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Fresh Hare is a 1942 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng.
Title
The title is a typical Warner Bros. pun (as in "fresh air") that has little or nothing to do with the plot, other than being set in the crisp, frigid air of a Canadian winter.
Plot
Elmer Fudd is trying to catch the "wanted" Bugs Bunny. Bugs locks Elmer to the bomb that Elmer was trying to get Bugs in. It explodes while Bugs pretends to look for the keys. Elmer gets mad but Bugs fools him as being the guard, while Elmer's clothes then are removed, even his underwear. Bugs then pretends to be Elmer's gun, making noises, as Fudd never noticed. A chase through the snow then happens, including a part where Bugs' ears split by a tree, but Elmer hits it.
Bugs then talks to a snowman that is supposed to be Fudd, when he finishes making his fist, he turns around and strikes Elmer. The chase continues through the snow, forth and back, until Bugs makes a painting of himself on a rock, and Elmer hits the rock.
Elmer then cries in disgrace and Bugs lets Elmer take him in. Just before Bugs is sentenced to death by a firing squad, Elmer tells Bugs that he can make one last wish before he dies, which prompts Bugs to break out into "Dixie", followed by the next scene showing into a minstrel show, where a blackfaced Elmer, Bugs and the firing squad sing the chorus of "Camptown Races."
Transcript
For a complete transcript, go here.
Availability
- VHS - Cartoon Moviestars: Bugs VS Elmer
- VHS - Here Comes Bugs
- LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 2, Side 2
- DVD - Captain of the Clouds (USA 1995 Turner print added as a bonus, uncensored)
- Unauthorized public domain bootleg tapes and DVD of varying quality (mostly poor); some (particularly under the title "Cartoon Explosion") censor the minstrel show ending.
Censorship
- The end of this cartoon where Bugs proclaims his last wish in a chorus of "I Wish I Were in Dixie", which is followed by Bugs, Elmer Fudd and the Mounties all in blackface singing "Camptown Races" has been edited on nearly every American airing, including versions shown on the Ted Turner-owned networks (Cartoon Network, Boomerang, TBS, and TNT).[1]
- Some edited versions even go as far as to delete the entire ending sequence and end the short after Bugs handcuffs himself to Elmer and says, "Okay, doc. Let's go."
- TBS replaced the visual of Bugs, Elmer, and the Mounties in blackface with a repeat of Bugs dancing while the audio played as normal, then after made a fake iris out.
- TNT/Cartoon Network/Boomerang removed the entire segment of the camptown song. So after Bugs said "I wish I was in Dixie," the cartoon abruptly ended, except that TNT used a fake iris out.[2][3]
Notes/Goofs
- A scene of Fresh Hare can be seen in the title sequence gag of the Futurama episode I Second That Emotion.
- This short fell into the public domain in 1970 when United Artists, the copyright owner to the Associated Artists Productions package at the time, failed to renew the copyright in time.
- This cartoon marks the fifth and final appearance of the fat Elmer Fudd which previously appeared in "Wabbit Twouble" (1941), "The Wabbit Who Came to Supper" (1942), "The Wacky Wabbit" (1942) and the propaganda film "Any Bonds Today" (1942), as beginning with "The Hare-Brained Hypnotist" (1942), the original "slim Elmer" design first seen in "Good Night Elmer" (1940) had returned permanently, presumably due to theater audiences at the time disliking the "fat Elmer" design.
- Bugs is wanted for a series of crimes he had commited in this cartoon (as corrected here for Elmer's rounded-l-and-r speech):
- Resisting an officer
- Assault and battery
- Trespassing
- Disturbing the peace
- Miscellaneous misdemeanors
- Public nuisance
- Traffic violations
- Going through a boulevard stop
- Jaywalking
- Triple parking
- Conduct unbecoming to a rabbit
- Violating traffic regulations (repeat mention of crime #7)
- These twelve crimes that Bugs did here however do not conform to any known Bugs Bunny cartoon produced before this one.
- Clips from the fully restored version of this cartoon (as pictured in the gallery below) appears in one of the bonus features of Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Volume 2 Blu-Ray release, but however the complete version of it has not yet been released on any home media format.
- The display of "Wanted" signs near the beginning are out of order, and the music cues do not seem to match the display.
Gallery
External links
Preceded by Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid |
Fresh Hare 1942 |
Succeeded by The Hare-Brained Hypnotist |