What's Up, Doc ? (1950)

What a beautiful movie!

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

While the cartoon feels rather short and the story on the standard side, it is a interesting, memorable and handsomely mounted Bugs Bunny cartoon. Nothing here is remarkably funny, but there are some effective scenes like the scene in the park and the repeat of "What's Up Doc?" The cartoon also begins and ends in a very cute fashion, and throughout there is handsome animation, lovely vaudeville-like music and excellent voices from Mel Blanc and Arthur Q.Bryan as Bugs and Elmer who make a great double act if I must say so. Bugs is great here, he's been better, but I like his somewhat subdued side here, and Elmer is fine.Overall, memorable and interesting, not the best but a cartoon worth watching. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This is a bit different from most Bugs Bunny cartoons: the life story of Bugs, from when he knew he was "a bit different" (the rest of the babies were humans and he was a rabbit) to his beginnings in the world of show business.However, the latter doesn't pan out. Bugs is down on his luck and moping around on a park bench, when Elmer Fudd passes by and says, "Why are you hanging around with these guys? They'll never amount to anything." (They are Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and Bing Crosby!) Elmer gets him a job back in the theater. The vaudeville show opens in Peoria (where else?). It travels on to Buffalo and then New York City, but Bugs is getting bugged. He's tired of being Elmer's foil and getting pies shoved in his face, etc. He reverses the act and finishes with "What's up, doc?" It's a smash! Offers come in from everywhere and the two head off to Hollywood and Warner Brothers. The rest is history.There are not a lot of laughs in here: very few, in fact, but it's fairly interesting. This is good for one viewing only, unless you're a big fan or a collector of BB cartoons, then it might be of historical significance.

Before Hollywood biographies centered on drug abuse and such things, "What's Up Doc?" portrayed Bugs Bunny telling his life story from childhood - "I knew I was different, and then it hit me: I was a rabbit in a human world." - up to his career in entertainment. However, it seems like there's a little less in this cartoon than the Looney Tunes cartoons usually showed. But I'd say that it's strength lies in its portrayal of the lack of employment in Hollywood (which I've heard is actually around 95%), and how it forces individuals into self-degrading work. I always get the feeling that whenever the Termite Terrace crowd made cartoons spoofing Tinseltown, they were probably basing the cartoons on their personal experiences. Maybe I can't prove that, but I just get that feeling.So, it's not the greatest cartoon, but worth seeing. I don't know whether or not you're rooting for me, so now I have to go.

"What's Up Doc?" is a very clever Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. In this film, Bugs is a full-fledged dancer, singer, and all-around entertainer who struggles for his big break in show business. He teams up with fellow vaudevillian Elmer Fudd and, after upstaging & infuriating him, stumbles upon the catchphrase "Eh, what's up, Doc?" and the crowd goes wild! Highlights: Bugs as a toddler is given a toy piano by his parents, so he immediately bangs away at one of Franz Liszt's famous Hungarian Rhapsodies! It's pure vaudeville when Bugs & Elmer swap one-liners, pies, seltzer bottles, mallets, and yuk-yuk-yuks. At a Warner Bros. screen test, Bugs & Elmer sing "What's Up Doc?" together on stage while Bugs pulls a few of his tricks on Elmer. Bugs as a hobo sits on a park bench next to fellow hoboes Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, and Bing Crosby (all very nicely caricatured). And finally, "Oh, we're the boys in the chorus, / We hope you like our show. / We know you're rootin' for us, / But now we have to gooooooo." "What's Up Doc?" is an enjoyable cartoon that I had never seen until I obtained the DVD (Disc 1 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1), and I believe it is definitely worth seeing. Bugs Bunny goes through a fair amount of adventure (and misadventure) as he climbs up (and down) the hierarchal ladder of show business.