Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection (2020)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Hard Wabbit to Break

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Bugs Bunny is one of the greatest and most enduring animated characters, ever. He's a guy we all want to be, cool under pressure, with no end of silly one-liners, and able to stand up to any bully and look good doing it. While Bugs and Looney Tunes cartoons have been released in many forms and collections throughout the years, the only high-definition Blu-rays have been the three Platinum Collections. While these have a prominent place in my collection, they are a hodgepodge, a seemingly random, scattershot assembly of cartoons in seemingly no particular order. If you're looking for something specific, the masterpiece What's Opera, Doc? (1953), say, it's pretty hard to find.

That's one reason why the 3-disc Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection is one of the year's most exciting Blu-ray releases. It contains sixty theatrical cartoons (20 per disc), remastered in the proper aspect ratio, and running in chronological order, from Elmer's Candid Camera (1940) — wherein Bugs doesn't even have a name yet — to False Hare (1964), and then, finally, Blooper Bunny (1991). (The latter is a spoof of behind-the-scenes featurettes, apparently "filmed" at Bugs's 51st-and-a-Half Anniversary Spectacular.) Bonuses include a documentary and 10 episodes of Looney Tunes Cartoons. The box comes packed with a full-size glitter Funko figure of Bugs, and a letter from noted animation historian Jerry Beck.