Sultan Yosemite Sam, who tasks him with reading stories to Prince Abba-Dabba. Initially, Bugs refuses, telling Sam, "I don't go with the books," but when Sam threatens to boil him in oil, he realizes he'd better do as he's told. Upon meeting Abba-Dabba, who talks about how "funny-looking" Bugs is and laughs at him, he comments, "You expect me to tell stories to that? I'd rather throw peanuts at it." But, again, not wanting to be boiled in oil, Bugs reads him one of the stories: a take on Jack and the Beanstalk, with Sylvester, i.e. Jack's cat, as the lead, and Tweety the giant's pet.

However, once the story is done, Bugs thinks that he can now leave. But on his way out, Sam stops him and tells him that he intends for him to read all 1,001 stories in that book to Abba-Dabba. When Bugs asks, "And if I refuse?", he finds himself suspended above a vat of boiling oil, and when asked if that's his final word, he answers, "I think I got a sudden urge for some swell stories." He proceeds to tell Abba-Dabba more nutty variations on classic tales: Hansel and Gretel, but with Bugs' "uncle," Hugo Hare, who saves

the children; Goldilocks and the Three Bears, only with Sylvester, his wife, and son as the "bears," and a mouse as Goldilocks; Little Red Riding Hood, but with Sylvester and Tweety, along with Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, and Grandma, and so on. During all this, Bugs makes several attempts to escape, first by trying to walk out of the palace when reading Goldilocks and talking about how the "bears" went for a walk so their porridge could cool, only for Sam to force him back while holding a sword to his back. Later, he tries to escape while he's on a "coffee 

break," using a flying carpet, only for Sam to chase after him on another carpet and send him tumbling back down to the palace. Eventually, though, Bugs runs out of patience with Abba-Dabba and refuses to read him any more stories. To that end, he burns the book, and then uses some clever manipulation to get them to throw him into his burrowing hole rather than boil him in oil, allowing him to escape.

Daffy Duck is his usual egotistical, competitive self, determined to break the sales record and win the prize that comes with it. He's also extremely paranoid about Bugs possibly getting a more lucrative chance at selling books. He initially mocks how Bugs has to go to Pismo Beach, saying, "That's a laugh!... What are ya gonna do, sell books to the clams?", and assumes Thermopolis, "Must be a big place to have such a long name." But when Bugs says he's fine with Pismo Beach, Daffy thinks he kissed the boss' ass to get the best territory and demands they swap. And then, when Bugs says, "Okay, so I'll take Thermopolis. What's the difference?", Daffy now thinks he was coercing him into giving him Thermopolis and promptly swaps them back. And when they leave the office building, he rubs it in Bugs' face that he can fly to Thermopolis, while Bugs will have to burrow his way to Pismo Beach. However, Daffy immediately decides to shirk his responsibilities until spring, instead planning to fly south with a passing flock of ducks. That proves to be a bad idea, as he gets caught up in a blizzard, causing him to slam into the side of Porky Pig's house. However, he then decides to take advantage of the opportunity and make this his temporary home for the winter, replacing a stuffed duck on the fireplace mantel. However, Porky's dog, Rover, learns he's a real duck and gives him trouble, as does Porky himself when Daffy has to pretend that he's stuffed. It gets to the point where Porky, thinking Rover ruined his stuffed duck, stuffs cotton down Daffy's throat and mounts him on the mantel again. He soon flees with some other ducks, but his weariness from traveling so far gets the better of him and he crashes onto Elmer Fudd's farm. Elmer intends to shoot him, and then sends his two hunting dogs after him when he runs for it. Daffy dives into a hole, meeting up with Bugs on the bottom, and decides to accompany him to Pismo Beach, as he still wants to go somewhere warm. 

