Load of rubbish!!

Best movie of this year hands down!

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

. . . or take down a Legend during TORTOISE WINS BY A HARE. After losing his Umpteenth race against a turtle, Bugs disguises himself and interviews his competition to learn why rabbits are such losers. Bugs finds out that it's mostly because bunnies are so much dumber than turtles. To prove this point, the tortoise turns his greatest handicap--a cumbersome shell--into an advantage. He convinces Bugs that the shell provides an aerodynamic "modern design stream-lined edge" compared to the wind-resistant excess baggage of rabbit ears. This revelation prompts Bugs to outfit himself with a Heavy Metal shell--about the only racing load more burdensome than a turtle shell. To make matters worse, Bugs does not tell his fellow hares--who have bet serious carrots on his promised success--about this Switcheroo. To top it off, the tortoise dons a rabbit suit mid-race. Therefore, even when Bugs over-achieves and nears the finish line in the lead, half of his rabbit brothers waylay and pummel him, while the other half carry the turtle-in-a-rabbit-suit across the finish line for another tortoise triumph.

Hilarious triple inversion not only of the original fable, but the previous Looney Tunes lampoons, this effort is a little more grounded than such Clampett monuments as "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" and "The Big Snooze." As a result, it shows how the director, restrained from throwing out all the surrealistic stops, could channel his energy into a dizzyingly twisty plot.Above and beyond that, this cartoon is worth tracking down for Mel Blanc's masterful and startlingly moving voice performance. From Bugs' near-hysterical outburst as he realizes he's winning to his heartbreaking chastisement of his so-called supporters ("You FOOLS! You FOOLS! I'm the RABBIT!"), this cartoon, all on its own, demonstrates that Blanc's talent reached far deeper than a mere capacity for silly voices.

Bugs is sure acting out of character in this cartoon. He sounds and behaves a lot like Daffy Duck. Why would Bugs cheat in a race with a turtle? He doesn't need to. But he's made to, to fit in with the story of this dull short.So he loses the first race and wants to go again, like Mike Tyson being unable to lose with the indignity of a defeat. Bugs is now bound to win with the support of other rabbits and the mob behind him. But he disguises himself as a turtle (and the turtle a rabbit) for the race. Naturally the rabbits and the mob fall for this and keep him behind while the real turtle wins. Then they all commit suicide by blowing their brains out!Strange. Not funny. And one kick yourself for missing.

A hilarious sequel to Tex Avery's Tortoise Beats Hare (1941), the cartoon even starts out with Bugs watching selected film footage of the former cartoon. Bugs is very aggressive here and is determined to do everything in his power to win the race this time. If in the Avery cartoon the roles of Bugs and Cecil were reversed, so that Bugs was the loser and Cecil the heckler, here they literally switch identities. Bugs is dressed like a turtle in a mistaken belief that his "streamlined" shell will make him faster (If you're going to miscast Bugs Bunny as the loser you might as well go all the way with it), while Cecil is dressed like a rabbit because he knows the rabbit underworld has bet heavily on the hare to win and will use whatever means necessary to ensure a rabbit victory. Mel Blanc's acting is especially good here, probably one of his best performances. One standout scene is the passion in Bugs' voice as he draws nearer to the finish line. In an interesting side note, the newspaper that announces the rematch also contains an article in the lower right hand corner labeled "Adolf Hitler Commits Suicide." (Remember, this was 1943.) Were the animators at Warner Bros. clairvoyant? Unfortunately, the ending is censored on most television prints today, so try to see this cartoon uncut on videotape instead.