A Wild Hare is a 1940 Merrie Melodies short directed by Tex Avery.
Title[]
The title is a play on "a wild hair", the first of many puns between "hare" and "hair" that would appear in Bugs Bunny titles. The pun is carried further by a bar of "I'm Just Wild About Harry" playing in the underscore of the opening credits.
Plot[]
Elmer approaches one of Bugs' holes, puts down a carrot, and hides behind a tree. Bugs' arm reaches out of the hole, feels around, and snatches the carrot. He reaches out again and finds the business end of Elmer's shotgun. His arm quickly pops back into the hole before returning to drop the eaten stub of Elmer's carrot before apologetically caressing the end of the barrel. Elmer shoves his gun into Bugs' hole, with a tug of war resulting in the barrel being bent into a pretzel.
Elmer frantically digs into the hole while Bugs emerges from a nearby hole with another carrot in his hand. He lifts Fudd's hat and raps the top of his head until Elmer notices, then chews his carrot a bit before delivering his definitive line, "What's up, Doc?" Elmer explains that he's hunting "wabbits", and Bugs chews his carrot while asking what a wabbit is. Bugs teases Elmer by displaying every aspect of Fudd's rabbit description until Elmer begins suspecting that Bugs is a rabbit, saying to the audience "You know, I beweive this fella is an R-A-B-B-I-T." Bugs draws Fudd close and says, "Listen, Doc, don't spread this around, but, uh... confidentially..." before yelling "I AM A 'WABBIT'!" (a variation of Mischa Auer's line "Confidentially, she stinks" from 1938's You Can't Take It with You, a then-well-known catchphrase used in other Warner Brothers cartoons).
Bugs hides behind a tree, then sneaks up behind Elmer, covers his eyes and asks "Guess who?" Elmer tries the names of contemporary screen beauties whose names exploited his accent: "Hedy Wamaw" for Hedy Lamarr, "Cawowe Wombawd" for Carole Lombard, "Wosemawy Wane" for Rosemary Lane, and "Owivia de Haviwand" for Olivia de Havilland, before he arrives at "Say, you wouldn't be that scwewy wabbit, would you?" Bugs responds "Hmm..... Could be!", kisses Elmer, and dives into a hole. Elmer sticks his head into the hole and gets another kiss from Bugs, so wet that Elmer needs to wipe his mouth for a bit before deciding to set a trap. Bugs puts a skunk in the trap and Elmer assumes that he's caught the rabbit. Fudd blindly grabs the skunk and carries it over to the watching Bugs to brag to the bunny about how he outsmarted him. As Elmer comprehends the situation, Bugs gives him a smooch on the nose. Fudd looks at the skunk, who winks and nudges Elmer while saying "Confidentially... uh, hmm, you know..." Fudd winces and gingerly sends the skunk on his way.
Bugs then offers to let Elmer have a free shot at him. After Elmer fires, Bugs fakes an elaborate heart attack death scene and plays dead, leaving Elmer sobbing. Bugs then sneaks up behind the despairing Fudd, kicks him in his rear, shoves a cigar into his mouth, and tiptoes away, ballet-style.
Finally, the frustrated Elmer, driven to distraction by the rabbit's antics, walks away sobbing about "wabbits, cawwots, guns", etc. Bugs asides to the audience, "Can ya imagine anybody acting like that? Ya know, I think the poor guy's screwy!" Bugs then begins to play his carrot like a fife, playing the tune "The Girl I Left Behind Me", and marches with one stiff leg towards his rabbit hole, as with the fifer in the painting The Spirit of '76.
Caricatures[]
- Artie Auerbach - as his character Mr. Kitzel, "Mm, could be."
- Mischa Auer - "Confidentially, you know..."
Production[]
- Bugs' nonchalant carrot-chewing stance, as explained many years later by Chuck Jones, and again by Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett, comes from the movie It Happened One Night, from a scene where Peter Warne (played by Clark Gable) is leaning against a fence eating carrots more quickly than he is swallowing (as Bugs would later often do), giving instructions with his mouth full to Ellie Andrews (played by Claudette Colbert), during the hitch-hiking sequence. This scene was so famous at the time that most people immediately got the connection.[4][5]
- The line "What's up, Doc?" was added by director Tex Avery for this short. Avery explained later that it was a common expression in Texas where he was from, and he didn't think much of the phrase. But when this short was screened in theaters, the scene of Bugs calmly chewing a carrot, followed by the nonchalant "What's Up, Doc?", went against any 1940s audience's expectation of how a rabbit might react to a hunter and caused complete pandemonium in the audience, bringing down the house in every theater. Because of the overwhelming reaction, Bugs eats a carrot and utters some version of the phrase in almost every one of his cartoons after that, sometimes entirely out of context as compared to this original use.[6]
Availability[]
(Associated Artists Productions print)
Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals: Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd Cartoon Festival Featuring “Wabbit Twouble” (unrestored, Blue Ribbon)
Bugs Bunny: Superstar
Bugs Bunny: Superstar
Bugs Bunny Collection: Here Comes Bugs (Blue Ribbon)
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 1 (Blue Ribbon print)
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vol. 2: Firsts (Blue Ribbon)
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 4 (unrestored, original titles)
Bumper Edition (Woolworths Exclusive)
Torrid Zone (1995 dubbed version)
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3, Disc 2, through the What's Up Doc? A Salute to Bugs Bunny documentary
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, Disc 1, through Bugs Bunny Superstar (1995 dubbed version)
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection (restored)
The Essential Bugs Bunny, Disc 1 (restored)
Bugs Bunny Superstar (restored)
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, Disc 1 (restored)
Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection, Disc 1 (restored)
Streaming[]
Censorship[]
- In the original version, during Bugs' game of "Guess Who?" with Elmer, Elmer's second guess was "Carole Lombard." (Carole Lombard was a blond, comic actress of the 1930s and 1940s who died in a plane crash in 1942). In the re-release of this short, "Carole Lombard" was replaced with "Barbara Stanwyck" (who was still alive at the time of the rerelease). The "Barbara Stanwyck" version is the one shown a lot on American television (mostly in syndication and on the Ted Turner-owned networks TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, and Boomerang) and most home video, LaserDisc, and DVD releases. The original "Carole Lombard" version was thought to be lost forever, until it appeared on TNT's 1990 special What's Up, Doc? A Salute to Bugs Bunny. However, the "Carole Lombard" version was not given a home video release until years later, as part of The Golden Age of Looney Tunes: Volume 4 LaserDisc, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection and The Essential Bugs Bunny DVDs and the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection, Volume 2 Blu-ray. The "Carole Lombard" version is also available on the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection Blu-ray and is currently streaming on both the Boomerang app and Max.
