(Blooper) Bunny

(Blooper) Bunny
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Airdate:	13 June 1997
Series:	Merrie Melodies
Production Number:	255178
Starring:	Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Elmer Fudd Yosemite Sam
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Jeff Bergman Gordon Hunt
Director:	Greg Ford Terry Lennon
Written By:	Ronnie Scheib Greg Ford Terry Lennon
Producer:	Greg Ford Christopher Walsh (Associate Producer) Veronica Chiarito (Supervising Producer)
Animated By:	Nancy Beiman Russell Calabrese Doug Compton Frank Gabriel Bob McKnight Nelson Rhodes Larry Ruppel Louis Tate Dean Yeagle
Assistant Animators:	Kevin Brownie Ed Cerullo Ed Klein Jeff LaFlamme Levi Louis George McClements Roger Mejia Juan Sanchez Dick Williams
Effects Animation:	Don Poynter
Ink and Paint:	Marilyn Carrington (supervisor) Sharon Alasheimer Ann Barrett Eva Bloom Susan Burgos Amber Chiarito Ann Stein Decker Mary Grant Edna Jacobs Richard Laslo Stella Loguirato Deborah Lomax Elizabeth Olivier
Layout Artist:	Michael Wisniewski
Background Artist:	Cotty Kilbanks Kimball Miskoe
Film Editor:	Jim Champin Frank Raciti
Camera Operator:	George Davis
Sound Effects:	Frank Raciti
Musician:	George Daugherty

(Blooper) Bunny is a 1997 Merrie Melodies short directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon.

Plot

After a special 51½ Anniversary Celebration of Bugs Bunny, what happened earlier that day is shown, with a backstage look at Bugs, Daffy, Yosemite Sam, and Elmer Fudd (featuring 3D rendering of the scenery). They attempt a performance, which results in a series of animated "bloopers."

1. Bugs Bunny begins to dance, but the music is slightly out of tune and skips like a broken record. He then dryly looks at the camera and says his trademark phrase, "What's up, Doc?" The director and producers laugh as Bugs walks off stage. He then peeks back in to say, "Monotonous, isn't it?", which gets the director and producers saying, "CUT!" while a bleep plays after he is swiped.
2. Bugs stops the music midway through dancing, as a result of noticing a loose floorboard on the stage. He then suggests moving the action back and readjusting the camera.
3. Bugs comes out of the curtain, but he is distracted when the cane flies out after the music stops; otherwise, he failed to catch it.
4. The cane is thrown before Bugs is ready to catch it, much to his annoyance.
5. After Bugs enters the stage, he is distracted by the cane and loses it, in which Daffy Duck refuses to throw it to him. According to Daffy, his contract says that he is not supposed to throw canes to rabbits, resulting in the director reluctantly agreeing to have someone else throw it in Daffy's place.
6. Daffy enters the stage at the exact time that Bugs does, claiming that he thought that it was the best improvement as he walks away, only to bump his head on the boom mike.
7. Daffy does not come on stage when he is supposed to. While Bugs, the director, and the producers wait, Daffy is heard telling them to wait, followed by the sound of a toilet flushing. As Daffy then rushes onto the stage, the director yells "Cut! CUT! CUT!!"
8. Elmer Fudd fires a real gun as opposed to a prop. Bugs scolds him, but Elmer responds that he thought that it would be "a gweat, big birthday surpwise" if he finally shot Bugs "after 51½ years of twying." Daffy starts yelling at Elmer for using a real gun instead of a prop gun and neglects Bugs' insistence on cutting. He then walks away as he tells Elmer to expect his lawyers to call him and gets struck in the face by the loose board Bugs had noticed by accident, with the board going through his beak. When Bugs asks if they can cut now, Daffy says, "You smug son of a--" and is then cut off.
9. Daffy dances onto the stage with the board still smashed into his face. When he pulls it off, he yanks his beak off as well in the process, but continues speaking, failing to notice it.
10. Everything plays out correctly until Yosemite Sam emerges from the cake frowning. The director instructs him to act cheerful for the next take. He then goes back into the cake mumbling "But I hates rabbits."
11. The spectacular performance is done perfectly, except for one thing, as Bugs puts it - there were supposed to be five rockets. A fifth rocket attached to Sam's belt sends him flying about before crashing into the camera. He then yells at Bugs, calling him a "carrot-chomping flop-eared bobtailed rabbit", along with his usual cursing, which lasts throughout the credits, before being knocked-out by an unseen glass object. Bugs then suggests that what had just happened be taken out in the editing before one of the producers asks "Can we go to lunch now?"

Caricatures

• Jerry Colonna - "Monotonous, isn't it?"

Production

"(Blooper) Bunny" was produced at a time when newer Looney Tunes shorts were being released to introduce the Warner cartoon characters to a younger, more modern generation — a process that, thanks to the tepid reception of 2003's Looney Tunes Back in Action, was discontinued for some time from 2004 to 2009 (and is said to be the reason why Cartoon Network has stopped airing classic Warner Bros shorts). The film was animated using a combination of both new computer technology and traditional cels — a first for a Warner Bros. cartoon — with three-dimensional rendering distorting the background in the "backstage" scenes to give the appearance of a handi-cam being used. The first "backstage" scene in the film, a sequence that goes on for nearly a minute and a half without a cut, is, according to co-director Greg Ford, one of the single longest uninterrupted shots ever attempted in animated cartoons.

