Duck! Rabbit, Duck! is a 1953 Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones.
Plot[]
It is January, and Daffy Duck tears down and burns several "Duck Season" signs to keep warm and to stave off the threat of being hunted, stating that he is a duck bent on self preservation. Elmer Fudd is on the hunt nearby, singing to himself "A-Hunting I Will Go." He states that he is a red hot sportsman after wild game. He notices a sign signifying that it is really Rabbit Season. Elmer, determined for some rabbit stew, follows the trail towards a burrow where Bugs Bunny lives. Daffy reaches the burrow and calls to Bugs for a cup of blackstrap molasses before scooting off. After Bugs comes out with the mug full of blackstrap molasses, Elmer fires a round on Bugs' position, damaging the mug and spilling the molasses on the snow. Elmer runs forward, with Bugs stating he did not think that molasses would run in January. Elmer prods his rifle onto Bugs's head, knocking the mug out of the rabbit's hand. Bugs asks if Elmer is looking for trouble, and convinces him that he is not a stewing rabbit, but a fricasseeing rabbit, showing a leg brace that says 'FRICASSEEING RABBIT' on his left shin. Elmer is confused from the term 'fricasseeing rabbit', and Bugs asks if he has a fricasseeing rabbit license. Elmer replies no, and Bugs asks what the penalty is for shooting such a rabbit without such a license. Losing his patience, Daffy trots toward Elmer and asks if this is a cooking class, telling him to shoot him. When Elmer says he has no license to shoot a fricasseeing rabbit, the duck decides to make one for Elmer. When Daffy has trouble spelling "fricassee", he asks Bugs for help. Bugs cleverly adds the word "duck" in spelling "fricassee".
Daffy presents the license to Elmer, and after reading through it, with Daffy telling him to hurry it along, Elmer shrugs ends up shooting Daffy, sending his beak spinning like a rotor. After realigning his beak and reading the license again, Daffy states he is a goat, which prompts Bugs to pull a sign that says "GOAT SEASON OPEN"; Elmer fires another round on Daffy, sending his beak on top of his head. Daffy walks to Bugs and puts his beak back in place, and he accuses Bugs by calling him a dirty dog. Bugs retaliates by calling Daffy a dirty skunk, which shocks Daffy when he exclaims 'I'm a dirty skunk!' twice. Bugs pulls a sign that says "DIRTY SKUNK SEASON", and Elmer fires again, flipping Daffy's beak facing up. Although Daffy puts his beak back in place, he foolishly asks if he is a pigeon, prompting Bugs to pull a sign that says "PIGEON SEASON"; Elmer fires again, tossing Daffy's beak off his face. After catching it, Daffy puts his beak back in place and takes Elmer behind a hilly outcrop where they talk in private, getting back to fundamentals. Bugs constructs an effigy of a rabbit out of snow.
Daffy asks what Elmer is, which Elmer replies he is a hunter. Daffy then asks what season is it, to which Elmer again replies it is rabbit season. Daffy notices the effigy and tells Elmer to shoot the rabbit. Elmer charges from behind the outcrop and demolishes the effigy in a single round. Elmer thinks Bugs must have disintegrated. Bugs, disguised as an angel, floats down from the sky from an umbrella and asks how things are on Earth, much to Daffy's displeasure. Elmer begs forgiveness, saying he did not hurt Bugs when he killed him. Daffy scolds him for being nuts, stating if he is dead than he himself is a mongoose. Bugs pulls a sign that says "MONGOOSE SEASON", prompting Elmer to fire again and knock Daffy's beak onto the snow. Daffy picks up his beak and puts it back in place before taking Elmer back to the outcrop for more briefing.
