Freaktana
A Major Disappointment
Adeel Hail
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
TheLittleSongbird
Rabbit's Kin is an amusing if unexceptional Bugs Bunny cartoon. The storyline is mediocre mostly, Shorty is cute but he does have an irritating voice as well and the pacing was a little too quick. That said, it is amusing, with some amusing sight gags like Pete Pumas's semi-dance and some razor sharp dialogue. The animation is vibrant and colourful, and the character designs are excellent, and the music is lovely to the ears. Shorty aside, the characters are fine. Bugs is great here, a little underplayed compared to other times I have seen him, but Mel Blanc voices him marvellously. My favourite character though was Pete, he was absolutely hilarious and quite likable, with a scream/howl that you just love to imitate with a brilliant vocal performance from Stan Freberg. Overall, not absolutely superb, but definitely worth the watch. 7/10 Bethany Cox
Michael_Elliott
Rabbit's Kin (1952) *** 1/2 (out of 4) The dimwitted Pete Puma (a lion) chases a baby rabbit into a hole not knowing that Bugs Bunny lives there. Of course Bugs has a few tricks up his sleeve to teach the dumb lion. This is yet another classic entry in the series that manages to be very funny even though I can't stand one of the characters. The film's biggest weakness to me is the young rabbit who I just find too annoying to really be entertained by him. Outside of that this short offers up many laughs and a lot of the credit has to go to the Puma character. The dumbness of this character is top notch and the running joke involving lumps are priceless. The ending with Puma giving himself lumps is hysterical as are many of the teaching methods of Bugs.
Mightyzebra
I really enjoyed "Rabbit's Kin," mainly for the cute little rabbit (who is completely ununderstandable and painful for many ears), Bugs Bunny and Pete Puma, even though he is a little annoying and the animation is good. I also liked the humour - usually I find repetitive humour very irritating and it often puts me off the thing I am watching, but in this case I did not mind! Pete Puma is a good character, almost as likable as Elmer Fudd, but I would not give the tea leaves in my china teapot to see all his other episodes (if he has any more). He is surprisingly stupid, even more so than many of the the characters that Bugs Bunny is paired with.In this episode, we see a little brown bunny rabbit with big eyes, running away from something or other. He bumps into Bugs Bunny and tells him that a puma is trying to catch and eat him (here Bugs Bunny seems to be some kind of linguist, as he understands the baby bunny, yet no-one else understands him). We also meet Pete Puma, the puma trying to hunt the little brown rabbit...I recommend this episode to people who like Bugs Bunny and people who like repetitive cartoons (and even to some people who do not!). Enjoy "Rabbit's Kin"! :-)
phantom_tollbooth
Robert McKimson's 'Rabbit's Kin' is an extremely memorable cartoon entirely because of the villain, Pete Puma. A popular character despite the fact that he only appeared in this cartoon (he was later revived as the Looniversity janitor on 'Tiny Toon Adventures'), Pete Puma is hilariously voiced by Stan Freberg. Freberg's unique voice characterisation is at once hysterically funny and somewhat disturbing. Pete Puma sounds like a desperate junkie searching for his next fix. Bugs' heckling in this cartoon is distinctly underwhelming, based entirely around the old "How many lumps do you want?" gag but this marginalisation of Bugs seems to be entirely intentional in order to throw the spotlight more prominently on the frighteningly odd antics of Pete Puma. Once experienced, Stan Freberg's unique vocal performance will be with you forever. Just witness the horrendously troubling drag scene for proof! All in all, 'Rabbit's Kin' could have been a dull cartoon if it weren't for its bizarre one shot villain. As a script, it would read as lacklustre. As a performance piece, its fantastic.