Rather than Pismo Beach, Bugs' lousy sense of direction leads them into a desert, into the cave filled with treasure. Becoming greedy as soon as he sees it, and despite running afoul of the guard, Hassan, who's stationed outside the entrance, Daffy decides to forget about selling books and take all the treasure for himself, while Bugs heads off by himself. Eventually, Daffy manages to gather all of the treasure, but while searching for any bits he might've missed, he finds a magic lamp in a lone corner of the cave. He rubs it

and, of course, a genie appears, but Daffy's greed and paranoia causes him to mistake the genie for someone trying to steal his treasure. Like he did with Bugs before, he shoves the genie back into the lamp, desecrating it and enraging the genie in the process. Initially unfazed by the genie's threat of "consequences," Daffy is then zapped and runs off into the desert, with the genie continuing to blast him from the cave as he goes. He gets lost and is next seen crawling along the sand, desperate for water, and he falls for what turns out to be a mirage. He runs into

Bugs again after he's managed to escape the palace, and like with the treasure, when he sees the palace, his greed overtakes him and he intends to sell a fortune's worth of books there. Naturally, he ends up in the same predicament that Bugs was in, and is much less smooth in getting out of it.

This isn't the first time that Yosemite Sam has played the part of a sultan, nor is it the first time he's appeared in a desert setting. And yet, somehow, despite Mel Blanc's exaggerated drawl and use of cowboy-esque slang, it manages to work. Since their imprisoned storyteller managed to escape the palace, Sam grumbles that he now has no choice but to read stories to Prince Abba-Dabba himself, instead of, "Runnin' the government, torturin' the prisoners, or playin' canasta with my harem." So, when Bugs shows up at the palace's front door, with a copy of the book, 1,001 Tales for Toddlers, as far as Sam is concerned, he's exactly what the doctor ordered. He immediately drags Bugs inside, charges him with reading the stories to Abba-Dabba, and threatens to boil him in oil if he doesn't cooperate. He also thwarts Bugs' attempts to escape, forcing him back into the reading chamber when Bugs literally tries to just walk out of the palace. Later, when Bugs says it's time for a coffee break, Sam tells him, "Rabbits never get no coffee breaks. Rabbits get no breaks of any kind, unless I does the breakin'." But when he asks if he can take a "carrot break" instead, Sam allows it, but warns him that he'll be watching him. Regardless, Bugs makes use of a flying carpet and almost manages to get away, but Sam chases after him on another flying carpet and unravels Bugs' carpet out from under him, sending him back down into the palace. At the end of the movie, when Bugs decides he's had enough and burns the book, which Sam and Abba-Dabba futilely try to save, Sam orders the vat of oil to be heated up. He then falls for Bugs' tricking him into throwing him into his burrowing hole instead and goes about trying to find another storyteller... which is when Daffy finds his way to the palace.

For as much of an obnoxious, spoiled brat as Prince Abba-Dabba (voiced by Lennie Weinrib) is supposed to be, I've never found him to be all that insufferable. They build him up as this serious little terror, with how crazed the first storyteller is when he manages to escape, saying Abba-Dabba was his undoing, and with how Yosemite Sam describes him as, "My pestiferous, spoiled rotten, loudmouth, crybaby son," latter adding, when he says he's his only son, "Thank goodness for that." Then, when Abba-Dabba is first introduced, he's roaming around in a hedge maze, with the feather on his turban coming off like a shark's dorsal fin sticking out of water, while the music plays a Jaws-like riff. And when he shows up, he does whine and complain, as he demands to be told a story, then holds his breath, planning to do so until he gets what he wants, and makes some obnoxious comments about Bugs, before letting out this irritating cackle, but that's about as annoying as he gets (which is very significant when you consider he's played by the original voice actor for Scrappy-Doo!). He does constantly call for his dad to punish Bugs whenever he tries to skimp out on his storytelling duties, but, otherwise, he sits and listens to the stories without giving him much trouble. In fact, I like how Abba-Dabba notes how unusual these stories are, such as when Bugs seems to put himself in the story of Hansel and Gretel, only for him to claim it's his uncle, or how, instead of three bears in this version of Goldilocks, it's three cats (to which Bugs explains it's because bears hibernate in the winter). He even asks what happened to Goldilocks, or "Goldimouse," rather, after that story is over, and is really intrigued when Bugs offers to tell him about a singing frog. And at the end of the story with Sylvester and Speedy Gonzales, Bugs' insulting Abba-Dabba after he talks about how dumb Sylvester is actually comes off as a bit uncalled for, and it's understandable why the kid gets upset (doesn't excuse him trying to get Bugs boiled in oil, though). But, all that said, at the end of the movie, when Bugs feigns being terrified of being thrown into his burrowing hole, Abba-Dabba shows a sadistic streak and tells Sam to do just that, making his dad quite proud.

