Bully for Bugs

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"Stop steaming up my tail!"

Bully for Bugs is a 1953 Looney Tunes short, directed by Chuck Jones.

The short begins with Bugs traveling on his way to the Coachella Valley for the "Big carrot festival, therein." but takes a wrong turn and winds up inside a bullfight arena, and becomes an unwitting victim of Toro the Bull and his horns. Bugs, indignant at this attack, immediately decides to turn the tables, taking up the role of matador and giving the bull his just desserts for the rest of the cartoon.

This cartoon is also notable for a bit of history behind its making, at least according to Chuck Jones: Jones' supervisor, Eddie Selzer, barged into Jones' office one day and announced, completely out of the blue, that "bullfights aren't funny!" Since Jones and his fellow animators worked from the assumption that Eddie was always wrong about everything, their only choice was to make a cartoon about bullfighting.

This short is one of The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes. It can be found on Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 1.

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Tropes used in Bully for Bugs include:

• Bullet Seed: After accidentally swallowing a rifle, Toro is briefly able to shoot from his horns. His attempt to reload leads him to disaster.
• Bull Seeing Red: Subverted, in that Bugs flapping his cape leads a dazed Toro into following him around the arena in a sort of dance.
• Door Judo: Sets up Bug's Finishing Move.
• Deadly Dodging - One-Dimensional Thinking: Bugs does this with an anvil.
• Efficient Displacement: Toro leaves a bull-shaped hole through the matador's cape; Bugs leaves a rabbit-shaped one when Toro knocks him through a wall.
• Mickey Mousing: Most notably used when Bugs is mockingly slapping Toro.
• Second-Person Attack: Bugs uses Toro's horns to create a slingshot.
• Shut Up, Scary Thing!: As seen in the page-image above.

Stop steamin' up my tail!

• Slippery Skid: Used as part of Bug's finishing gambit.
• This Means War: Quoted by Bugs when he is first attacked by Toro.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Both combatants have a bad habit of indulging in this a little too soon.
• Visual Pun: The end curtain, which covers up Toro's behind.
• Wheel-O-Feet: Toro, basically, during any of his charges.
• Writer Revolt: The reason the cartoon was made. Though it was justified, because, as writer Michael Maltese said, "Eddie's never been right before..."
• Wrong Turn At Albuquerque