User Reviews

Okay, I am not a big fan of Charles Jones later work. I preferred him when he was "Charles M" instead of "Chuck." But this cartoon has persisted to be one of my two favourite episodes of the Looney Tunes characters. There really is nothing poorly done about the entire episode. The script is wonderful and witty, the music subject matter is perfect, and the singing is spot-on (especially for voiced characters). While I feel that "What's Opera, Doc?" is a bit heavy handed, and was never one of my favourites, I will stop what I am doing just to watch the Rabbit of Seville whenever I see that it is on the TV.

If you value culture, or classic cartoons, this one has both. Many people in the West feel that cartoons cannot contain a cultural valuability that allows them to be either serious or even good. Well, I can honestly say that this one, while not serious, is actually a good piece of art, and stands alone well, proving to itself and other cartoons that even without seriousness, a cartoon can be more than kiddy jokes.

It's the summer opera out in the mountain air of some nice place where "The barber of Seville" is being presented.....and that's what we get, with Bugs playing the barber and Elmer Fudd his foil.

What Bugs does to this bald-headed little fat guy, all set to the music and lyrics of the famous opera, is brutal. This is a very inventive animated short, where every movement, including tapping fingers, is set to the music.

The skits may not be laugh-out-loud funny but they're clever and it's a different and entertaining. This is a Bugs Bunny cartoon that flies by quickly which means it is pretty darn good.

Classic Looney Tunes short has Bugs and Elmer playing around with the Barber of Seville opera. So many wonderful gags in this one, including the adjustable barber chairs that seem to have no limit to how high they can go, Figaro Fertilizer, and Bugs in señorita drag. Flawless voice work from Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan, although the cartoon is mostly action with little dialogue. The animation is beautiful with great colors and well-drawn characters and backgrounds. It's a cartoon set to a famous opera so obviously the music drives the action. Rossini's music speaks for itself but the lyrics Bugs and Elmer add to it are hilarious. This is yet another feather in the cap of Chuck Jones, the most creative of all the Termite Terrace legends (in my opinion).

"Rabbit of Seville" has Elmer Fudd trying to shoot Bugs Bunny, and so the latter leads the former into an opera house where "The Barber of Seville" is about to be performed. Within a minute, Bugs and Elmer are the barber and customer, respectively. Needless to say, Bugs tries a few unsavory experiments on Elmer.

In an interview, Chuck Jones explained how, listening to Bugs sing his own lyrics for the opera (Welcome to my shop/Let me cut your mop/Let me shave your crop), you almost get the impression that the lyrics were written specifically for him. The first time when I ever saw this cartoon when I was really young, I probably thought that, as I didn't know about the original opera. Rossini would be really proud of the whole Chuck Jones/Michael Maltese/Mel Blanc creative team. Excellent.

While chasing Bugs Bunny thru the mountains, Elmer and Bugs happen upon a concert performance of Rossini's opera 'Il barbiere di Siviglia'. Seizing the opportunity to cause major mayhem and trickery, Bugs hijacks the opera for his own wicked plans.

Now Bugs and Elmer are the stars of the show and pain, torture and humiliation come in that order. The animation, timing, music and editing are all absolutely perfect in this cartoon. Surely one of the finest Looney Tune efforts containing all the anarchy, madness and insanity they are famous for plus enough intelligence and cleverness to put a roomful of NASA experts to shame.

Just about all you can say. This is my opinion is the greatest animated short of all time. Perfectly recreating the opera with about everything you need.

Bugs as the snake charmer has always been my favorite part, especially the music behind it. Genius! And not Wile E. Coyote either, the directors, producers and animators all deserved every award in the books for this one.

What's Opera Doc is another masterpiece, well constructed, and brilliantly done by the animators. But sorry, it ranks second place in my book as it's not as humorous as Rabbit of Seville. can't say much more except it's won=der-ful.

F

This is one of Chuck Jones's masterpieces, an incredible blend of music (mainly opera) and animation. The new lyrics written to the very old and familiar music are priceless, as is the scene where Elmer at first thinks he's starting to grow hair. One of the best cartoons Warner Brothers ever produced. Well worth watching. Most highly and happily recommended!

One of the best of the Warner Brothers cartoons. The scenes of Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny during the opera are so brilliantly done with the music. The chase scene with the bigger and bigger weapons is one of the all-time classics.

This cartoon is, without a doubt, the all-time FUNNIEST, most CLASSICALLY LOONEY Bugs Bunny cartoon EVER! IMHO, it even eclipses "What's Opera, Doc?" for sheer, unadulterated comic genius! I first saw this short when I was a kid, and now every time I hear the real "Barber of Seville" suite, I can't help but think of Bugs and Elmer instead of anything else -- that's how ingrained it is. The film's peak comes when Bugs is massaging Elmer's head, using even his big floppy ears to smack that bald noggin into respectable shape, and then adds Figaro Fertilizer to his pate. The look on Fudd's face when he peers into the mirror Bugs holds up for him is simply priceless. His eyes widen little by little, an overjoyed smile creeps up below his nose. You can sense his excitement; it's as if years and years of abuse by the wascally wabbit are about to be absolved, as Elmer appears to grow a head of hair -- only to have his dream dashed in a millisecond when, with a crescendo, flowers pop up at the ends of the "hairs"!!! The rabbit wins again!

It is unconscionable that Warner Bros. has not seen fit to provide this incredible classic toon on home video yet! This toon deserves to be kept in the Library of Congress as the funniest short toon ever made!