Sam's much-abused advisor (I couldn't find any info on who voiced him), who literally gets kicked in the ass repeatedly after the old storyteller manages to escape, never once raises a complaint. In fact, he's constantly worshiping the ground Sam walks on, telling him, after getting kicked around, "If thou only knew what pleasure it was to be kicked and cuffed about by thee, Bringer of the Dawn, Master of the Tides,"; to this, Sam complains, "Ain't no fun roughin' you up. You likes it too much!" The advisor

then begs for another chance, telling Sam, "Praise be to thee, old great son of a seventh son, but these ears have heard of a land called Hollywood, where storytellers abound. Perhaps we could bring some over here, as hostages?" No sooner does he suggest this than Bugs shows up. And when Abba-Dabba holds his breath over not being told a story, Sam forces the advisor to hold his breath instead, leading the poor guy to turn blue in the face and nearly suffocate. Once Bugs goes off to read to Abba-Dabba, Sam lets the advisor breathe again, and the release of all that pent up breath sends Sam hurtling down the corridor and into a fountain. Speaking of the first storyteller (voiced by Shepard Menken), when he manages to escape the palace, the graduation gown he's wearing is frayed, and he's a raving and constantly laughing madman, to boot. He tells the audience, "I was once a human being, but that rotten kid in there was my undoing. He doesn't need a storyteller, he needs an exorcist!", before running off into the desert, laughing like a loon, never to be seen again. Considering that he was stuck reading stories to Abba-Dabba for God knows how long, while Bugs only had to put up with him for an afternoon, maybe the prince is maddening to deal with for an extended period. (Menken may have also voiced the advisor but, again, I'm not sure.)

The only other classic Looney Tunes characters who appear in any new animation are Porky Pig, in just one shot to bridge the ending of the old cartoon, Cracked Quack, back into the movie's main plot, and Sylvester and Speedy Gonzales in order to segue from one classic short to another. Like in The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, everyone else appears strictly through their roles in the classic shorts that are utilized, including Elmer Fudd (notably, even though he'd been dead for over twenty

years by this point, Arthur Q. Bryan is credited in something Looney Tunes-related for the first time ever), Tweety, Sylvester Jr., Granny (though, not in the role she typically has), Witch Hazel, and Michigan J. Frog.

Like with the previous movie, the animation here, while certainly better than what you would see in a lot of television animation at the time, is not on the level of the classic cartoons, or what was done in The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie. The animation on the characters' faces is fine but nothing amazing, and the same goes for their movements, which are just slightly above some of the Looney Tunes TV specials being produced during that same period. One instance where the latter feel especially limited is near the end, when Sam and Abba-Dabba try to keep the storybook 

from being burned, passing it back and forth between them, like a game of hot potato. The animation also repeats a couple of times, as Sam runs to Abba-Dabba, gives him the burning book, he flails around in place, briefly runs offscreen, gives it back to Sam, Sam runs a short distance away, then brings it back to Abba-Dabba, who struggles with it in the same manner he did just a few seconds ago, before it cuts back to Bugs. What's more, the flying carpet chase between Bugs and Sam, which you'd expect to be the movie's animation highlight, comes off as rather

lackluster and low-energy, not to mention really short. Also, despite it being an escape attempt on his part, Bugs never puts any distance between himself and the palace. Going back to the topic of reused animation, there are moments where they make use of material from some of the classic shorts in new ways. For instance, the character animation from the ending of the cartoon Wise Quckers is made to fit better with the context the short appears in here, which I'll elaborate on later. They also take the animation from Ali Baba

