"A Tasmanian Devil escapes from the zoo and gets adopted by Bugs, who is convinced that the beast is really just a dog."
"Devil Dog" isn't that bad, if anything it's a good mixture of comedy that only continues to poke at the original cartoon shorts from time to time. The good aspect here is that the show nicely adds the Tasmanian Devil into the cast of the characters for this show. The bad news is....he's a pet who actually listens to Bugs.
If there was ever a time that showed the writers have no intention of being completely truthful to the characters they are working with, it would be right here in this episode. The Tasmanian Devil was always characterized in the classic shorts as a hungry beast who went after many of the different Looney Tunes characters. Here in this show, Tasmanian is just a angry monster who occasionally eats things. Thankfully, Tasmanian still remains to be full of laughs with his many attacks on Daffy.
I really do feel like the writers really held back their characters by changing their characterizations though. If Bugs was more witty and less oblivious to the fact that he adopted a wild animal, I can imagine this episode being hilarious. Bugs and Tasmanian had so many conflicts in the cartoon shorts that it seems so wrong to make them befriend each other in this show. It's bad enough that this episode ends with Tasmanian literally becoming a house pet and nothing more.
Don't get me wrong, I did think the friendship between Bugs and Tasmanian was rather heartwarming. I just also feel like that kind of bond is just asking for worse ideas to happen. Next thing you'll know we will see Bugs and Elmer Fudd becoming best friends out of nowhere. There are some boundaries the writers shouldn't jump over, and this relationship is one of them.
