Beanstalk Bunny is a 1955 Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones.
Plot[]
Daffy Duck, in the role of Jack trades out a "grade-A homogenized Holstein cow" for beans. An annoyed Daffy throws the beans away, where they land right into Bugs Bunny's rabbit hole. A beanstalk erupts shortly after, and Daffy starts to climb it. During his climb, he meets Bugs, who gets up from his slumber in bed, and selfishly kicks him away, not wanting him to interfere on his treasure hunt. Wanting revenge on Daffy for rudely disturbing his slumber, kicking him off the beanstalk and destroying his bed, Bugs comments "I don't remember any rabbit in Jack and the Beanstalk, but there's gonna be one in this one!"
Meanwhile, Daffy reaches the top of beanstalk, excited about stealing the fortune that the giant's castle holds, until he meets the giant himself, who turns out to be Elmer Fudd. Daffy's excitement turns into fear and he runs from the giant just as Bugs reaches the top. As Elmer closes in on the duo, Elmer attempts to get Bugs, but Bugs tells the giant to get Daffy instead, because Daffy is playing as Jack. Daffy frantically tries to pass this off as a lie, and that Bugs is a jackrabbit and he is Aloysius. Elmer captures both of them and takes them to his castle, where he traps Bugs and Daffy under a glass cake cover so that he could grind their bones to make bread. However, they manage to escape because Bugs has a glass cutter with him.
Elmer pursues the escaped animal duo, as the two heads to a mouse trap. Bugs tries to "hide" in it, but Daffy pushes him off and gets snapped by the trap. The two runs off into a pair of champagne corks and lands inside a coat. When Elmer fishes the two out, they run inside his ears and collide into each other near Elmer's eyes. Elmer attempts to smoke the two out with a cigarette, but they both blow out the match from inside the cigarette. Elmer squeezes the cigarette to get the two out. Bugs and Daffy tickles Elmer by jumping inside of his shirt before they escape from his footwear. Elmer continues chasing the two, but Bugs trips the giant with his feet, stunning Elmer.
Bugs decides to go home before the giant wakes. However, the greedy Daffy decides to stay so that he can steal from the giant. As Bugs is running towards the beanstalk, he comes across Elmer's carrot garden, ready to be eaten. As a very full Bugs is resting with a huge stomach under a half-eaten giant carrot at night, he wonders what became of Daffy, who has been caught by giant Elmer and locked inside his pocket watch, pointing to numbers with his wings like the minute and hour hands and proclaiming, "Heh, it's a living."
Availability[]
Daffy Duck: The Nuttiness Continues...
Daffy Duck: The Nuttiness Continues...
Hare Beyond Compare: 14 More Bugs Bunny Classics
Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck (2003)
Looney Tunes Collector's Choice: Volume 1 (restored)
Looney Tunes Collector's Choice: Volumes 1-4
Streaming[]
Censorship[]
- The scene of Elmer sticking corks in his ears and trying to get Bugs and Daffy out of his head by smoking a cigarette was cut on CBS in the 1970s and 1980s, although he still says "Come on out of there, or I'll smoke you out!".
- ABC, which usually edits for tobacco smoking, left this scene uncut, as shown in the September 29, 1990 airing of The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show.
- Cartoon Network initially aired "Beanstalk Bunny" uncut, but, between 2003 and 2010, alternated between airing an uncut version that had the smoking part and an edited version that excluded it. In contrast to CBS cutting the scene after Elmer's line "Come on out of there, or I'll smoke you out!", Cartoon Network's version cut from Daffy yelling at Bugs when the two are inside Elmer's head to Daffy and Bugs diving into Elmer's shirt. Since 2011, Cartoon Network has aired it uncut, and it now airs uncut on Boomerang and MeTV.
Notes[]
- The short's premise is a parody of the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk, while mixing in elements from Chuck Jones' successful hunting trilogy formula featuring Bugs, Daffy and Elmer from the early-1950s, where Elmer portrays the mean giant from the Jack and the Beanstalk story and attempts to hunt Bugs, only to often be directed to instead target Daffy after Bugs tells the confused giant Elmer that the Giant of the story is after Jack, not rabbits, and Daffy indeed is Jack.
- Coincidentally, all four Bugs/Daffy/Elmer cartoons are written by Michael Maltese, who also wrote "Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk", another Bugs Bunny cartoon that parodies the same Jack and the Beanstalk story by Friz Freleng 12 years earlier.
- The scene where Bugs uses a glass cutter to escape giant Elmer's clutches is reused from "Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk", another Bugs Bunny cartoon that parodies the same Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale. Coincidentally, both Beanstalk Bunny and Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk are written by Michael Maltese.
- Even though this is a Merrie Melodie, the lobby cards call it a Looney Tune.
- The Laserdisc print uses incorrect opening rendition, being the 1955-64 opening rendition of "Merrily We Roll Along" by Milt Franklyn, instead of the 1945-55 opening music, although the 1941-55 ending music is retained.
- MeTV aired this short 4 January 2021 on Toon In with Me, making it the first short to be shown on Toon In with Me. The airing appears unrestored.
- Despite the short being restored for Blu-ray in 2023, subsequent MeTV and MeTV Toons airings still show the cartoon in the unrestored 80s Golden Jubilee VHS transfer, as WB did not send out the new HD restoration to Weigel Broadcasting.
- This is the first short where Keith Darling gets credit.
- This is also the first short where Darling animates outside Robert McKimson's unit.
- The ending where Bugs feasts on giant carrots could possibly be a reference to "Lumber Jack-Rabbit", the rabbit's only cartoon produced in 3-D, where Bugs attempts to feed on Paul Bunyan's giant carrots. Coincidentally, both Beanstalk Bunny and Lumber-Jack Rabbit are written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones.
Gallery[]
_-_Title_Credits.jpg "Beanstalk Bunny (1955) - Title Credits.jpg (575 KB)")
_-_Giant.jpg "Beanstalk Bunny (1955) - Giant.jpg (380 KB)")
TV Title Cards[]