Bunny of Daffy forcing Bugs back down into his rabbit hole and use it for a moment at the end. Unfortunately, that latter instance serves as a prime example of how, like in the previous movie, the new material clashes with that of the old cartoons, not only in terms of quality but also just from the details in the characters' designs. Something else that still clashes is the change in audio, as new recordings of Mel Blanc are sometimes added into the classic cartoons. Not only does the sound of Blanc's voice, again, shift dramatically when this happens, but the audio itself will suddenly become crisper for a few seconds, which is just as jarring.

Visually, the movie is fine. It has a memorable opening credits sequence, with the camera panning through a stylized city skyline that's made to look as though it's all neon (in the background of one spot during a camera pan, King Kong can be seen stuck near the top of the Empire State Building, holding up a sign that reads, "HELP!"), as the credits appear on billboards. The design of the city, the Rambling House Publishing Center, its interiors, and the park where Daffy flies off to join the passing flock of ducks, are all well done, if a bit unremarkable. After 

that, the settings are mostly made to match those that appear in the classic cartoons, like Porky's house in Cracked Quack, the jungle in Apes of Wrath, and the exterior of the cave and the desert in Ali Baba Bunny, and again, they do okay. The most notable original setting is Sam's palace, which is of the typical Arabian Nights/Aladdin style in its architecture. Some noteworthy sections include this large chamber with two rows of columns running along its width; this one spot with a light pink and 

blue color scheme; the exterior hedge maze that Abba-Dabba emerges from; the very colorful reading room, which has a rich red and gold color palette, and multicolored pillows lining the purple-striped couch Bugs and Abba-Dabba sit on; and the almost medieval dungeon in the scene where Bugs comes close to being boiled in oil.

Unfortunately, as the first of these package movies to have an actual story tying the classic cartoons together, 1001 Rabbit Tales is rather clumsy-footed. First, as I said in the introduction, the actual plot of Bugs having to read stories to Prince Abba-Dabba doesn't come around until a little over the twenty-minute mark, in a movie that's only 73 minutes overall. Granted, the classic cartoons shown beforehand are just as entertaining as the "tales," and once it's introduced, that is what the remainder of the movie centers around, inter-cut with scenes of Bugs

and Abba-Dabba in the reading room, Bugs' failed escape attempts, and what's going on elsewhere with Daffy, but still, there's less than an hour left once we finally get around to what the title promises. Moreover, there's no conclusion to the overarching storyline about Bugs and Daffy as salesmen for Rambling House. I know, I know, it's a Looney Tunes compilation movie and I shouldn't be complaining or concerning myself with that, but the previous movies both had actual endings, and the following two would also bring their overarching stories to a firm 

conclusion, especially Daffy Duck's Quackbusters; 1001 Rabbit Tales, however, just kind of stops. After Bugs finally manages to escape from the palace, he runs into Daffy, who's been lost in the desert since he got chased out of the cave by the angry genie. Spotting the palace, Daffy, greedy and competitive as ever, rushes over to it, thinking he's going to sell a lot of books. Bugs tries to warn him but Daffy, of course, doesn't listen, and Sam immediately pulls him inside as another replacement storyteller. He threatens to pluck out all of Daffy's 

feathers if he doesn't read a thousand stories to Abba-Dabba, and Daffy defiantly retorts, "I'd like to see ya try it." The movie then ends with Daffy, plucked completely bare, joining Bugs in walking off into the sunset, boasting, "I showed that sultan he doesn't scare this little duck!" (he then asks Bugs if he has any suntan lotion he can borrow). In short, that whole plot about the competition between them for the best sales record goes nowhere, with neither of them ever making it to their intended territories, and their boss is

never heard from again. As funny as it is to see Daffy walking around, basically naked, I personally think a better ending would've been to have Bugs go on to win the prize, while Daffy is still stuck reading stories to Abba-Dabba, becoming absolutely bitter when he hears about it. Not an original ending, for sure, but at least it is an ending.

