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Revision as of 21:12, 17 October 2021

Falling Hare is a 1943 Merrie Melodies short directed by Bob Clampett.

Title

The title is a play on words, as "falling hair" refers to impending baldness, while in this cartoon's ending, the title turns out to be descriptive of Bugs' situation, a hare falling to earth.

Plot

After strains of "Down by the Riverside", at an Army Air Force base, the brassy strains of "We're In to Win" play. The sign at the base reads "U.S. Army Air Field", and below that is listed the location, the number of planes and number of men, all marked "Censored" as a reference to military secrecy. Beneath those categories, the sign reads "What men think of top sergeant", which is shown with a large white-on-black "CENSORED!!". Bugs is found reclining on a piece of ordnance, idly reading Victory Through Hare Power and laughing uproariously at the book's claim that gremlins wreck American planes with "di-a-bo-lick-al sab-oh-tay-gee" (diabolical sabotage). He immediately encounters one of the creatures, who is experimentally striking the bomb Bugs is sitting on with a mallet to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad". In response to Bug's "Eh.... what's all the hubbub, bub?" the gremlin replies, "These Blockbuster bombs don't go off unless you hit them ju-u-u-u-st right." Noticing the gremlin's lack of success, Bugs offers to "take a whack at it" in a whispering voice, but comes to his senses an instant before striking the detonator, screaming "What am I doing?!" Bugs asks sotto voce, "Hey! I bet that was a... Say, do youse t'ink dat..., Hey, could there's been a... gremlin?" The gremlin, perched on Bugs' shoulder the whole time, shouts in his ear, "It ain't Vendell Villkie!" The Gremlin ties up Bugs' ears leaving him confused and hits his foot with a wrench. Bugs being angry, and tries to find the gremlin, which is then hits Bugs on the head with the wrench causing him to faint. The gremlin then pulls out Bugs' tongue and releases it. Bugs then chases the gremlin with the wrench only to get hit on the foot again with it. The gremlin continues to outsmart Bugs throughout the film, frequently hitting him with a mallet or a wrench, or otherwise giving him grief, following two of his "hits" on Bugs by "laughing" the first seven notes of Yankee Doodle once aboard the aircraft, to taunt Bugs. Bugs soon finds himself fighting a losing battle with the gremlin inside a flying but unpiloted bomber. Bugs then charges the gremlin and goes all the way outside, suddenly realizes he's in mid-air, stops suddenly and transforms into a donkey lettered with the then-hyphenated word, "JACK-ASS". When Bugs comes back inside from being outside by slipping into the banana peels of the aircraft mid-flight, his heart is pounding, with 4F labeled on it. Bugs is flattened into a coin shape, then is dropped through the bomb bay doors, where he is caught by his feet on a wire between the doors. He sees the Gremlin flying toward a pair of twin towers and quickly rushes into the cockpit, takes control of the airplane, and flies between the towers vertically, emerging in a "victory roll." In the finale, the plane goes into a tailspin, ripping apart during its descent, with only the fuselage remaining, and the altimeter briefly reminds Bugs, "Incredible Ain't It???", but comes to a sputtering halt about six feet before hitting the ground, hanging in mid-air, defying gravity. Bugs and the Gremlin now seem to be on friendly terms as they both address the audience. The gremlin apologizes for the plane having "run out of gas." Bugs chimes in, revealing a wartime gas rationing sticker, "You know how it is with these 'A' cards!"

Caricatures

  • Lon Chaney Jr. - "Which way did we go, George?"
  • Billy Gray's character Matilda - "I'm only three-and-a-half years old"
  • Wally Maher's character Wilbur - "I like him, he's silly!"