This is a high quality Warner Brothers cartoon,...there's no doubt about that. It's from the most productive and best period for their toons, so the animation quality and the rest of the production values are top notch. The problem, for me, is that this cartoon is not for all tastes and seems overrated. Surely there are much funnier Bugs Bunny cartoons (such as all the wonderful ones he did with Daffy Duck). And, how many kids would really enjoy this cartoon since it is chock full of opera and many of the usual Bugs Bunny hijinks are missing. I think this short is a great example of "IMDb-think"--adults are the ones rating the films on IMDb and so the ratings are strongly skewed towards what adults like. I know as a kid, I hated cartoons like this. Now that I am older (though perhaps not any more mature), I STILL don't particularly like this toon. Nope,...give me the good old Bugs Bunny over this opera-infested snoozer.

Warner Bros. Cartoon Department was a factory that churned out the best cartoon shorts in history over a period of thirty years, over ninety per cent of these cartoons above the level most studios could hope to reach. But if that hadn't been so, if all the hundreds of cartoons that were turned out over the decades were complete crap, "What's Opera, Doc?" would come and give the studio world-wide renown. "Rabbit of Seville" seems to be in the same league. It's one of the handful of cartoons that really has no visible flaws. After repeated viewings (thanks to DVD) I still can't see anything wrong with it. The music and the animation are perfectly synchronized, and might be equal Disney's "Nutcracker Suite" sequence from "Fantasia." The action and the music sometimes get so frantic and so fast that your heart beats 200 times a minute. The gags are perfectly ingenious, nobody thought of those kinds of gags before and they were never repeated. Bugs and Elmer are great actors. No cartoons but possibly "Duck Amuck" and "What's Opera, Doc?" match it. Bugs's songs are fantastic, if you can keep up with the words. Nobody had seen anything like "Rabbit of Seville" before and nobody has seen anything similar since. So many trademarks that seem like Warner Bros. staples now were actually only used in "Seville." It really is unmatched. Beautiful.

When Bugs starts cutting a razor to Elmer's face, I couldn't help but think about the recent movie of Sweeney Todd, in which that character is a barber who literally cuts his customers' necks. Luckily, the rabbit just gives his nemesis slashes. Loved hearing Mel Blanc as the rascally rabbit sing the altered lyrics to the famous opera as he keeps Elmer unconscious in the barber chair. Too bad Arthur Q. Bryan couldn't contribute his own Fudd voice to the proceedings but Chuck Jones made up for that when he made What's Opera Doc? years later. Musically compelling as well as pretty hilarious, Rabbit of Seville is a gem among gems in the Jones-Michael Maltese cannon of Warner Bros. cartoons. Well worth seeing for classical music and classic animation fans.

This animated short is from what dreams are made. Its musical direction, humour, animation, build up and climax are flawless. It is funny that this small animated feature is worthy of such praise, no matter how great it is.

However, the fact that this cartoon is only six minutes long means that it can achieve said perfection. Recent, much longer, fantasy epics are some of the greatest films of all time, however, their length (which is totally necessary) adds to the potential for problems.

Yet, to say that "The Rabbit of Seville" is short but sweet is akin to saying the battle of Stalingrad was a "bit messy".

Chuck Jones, Mel Blanc and all involved created perfection with this, all further attempts at animated comic shorts should be judged by this standard of excellence.

Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd wander into a production of The Barber of Seville at the Hollywood Bowl. Bugs promptly takes the part of the barber and gives Elmer a shave and hair treatment he won't soon forget all set to musical lyrics. This hilarious Hugo-nominated musical cartoon is on Disk 1 of the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1" It's the last short on disk 1 and quite possibly the best. And on a disk that contains the great 'What's up Doc?', 'Rabbit Seasoning', and 'Wabbit Twouble', that's no small feat. I'm a bit perplexed why this short didn't have a music-only track, nor commentary, but i'm VERY happy that it was on the DVD at all. The music is fantastic, the humour top of the line. This is one of the best Bugs cartoons in my mind.

My Grade: A +

This is easily one of the greatest Looney Tunes short ever!!!! It is Chuck Jones at his best. The music is brilliantly mixed with the sequences and who can forgot the look in Elmer Fudd's face when he thinks he's growing hair? It is a hilarious classic!

I don't know when to start praising this brilliant Looney Tunes cartoon. If you thought What's Opera Doc? was amazing, and it was, then you may find that Rabbit of Seville almost surpasses it. Rabbit of Seville mayn't be the best looking of all the Looney Tunes cartoons, but it still looks great. However even better were the superb music- the overture of Rossini's Barber of Seville set to words- and the hilarious sight gags. There isn't much speaking dialogue, as most of the material is sung, but the spoken dialogue is pretty good still. The sung dialogue is better though, with Bugs getting the best of it, Welcome to my shop, Let me cut your mop, Let me shave your crop especially is priceless. Bugs is on top form, and Elmer is a great foil for him once again, complete with great vocal turns from Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan. Overall, a real jewel in the Looney Tunes canon. 10/10 Bethany Cox

An extremely close second place finish behind the outstanding "What's Opera, Doc?", this is yet another excellent musical production featuring the 'talents' of Bugs and Elmer. The lyrics are some of the most memorable (including Bugs' "Welcome to My Shop"). Though this review may be short, that's only because it's hard to come up with ideas which others haven't brought up before. So, all I can say is: See It!.

I love Bugs Bunny, and this one is just amazing. It cracks me up every time. This is the best, with the Hunting trilogy and the Marvin/Bugs cartoons behind, not close. Number one, just fantastic, 10/10 ***** out of ***** and an emphatic A+++++++!

L.R.