Goofs[]
- When Elmer is about to come out of Bugs' home, his eyes were not colored in a single frame.
- Throughout the cartoon, Elmer's nose is pink. When Elmer is hiding behind a tree waiting for Bugs to trigger the rabbit trap, his nose is the color of his skin.
Notes[]
- When this short was re-released as a Blue Ribbon, the title was changed to "The Wild Hare".
- Although the official release date of this short is listed as 27 July 1940, it was reportedly out in theaters as early as 23 July.[7]
- After the cartoon was re-released, a 16mm Eastmancolor print of the original titles was later found in ownership by a private collector. It was present in Bugs Bunny: Superstar, What's Up Doc? A Salute to Bugs Bunny and The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, although with the opening theme incorrectly replaced with the 1941-45 rendition of "Merrily We Roll Along".[8] When the cartoon was restored with its original titles for Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection, the print sourced had a splice during the shield zoom, so the rings were recreated with the ones from "A Gander at Mother Goose", resulting in the incorrect WB shield being used in the opening sequence. In addition, part of the opening title cue (immediately after the shield zooms) resembles the beginning of the closing title cue due to this recreation.
- It is currently the first known cartoon to use the 1940-42 Warner Bros. shield, which would be used up to "The Bird Came C.O.D.".
- "A Wild Hare" is credited by many film historians to be the first "official" Bugs Bunny short.[9][10] Various directors at the Warner Bros cartoon studio had been experimenting with cartoons focused on a hunter pursuing a rabbit since 1938, with varied approaches to the characters of both rabbit and hunter.[11]
- Although the animators continued to experiment with Elmer's design for a few more years, his look here proved the basis for his finalized design.[4]
- This is the only Elmer Fudd cartoon directed by Tex Avery after Elmer's redesign.
- Elmer Fudd's character design in Looney Tunes Cartoons is based off his design from this short.
- Bugs is unnamed in this short, but would be named for the first time in his next short, "Elmer's Pet Rabbit", directed by Chuck Jones. The opening lines of both characters—"Be vewy, vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits" for Elmer, and "Eh, what's up Doc?" for the rabbit—would become catchphrases throughout the other shorts.
- The short was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons.[12] Another nominee was "Puss Gets the Boot" (the first Tom and Jerry cartoon), directed by William Hanna and produced by Rudolf Ising. Both nominations lost to "The Milky Way", another MGM Rudolf Ising production.
- The design and character of Bugs Bunny would continue to be refined over the subsequent years, but the general appearance, voice, and personality of the character were established in this cartoon. An animator of this cartoon, Virgil Ross, gave his first-person account of the creation of the character's name and personality in an interview published in Animato! Magazine, #19 (1989).[13]
- This and "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt" were the only Bugs Bunny shorts that ended up in the a.a.p. package to be reissued as Blue Ribbons[14] (excluding cartoons which Bugs makes cameo appearances such as "Odor-able Kitty" and "The Goofy Gophers"). This is because WB started making theaters pay more to show Bugs Bunny cartoons (excluding reissues) than other WB cartoons.
- An in-between frame of Bugs turning around after screaming in Elmer's ear became an internet meme around June 2020, under the name "Communist Bugs Bunny".[15]
- On July 27, 2024, Warner Bros. Classics YouTube channel livestreamed the original 1940 theatrical version of the short, complete with the original titles and the original "Carole Lombard" line, on repeat for 24 hours straight to celebrate Bugs Bunny's 84th birthday.[16]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries
- ↑ (3 October 2022) Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2 (in en). BearManor Media, page 84.
- ↑ https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2015/07/hes-75.html
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "A Wild Hare" trivia at the Internet Movie Database.
- ↑ It Happened One Night film review by Tim Dirks, Filmsite.org.
- ↑ Adamson, Joe (1975). Tex Avery: King of Cartoons, New York: De Capo Press.
- ↑ https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2023/07/confidentially.html
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KY8DZNaOcw
- ↑ Barrier, Michael (2003), Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516729-0
- ↑ Adamson, Joe (1990). Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Grey Hare. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 978-0-8050-1190-6
- ↑ Blanc, Mel; Bashe, Philip (1988). That's Not All, Folks!. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-39089-5 (Softcover), ISBN 0-446-51244-3 (Hardcover)
- ↑ 1940 academy awards. Retrieved on 2007-09-20.
- ↑ "Termite Terrace Tenancy: Virgil Ross remembers".
- ↑ http://betterlivingtv.blogspot.com/2013/08/blue-ribbon-blues.html
- ↑ https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/communist-bugs-bunny
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi6hJpmYZao&ab_channel=WarnerBros.Classics
| Preceded by Elmer's Candid Camera |
Bugs Bunny Cartoons 1940 |
Succeeded by Elmer's Pet Rabbit |