Notes

  • Recorded 27 September 1943.[citation needed]
  • "We're In to Win" is a World War II song also sung by Daffy Duck in "Scrap Happy Daffy" a year before.
  • Victory Through Hare Power is a parody of the extremely influential book Victory Through Air Power and its film adaptation.
  • Vendell Villkie is an accented pronunciation of the real American lawyer and politician from Indiana, Wendell Willkie.
  • Within the cartoon are several contemporary pop culture references, now dated, including to Wendell Willkie, John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men, and the folk songs "Yankee Doodle", "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and the Russian "Dark Eyes".
  • The Gremlin's behavior is possibly an homage to Bob Clampett's version of Daffy Duck (for example, he is seen in one scene riding an invisible bicycle, one of Daffy's old trademarks, among other acts). The Gremlin holds the distinction, along with Cecil Turtle, the unnamed mouse from "Rhapsody Rabbit" and the fly from "Baton Bunny", of being one of the very few antagonists to actually outsmart and rattle Bugs.
  • Bugs' Gremlin nemesis makes two appearances in the 1990s cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures. In the episode "Journey to the Center of Acme Acres", the gremlin appears (with several look-alikes) as the cause of earthquakes in ACME Acres after their gold is stolen by Montana Max. In the special Night Ghoulery a singular gremlin antagonizes Plucky Duck in the segment titled "Gremlin on a Wing", a spoof of the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet". It also made a brief cameo in the Animaniacs episode "Plane Pals" as a passenger.
  • The unexpected gag probably resonated well with the audience (for its time). The "A" card, under the reverse-psychology of the rationing scheme, was the least generous of the classifications, limiting the bearer to minimal gasoline purchases; the "Is this trip really necessary?" gag was also related to gas rationing of the period. A similar gag was pulled in Looney Tunes Back in Action, during the scene where the spy car stops in mid-air because it ran out of gas. However, it soon crashes after Kate mentions that reality doesn't work that way.
  • At least one lobby card (below) uses the working title "Bugs Bunny and the Gremlin"; here, the book ("Hare Force") shares a name with a short which was released the following year.
  • The WB logo changes slightly starting with this cartoon. This variation would be used until "False Hare". Although cartoons from 1947-53 used a different variation, the 1943-46 variation would return starting with "Captain Hareblower".
  • The cartoon fell into the public domain 28 years after its release date due to United Artists, successor to Associated Artists Productions, failing to renew the copyright in time.
  • The jackass gag would be reused in "Russian Rhapsody", another cartoon directed by Clampett, as one of Hitler's transformations when he is electrocuted.
  • When this cartoon has been restored and remastered for Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 DVD release, a prototype restoration was done, which was affected with DVNR (Digital Video Noise Reduction) which unintentionally erases or blurs some of the picture on certain scenes of the cartoons. Following controversy among collectors about DVNR on both Golden Collection Volumes 1 and 2, this cartoon's prototype restoration was scrapped, and the cartoon has been re-restored properly from scratch without the use of DVNR, along with the rest of the not-yet-restored shorts in the DVD set (except for "The Last Hungry Cat", which instead re-used the earlier 2001 restoration from the I Love Tweety Volume 1 Japanese DVD set which contained DVNR) [2][3]. This cartoon's restoration from Golden Collection Volume 3 also appears on Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3 Blu-ray set in high-definition, and also, clips from this cartoon's scrapped DVNR-laden prototype restoration also appears on Golden Collection Volume 3's bonus feature Behind the Tunes: Fine Tooning: Restoring the Warner Bros. Cartoons (one can tell the difference between the restorations by the lack of film grain and the Gremlin having a more orange-ish coloring in this prototype restoration; see image at "Gallery" for more details).[4]
  • A short clip of this cartoon appears in the 1996 family comedy film House Arrest.

Goofs

  • The Gremlin hits Bugs' right foot with a wrench, but somehow the wrench inexplicably switches to his left foot when Bugs recoils in pain.
  • As Bugs shakes the Gremlin's hands before passing out from being whacked on the noggin with a wrench, part of the lower half of his left leg and the white part on his foot swap colors for one frame.

Availability

Streaming

Gallery

Storyboards

External Links

References

  1. ↑ https://likelylooneymostlymerrie.blogspot.com/2017/05/415-falling-hare-1943.html
  2. ↑ http://classicanimation.blogspot.com/2006/05/why-dvnr-sucks-pt-3.html
  3. ↑ http://www.dohtem.com/bugs/foreign/tweety/?fbclid=IwAR0zV1PQo_FAC0kLO_LlyzgLdJplEAOTE66c6qeYOSOBmbbOkTX5gSzPvII
  4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvjwD2eUTu8