Daffy tells Elmer that now he has got it straight, he will pay no more attention to no more signs, finishing that he should listen to Daffy. Bugs puts on a duck disguise. Daffy takes notice, saying that it must be his little game. He tells Elmer to shoot the duck, foolishly forgetting that he is a duck, to which Elmer shoots him again, forcing his beak open beyond his eyes. He realigns his beak and then finally goes completely insane, telling Elmer to shoot him again and that he enjoys it, that he loves the smell of burnt feathers, gunpowder, and cordite, and that he is an elk, a fiddler crab, and many more animals. Bugs dresses as a Game Warden and strides over as Daffy despondently trots past, questioning himself what he has done and where he took the wrong turning. Elmer, in his own delirium, begs for help, telling Bugs that he was told to shoot rabbits, goats, dirty skunks, mongooses, and ducks, and asks what season it is. Bugs takes a baseball out of his pocket and tells Elmer that is baseball season. Elmer chuckles from the revelation and flies into a frenzy, and Bugs tosses the ball overhead, which Elmer chases after, firing round after round at it. Daffy asks if that got rid of Elmer. Bugs replies yes and asks Daffy what hunting season it really is. Daffy tells Bugs not to be so naive and walks away, saying that it is really Duck Season. Just as he says this, a group of nine hunters appear from their hiding spots and incinerate Daffy in a volley of rounds, knocking him onto the ground and unaligning his beak. Too weak to walk, Daffy puts his beak back in place, crawls to Bugs and climbs on his jacket to look him in the eye, saying "You're dethpicable!".
Availability[]
The Looney Tunes Video Show, Volume 14
Bugs Bunny's Wacky Adventures
Bugs Bunny's Wacky Adventures
The Cartoon Collection
_(UK_VHS).jpeg "Bugs Bunny (1990) (UK VHS).jpeg (49 KB)")
Bugs Bunny (1990)
Daffy Duck's Screen Classics: Duck Victory
Stark Raving Looneys
Lethal Weapon 3 (UK Rental Tape, Blockbuster/Ritz version only)
Bugs Bunny
Looney Tunes Special Bumper Collection Volume 9
Daffy Duck (2003)
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3, Disc One (with optional audio commentary by Eric Goldberg)
Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 2, Disc 2 (part of The Bugs Bunny/ Road Runner Hour)
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, Disc Two
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, Disc Two
A Lion Is in the Streets
Streaming[]
Censorship[]
Like "Rabbit Fire" and "Rabbit Seasoning", "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!" was also edited on ABC, CBS, The WB, Fox Broadcasting Company, and on the syndicated version of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends to remove the many scenes of Daffy getting shot by Elmer (and the end where Daffy gets blasted by a circle of hunters after foolishly telling Bugs that it is duck hunting season). However, the initial version of this cartoon shown on ABC suffered from severe editing in the same vein as "Hare-Less Wolf", "Hare Trimmed", and "Hillbilly Hare":
- The beginning where Daffy is shown warming himself over a fire made from the "Duck Season" signs he took down and telling the audience that he's a duck bent on self-preservation was cut on ABC, going from Daffy taking down the "Duck Season" signs to Elmer walking through the snow, singing "A-Hunting I Will Go". Whether the edit was made for time or because ABC's censors thought it would lead impressionable children to start fires (even though the viewer does not see Daffy actually burn the signs) is not known.
- Elmer shoving his gun in the back of Bugs' head, after Elmer shoots Bugs' mug full of black-strap molasses and Bugs comments that he did not think molasses would run in January, was cut on ABC.
- Unlike "Rabbit Fire" and "Rabbit Seasoning" (which only partially edited Daffy being shot by replacing the gunshots with still images of Bugs observing and leaving the audio intact), most of the scenes of Daffy getting shot by Elmer were edited on ABC similarly to CBS and the WB, leading to a very choppy and incoherent short. At the time, ABC did not have the technology to replace violent scenes with alternate footage, so the censors took to cutting every scene of Daffy getting shot (except for the "mongoose season" part, most likely because the shooting was already off-screen).
Notes[]
- This short is the final short in Chuck Jones' Bugs/Daffy/Elmer hunting trilogy, succeeding "Rabbit Fire" and "Rabbit Seasoning".
- When Daffy says "Well, I guess I'm the goat", what he meant was scapegoat. A term that means being a source of blame or failure. The slang term "goat" was used particularly in sports to refer to an athlete who makes a critical error. This cartoon came out decades before the acronym G.O.A.T. meant "Greatest Of All Time".
- The scene where Daffy demands that Elmer shoot him because it is elk season briefly appears in the original Space Jam movie from 1996.
- This is the only "Hunter's Trilogy" short to credit Richard Thompson and Abe Levitow.
Transcript[]
For a complete transcript, click here.
Gallery[]
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TV Title Cards[]
