What’s Opera, Doc?

animated film by Jones [1957]

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July 22, 2026

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"What's Opera, Doc?" is a 1957 animated short film directed by Chuck Jones as part of the Looney Tunes series. This film is celebrated for its masterful condensation of Richard Wagner's epic Ring cycle into a six-minute musical parody. It features Bugs Bunny as the Valkyrie Brünnhilde and Elmer Fudd as the hunter, with Fudd repeatedly attempting to "kill the wabbit". The short is renowned for its sophisticated humor, animation, and use of classical music, becoming a landmark in animated filmmaking. It was recognized for its cultural significance and added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1992.12

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Bugs Bunny
What’s Opera, Doc? (1957)—an animated masterpiece which cast Bugs and Elmer Fudd in the roles of Brunhild and Siegfried in a hilariously tweaked adaptation of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung—was the first cartoon short to be inducted into the National Film Registry of…
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What’s Opera, Doc? (1957)—an animated masterpiece which cast Bugs and Elmer Fudd in the roles of Brunhild and Siegfried in a hilariously tweaked adaptation of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung—was the first cartoon short to be inducted into the National Film Registry of…
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Chuck Jones
…involving a singing frog; and What’s Opera, Doc? (1957), a brilliant compression of Richard Wagner’s 14-hour The Ring of the Nibelung into six minutes. Jones is also noted for such daring minimalist efforts as High Note (1960), featuring animated musical notes, and The Dot and the Line (1965), the tale…
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…involving a singing frog; and What’s Opera, Doc? (1957), a brilliant compression of Richard Wagner’s 14-hour The Ring of the Nibelung into six minutes. Jones is also noted for such daring minimalist efforts as High Note (1960), featuring animated musical notes, and The Dot and the Line (1965), the tale…
Read More