Plot keywords: See Plot keywords for Falling Hare

Bugs Bunny Shorts
1938 Porky's Hare Hunt
1939 Prest-O Change-O • Hare-um Scare-um
1940 Elmer's Candid Camera • A Wild Hare
1941 Elmer's Pet Rabbit • Tortoise Beats Hare • Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt • The Heckling Hare • All This and Rabbit Stew • Wabbit Twouble
1942 The Wabbit Who Came to Supper • Any Bonds Today? • The Wacky Wabbit • Hold the Lion, Please • Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid • Fresh Hare • The Hare-Brained Hypnotist • Case of the Missing Hare
1943 Tortoise Wins by a Hare • Super-Rabbit • Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk • Wackiki Wabbit • Falling Hare
1944 Little Red Riding Rabbit • What's Cookin' Doc? • Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears • Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips • Hare Ribbin' • Hare Force • Buckaroo Bugs • The Old Grey Hare • Stage Door Cartoon
1945 Herr Meets Hare • The Unruly Hare • Hare Trigger • Hare Conditioned • Hare Tonic
1946 Baseball Bugs • Hare Remover • Hair-Raising Hare • Acrobatty Bunny • Racketeer Rabbit • The Big Snooze • Rhapsody Rabbit
1947 Rabbit Transit • A Hare Grows in Manhattan • Easter Yeggs • Slick Hare
1948 Gorilla My Dreams • A Feather in His Hare • Rabbit Punch • Buccaneer Bunny • Bugs Bunny Rides Again • Haredevil Hare • Hot Cross Bunny • Hare Splitter • A-Lad-In His Lamp • My Bunny Lies over the Sea
1949 Hare Do • Mississippi Hare • Rebel Rabbit • High Diving Hare • Bowery Bugs • Long-Haired Hare • Knights Must Fall • The Grey Hounded Hare • The Windblown Hare • Frigid Hare • Which Is Witch • Rabbit Hood
1950 Hurdy-Gurdy Hare • Mutiny on the Bunny • Homeless Hare • Big House Bunny • What's Up Doc? • 8 Ball Bunny • Hillbilly Hare • Bunker Hill Bunny • Bushy Hare • Rabbit of Seville
1951 Hare We Go • Rabbit Every Monday • Bunny Hugged • The Fair Haired Hare • Rabbit Fire • French Rarebit • His Hare Raising Tale • Ballot Box Bunny • Big Top Bunny
1952 Operation: Rabbit • Foxy by Proxy • 14 Carrot Rabbit • Water, Water Every Hare • The Hasty Hare • Oily Hare • Rabbit Seasoning • Rabbit's Kin • Hare Lift
1953 Forward March Hare • Upswept Hare • Southern Fried Rabbit • Hare Trimmed • Bully for Bugs • Lumber Jack-Rabbit • Duck! Rabbit, Duck! • Robot Rabbit
1954 Captain Hareblower • Bugs and Thugs • No Parking Hare • Devil May Hare • Bewitched Bunny • Yankee Doodle Bugs • Baby Buggy Bunny
1955 Beanstalk Bunny • Sahara Hare • Hare Brush • Rabbit Rampage • This Is a Life? • Hyde and Hare • Knight-Mare Hare • Roman Legion-Hare
1956 Bugs' Bonnets • Broom-Stick Bunny • Rabbitson Crusoe • Napoleon Bunny-Part • Barbary-Coast Bunny • Half-Fare Hare • A Star Is Bored • Wideo Wabbit • To Hare Is Human
1957 Ali Baba Bunny • Bedevilled Rabbit • Piker's Peak • What's Opera, Doc? • Bugsy and Mugsy • Show Biz Bugs • Rabbit Romeo
1958 Hare-Less Wolf • Hare-Way to the Stars • Now, Hare This • Knighty Knight Bugs • Pre-Hysterical Hare
1959 Baton Bunny • Hare-abian Nights • Apes of Wrath • Backwoods Bunny • Wild and Woolly Hare • Bonanza Bunny • A Witch's Tangled Hare • People Are Bunny
1960 Horse Hare • Person to Bunny • Rabbit's Feat • From Hare to Heir • Lighter Than Hare
1961 The Abominable Snow Rabbit • Compressed Hare • Prince Violent
1962 Wet Hare • Bill of Hare • Shishkabugs
1963 Devil's Feud Cake • The Million Hare • Hare-Breadth Hurry • The Unmentionables • Mad as a Mars Hare • Transylvania 6-5000
1964 Dumb Patrol • Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare • The Iceman Ducketh • False Hare
1979 Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol • Fright Before Christmas
1980 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bunny • Spaced Out Bunny
1990 Box Office Bunny
1991 (Blooper) Bunny
1992 Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers
1995 Carrotblanca
1997 From Hare to Eternity
2004 Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas • Daffy Duck for President
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