The short features several direct references to some of the previous output of Warner Bros. animation department. During the first, aforementioned "backstage" scene, the name of Bosko, the first true Looney Tunes star, can be seen on one of the dressing room doors for a few frames. Midway through the film, there is also a deliberate homage to the "Hunting Trilogy" made by Chuck Jones, of whom Ford reportedly holds great admiration. Additionally, during the end credits, an instrumental rendition of "Hello My Baby", the theme song of "One Froggy Evening" and the Michigan J. Frog character, another Chuck Jones creation, plays.

Rediscovery

"(Blooper) Bunny" is a self-parody of some of the specials produced for Bugs Bunny's 50th anniversary the previous year, 1990. The short, however, never received its intended theatrical release and was shelved for several years. Albeit "one of the things the studio apparently disliked was the sound of a toilet flushing", critics speculate the true reason for the film's initial suppression was Daffy's rant towards the beginning of the cartoon, in which he is overheard lamenting his role and complaining that "Warner Bros. doesn't have an original bone in its [body]", while making a backward crack at Disney by claiming: "The next thing you know they'll stick me with three snot-nosed nephews" (a la Donald Duck). Jonathan Rosenbaum, in a review for Chicago Reader, noted: "Ironically, Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers, another Bugs Bunny cartoon directed at the same time by the same rebellious duo, Greg Ford and Terry Lennon, is even more directly critical of studio greed, yet it got a pass and wound up in the TV special Bugs Bunny's Creature Features, perhaps because it was less formally transgressive."

"(Blooper) Bunny" would not receive a television premiere until 1997, after Cartoon Network discovered the film sitting unseen in the vaults. During the years since its rediscovery, the cartoon has garnered a tremendous cult following among animation fans because of its edgy humor, Chicago Reader and is featured on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1, along with an optional audio commentary by co-director Greg Ford.

Jules Faber, in a review for DVD.net, lauded the cartoon as a "highlight" and elaborated further: "Blooper Bunny: Bugs Bunny’s 51½ Anniversary is a clever little blooper reel created in 1991 and utilizing some brilliantly conceived early 3D rendering making a very funny behind the scenes mockumentary." Chicago Reader also gave the film a positive mention, saying:

Much of what's funny about "(Blooper) Bunny" is the temperament of the aging cast: Bugs rehearsing his opening line, "Gosh, I'm so unimportant," over and over; Elmer still trying to grow hair with tonic; Daffy insanely jealous about being upstaged and threatening to have "my people" talk to "your people"; and Sam grouchily declaring as he's being forklifted onstage that he couldn't care less how old Bugs is — he still hates rabbits.

Dawn Taylor, in a review for The DVD Journal, said: "It has some very funny moments, and falls completely flat in others."

Availability

(2003) DVD
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1, Disc One

(2003) DVD
Looney Tunes Collection Best of Bugs Bunny

(2010) DVD
3 Spooky DVD Treats

(2020) DVD
Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny Golden Carrot Collection, Disc 1

(2020) Blu-ray
Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection, Disc 3 (restored)

Streaming

HBO Max (2020) (restored) (removed)

Censorship

The version shown on the former WB network as part of its Kids' WB! line-up has two edits:

• Daffy getting smacked with the board (after ranting about Elmer using a real gun instead of a prop one and walking off the set in a rage) had his line "You smug son of a --" before the camera cuts off edited down to "You smug --". This was not censored when aired on Cartoon Network or Boomerang, despite both channels editing mild swearing in such shorts as "The Rebel Without Claws" and "I Was a Teenage Thumb".
• The entire end credits with Yosemite Sam ranting after the failed firework stunt and Bugs munching a carrot and saying to the camera that everything that happened will be fixed in editing.

Notes

• The short was originally produced in 1991 by Warner Bros. Animation.
• The short is a parody of some of the specials produced for Bugs Bunny's 50th anniversary the previous year.
• The short was originally scheduled to be released with Rover Dangerfield; however, the short never received its intended theatrical release, and was shelved for several years. It was finally given a television premiere on June 13, 1997, after Cartoon Network discovered the film sitting in the vaults (although, according to the "Censorship" notes, it has aired edited on The WB, it could have aired following Cartoon Network's discovery of the short and not prior to it).
• During the years since its rediscovery, the cartoon has garnered a huge cult following among animation fans because of its edgy humor.
• The music playing in the Bugs Bunny's 51½ Anniversary Celebration is "Untitled Soft Shoe Number", an original music score by Carl Stalling previously played in the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons "Stage Door Cartoon" and "Hot Cross Bunny".
• Among the star doors for Bugs, Elmer, and Sam shown before the bloopers, there is also a door for Bosko. His name is shown on one of the dressing room doors for a few frames, but very briefly. Despite the fact that WB did not have the rights to Bosko at the time.
  • There is also a door for another character, but their name is never shown fully on screen. Their name ends with either the letters "ody" or "ddy"; it could potentially be for Buddy.
• In blooper #8, if one looks closely at the two guns that Elmer uses, the "real gun" is noticeably given shading, hence giving an almost three-dimensional quality, in contrast to the "prop gun" which is drawn with flat colors.
• This is one of the only two Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts to have a post-credits scene, the other one being "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers" produced the following year.
• To date, this is the final short released under the Merrie Melodies banner.

Gallery

Bosko's studio door

Eh... [munches on a carrot] Maybe we can fix it in the editing.

Credits

Key Assistant: Michael Wisniewski

Xerox: Chris Carrington

Animation Checking: Rose Eng

Production Manager: Bill Exter