The first classic cartoon is Cracked Quack, where Daffy, struggling through a serious blizzard, ends up at Porky Pig's home and decides to stay there for the winter. It plays virtually unaltered, save for some new audio of Daffy saying, "Thermopolis will just have to wait," when he hides the stuffed duck on the fireplace mantel, and the ending. While the original cartoon ends after this flock of other ducks decide to join Daffy in spending the winter in the house, and proceed to have a raucous party in the kitchen, there's an addition here where Porky says, "So you want to 

party, huh? Yeah, I'll give you a party. A buckshot party!" He then starts shooting at them, sending all of the ducks, including Daffy, fleeing out the window. After that is Apes of Wrath, where Bugs gets roped into substituting as a baby gorilla by that drunk stork. This one is altered a little more, removing the moment where Bugs first wakes up in the gorillas' baby cradle, and adding new audio of him saying he'll sell books later, along with a completely new ending, where Bugs gets back to his rabbit hole and continues on his trip (the original cartoon ended 

with the stork bringing him a baby, which turns out to be Daffy, wearing a diaper and with a lump on his head, and actually thinking Bugs is his mother!). Wise Quackers, however, is the first short that's heavily altered, as the movie makes use of only its opening and ending. It shows the beginning, where Daffy crashes onto Elmer Fudd's farm, making what he thinks is a perfect "three-point landing," (he then sees that he's sitting on a pitchfork's three prongs), and is then faced with Elmer, who's brandishing a shotgun. 

Next, it immediately cuts to the ending, where Elmer sics his two hunting dogs on Daffy when he runs for it. But, as I alluded to earlier, because of the different circumstances of the actual cartoon's ending, they take the animation of Elmer and the dogs from it, put Elmer in his hunting outfit (in the cartoon, he's wearing a suit and tie at the end), place them in the farmyard setting where the cartoon begins, and segue into new animation of the dogs chasing Daffy, until he dives into Bugs' rabbit hole. It's quite well done and,

until I looked up the actual cartoon (which I don't think I'd ever seen before, probably because it makes references to slavery and didn't get played on Cartoon Network), I would've never guessed it was changed around that radically.

Ali Baba Bunny is practically butchered. It starts with Bugs and Daffy burrowing underground and winding up in the cave (the colors are drabber here than they are in the original cartoon), and Daffy seeing all the treasure and becoming greedy. To save time, they cut the guard, Hassan's, attempt to open the cave entrance with the magic words, Bugs' asking, "Eh, what's up, duck?", after Daffy forces him back down into the hole, and Daffy saying, "I'm comfortably well off!", while he's jumping around in the gold and jewels. But then, the editing gets awkward and choppy, as it cuts 

to Daffy pushing a mining cart full of treasure, when he runs into Hassan, and then removes him mistaking Hassan for a bellhop and asking him to call a cab, and Hassan slicing his hat, as well as one of the feathers on his head, down the middle. Instead, it adds a new sound effect of Daffy making a frightened sound at the sight of Hassan standing over him, holding a sword, and cuts to him crying, with his hat gone and his feather split, with no explanation as to how that happened. After he runs off, it then cuts to a shot of Bugs outside, who's wearing that turban from the now

removed genie segment, when he hears Daffy yelling for help. After Bugs manages to get rid of Hassan, Daffy runs back to the cave to continue collecting the treasure, while Bugs just shrugs and, offscreen, continues on his journey. Later, it cuts back to Daffy when he's just finished collecting all the treasure, and they had to crop the upper half of the shot in order to hide Bugs, who was standing off to the left in the original cartoon. When Daffy finds an actual magic lamp and enrages its genie, it replaces the original

cutaway of Bugs escaping with a new shot of Daffy walking away, with the red-colored cave wall in the background. Like before, the genie zaps him, but this time, instead of shrinking him, it sends him running off into the desert, yelling for Bugs, as he's continually blasted.

