Arriving at the theater where he and Bugs are appearing, Daffy is furious to discover that the rabbit's name on the marquee is above his in much larger letters. Rebuffed by the unseen manager's claim that he gives his performers billing "according to drawing power", Daffy is determined to prove that he is the star of the show.
That evening, Bugs and Daffy are performing an on-stage number to "Tea for Two". Daffy, tired of Bugs hogging up all the cheering and applause, and convinced he is more talented, decides to try numerous numbers on his own in order to impress the audience. He begins on the spot with a time step to "Jeepers Creepers". After failing to impress the audience, Daffy attempts to perform a trained Pigeon act. But the pigeons fly out causing Daffy to dance off the stage, when he looks back he is hit with a tomato. Bugs does a sawing-in-half trick; Daffy volunteers in hopes of proving that the trick is fake, but ends up literally sawed in half. Daffy attempts to sabotage Bugs' xylophone act by rigging it to explode when a certain note is played, but Bugs avoids the trap by deliberately playing the final note wrong twice forcing Daffy to do it himself and receive the explosion. In a final attempt to impress the audience while Bugs is Juggling, Daffy in a red Devil's costume performs a deadly stunt, by drinking a portion of gasoline, some nitroglycerin, a good amount of gunpowder, and some Uranium-238, "shake well", and swallowing a lit match, causing him to explode. The audience applauds the act, an impressed Bugs says they want more, but Daffy replies that he "can only do it once".
Production notes
The basic setting and conflicts of Show Biz Bugs were reprised for the linking footage for the television seriesThe Bugs Bunny Show. Show Biz Bugs was also re-worked as the climax of The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie. According to the audio commentary on the second Golden Collection set, the song "The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady" was intended to be used during the sequence where Daffy showcases some trained birds. A pre-score recording was produced, but was not used in the final cartoon. Other pre-score music included slightly longer versions of both "Tea for Two" and "Jeepers Creepers". This would be the second to last Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoon Friz Freleng would direct with his musical methods and techniques. The xylophone gag was previously used in the Private Snafu short Booby Traps and the Bugs/Yosemite Sam short Ballot Box Bunny, only in both cases the instrument used was a piano. The song used in each case, as in Show Biz Bugs, is "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms". The final act and the pigeon circus had been used in an earlier Porky Pig cartoon called Curtain Razor in which a fox does the same act Daffy does attempting to show Porky he is a star, and, much like Show Biz Bugs, the final act in Curtain Razor has been edited on Cartoon Network to remove him ingesting gasoline.
Reception
In a commentary by Greg Ford, he cites that the short contains some of Warren Foster's "best gags as a writer". Ford also described it as "a definitive Bugs/Daffy showbiz rivalry cartoon".
Availability
Show Biz Bugs is available on the ' DVD set, the ' Blu-ray set, disc 1, and The Essential Bugs Bunny DVD set, disc 1. It is also available on the "A Salute to Friz Freleng" VHS, the Superior Duck VHS, and the "Looney Tunes: Curtin Calls" laserdisc.