The first cartoon used as one of the stories is Tweety and the Beanstalk (it really should've been called Sylvester and the Beanstalk, but I digress), which, after Bugs introduces the story, along with some drawings in the storybook, plays out pretty much as is. The only differences come at the end, as Bugs narrates what's happening, and they remove the very end of the cartoon, where, after Sylvester ends up in China after the Giant falls off the beanstalk and lands on him, there's a gag with Tweety playing a Chinese stereotype. The story of Hansel and Gretel is told 

through the cartoon, Bewitched Bunny, which, again, is introduced through some drawings in the storybook. The short proper begins with Hansel and Gretel being led into Witch Hazel's house, but removes the moment afterward where Bugs, seeing this, declares, "This looks like a job for the Masked Avenger! But, since he ain't around, I guess I'll have to take care of it meself," (they left in a bit of the sound of his carrot chomping, though). Thus, Bugs' actual first appearance in the story, or, rather, his Uncle Hugo Hare, if you believe what Bugs tells

Abba-Dabba, is when he appears at the door, posing as a truant officer (considering that a picture of "Hugo" at Hazel's front door is in the storybook, either Bugs actually put himself in the story, as Abba-Dabba says, or his claim about his uncle isn't a bunch of bull). After that, the cartoon plays out unaltered, save, again, for the ending. Here, the story just ups and ends after Prince Charming shows up and manages to awaken Bugs from his sleep after Hazel tricks him into eating a poisoned carrot, removing the 

actual cartoon's weird ending where Bugs hits Hazel with a magic powder bomb that turns her into a female rabbit, whom he proceeds to go off with her (I would've loved to see him try to explain that to Abba-Dabba!). Also, they bring this running joke from that short, where Bugs (and Prince Charming) finds "Hansel" to be a strange name, into the movie itself, as he, twice, says, "Hansel?", when he begins reading the story. I've never thought that joke was all that funny, as Hansel doesn't sound that weird to me.

Like I said earlier, Bugs' recitation of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is done through the short, Goldimouse and the Three Cats, which he has to admit to when Abba-Dabba isn't fooled. The only alteration here is that June Foray's original narration is replaced by Bugs', though the words are virtually the same; also, it's briefly interrupted when Bugs makes a futile attempt to walk out of the palace while talking about the cats taking their walk. The same can also be said of Red Riding Hoodwinked, with Bugs' narration at the beginning again replacing Foray's. 

However, when he tells Abba-Dabba the story of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, what we get is two shorts with Sylvester and Speedy Gonzales cut up and edited together. It starts with the short, The Pied Piper of Guadalupe, specifically with the scene where Sylvester, after being unable to catch a bunch of mice plaguing the small town, decides to make like the Pied Piper and draw them out through musical hypnosis. When he comes up against Speedy, and his first two attempts at catching him fail, they, again, 

move around some pre-existing animation, and also put in new material of Sylvester chasing after him, dropping the jug he'd used to contain the other mice, breaking it and allowing them to escape. Said animation comes off as cheap, especially with the dull, blank backgrounds behind Speedy and the other mice, even if it is meant to be the ground. It continues with Sylvester chasing Speedy out of Guadalupe and into a big, fancy house in the countryside, leading into the cartoon, Mexican Boarders. The footage there 

begins with Sylvester chasing Speedy up various flights of stairs, only to wear himself out and slide back down to the bottom. The short then plays as is, up until the part where Sylvester gets Tabasco sauce poured down his throat when he tries to eat Speedy, sending him flying into a nearby well. It then cuts to the end of the previous short, where Sylvester comes out of the infirmary, all bandaged up (implying that, in this context, that Tabasco sauce really did a number on him). Speedy, playing his lost flute, causes Sylvester's bandaged left foot to move to the music and follow after him, hitting the ground, much to his discomfort.

The Chuck Jones classic, One Froggy Evening, plays more or less intact, but ends after the man who first discovers Michigan J. Frog gets rid of him at the same place he found him. Thus, it leaves out the actual ending, where in the distant future, someone else finds the frog and takes him away, intending to exploit him, and negates the cartoon's entire point, that this cycle is going to continue. After that, there's only one more classic cartoon featured: Aqua Duck, and all that's used of it is the very beginning, depicting how Daffy is now lost in the desert,

desperate for water, and falling victim to mirages (incidentally, the desert in that cartoon doesn't look anything like the one the movie has been set in). However, when the movie was first shown on TV, there was an additional sequence where, after Goldimouse and the Three Cats finishes, Bugs declares that there aren't any more stories to tell. This leads to a back and forth between him and Abba-Dabba, as they exclaim, "Oh, yes there!", and, "Oh, no, there ain't!", until Sam pops up behind them with his sword and insists that there are more. Bugs then 

begins reading The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, leading into the cartoon, A Sheep in the Deep, with Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog. After beginning the story by reading from the book about Little Bo Peep having to go to town, leaving Sam in charge of the sheep, the short plays out mostly unaltered, although Bugs narrates throughout it. The one missing scene is one where Ralph digs a hole out of the side of the hill Sam is sitting, tries to lasso a sheep and pull it up through the hole, only for Sam to catch him, pull him 

out, and bash him down to the ground below. Once the cartoon is over, Bugs, again, declares that he's done reading and storms out of the room, only to, again, be faced with Sam and his sword. That sends him back to the reading room, where he picks up with Red Riding Hoodwinked, and the movie continues as normal (although, this version also removes a moment where Sam warns Bugs, "You just keep a'readin' pretty like, and we won't have to split 'hairs,'"). That segment has never made it to any 

home video releases, not even as an extra on the DVD set with The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie. I myself knew nothing about it until I was looking up info on the movie, as the version that played on Cartoon Network was always the theatrical (I might've watched this alternate version that first time I caught the movie on TV when I was really young, but I don't remember at all).

The music score, once again by Rob Walsh, is, as I said in that review, a little improved from what he did on The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, although he does make use of a notable piece from that movie's score during the opening and ending credits here. Regardless, the opening credits is definitely the most memorable bit of original score he comes up with for 1001 Rabbit Tales, starting out with an Arabian sound for the actual title, then transitioning into another upbeat, show biz-style piece like before, albeit a more memorable one, before ending with a gentler string piece and one final, big flourish. As you might expect, that Arabian motif is also heard again during the sequences out in the desert and at the palace, and like I said, Walsh comes up with a take on the Jaws theme to lead up to Abba-Dabba's first appearance. However, that's all the compliments I can give this score, as the rest of it is, again, pretty bland.

While it does come off as cheaper and choppier than its two predecessors, Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales, if nothing else, does make for a nice collection of classic cartoons, with a fairly enjoyable overarching plot tying them together, some inventive ways of recycling old animation, and some better music than the previous movie. However, its low budget is very clear, as the new animation comes off as limited, the backgrounds and environments are okay but nothing to write home about, the meshing of the old material with the new is all the more obvious than before, some of the classic cartoons are edited in a clumsy, awkward manner, and, not only does it take a while for the movie to get to its main plot, but the overall story-line is never resolved. I still have a lot of nostalgia for it, and I do think it's suitable if you have no alternatives, but otherwise, I wouldn't advise going to great lengths to seek it out.