Hare Remover

Hare Remover
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Airdate:	23 March 1946
Series:	Merrie Melodies
Production Number:	10-14
Copyright Renewed:	17 January 1973
Starring:	Bugs Bunny Elmer Fudd
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Mel Blanc Arthur Q. Bryan (uncredited)
Director:	Frank Tashlin (planned, uncredited) Robert McKimson (finished, uncredited)
Written By:	Warren Foster Melvin Millar (uncredited)
Producer:	Eddie Selzer (uncredited)
Animated By:	Richard Bickenbach Cal Dalton Art Davis I. Ellis Anatole Kirsanoff (uncredited)
Layout Artist:	Robert Givens (uncredited)
Background Artist:	Richard H. Thomas
Film Editor:	Treg Brown (uncredited)
Musician:	Carl W. Stalling

Hare Remover is a 1946 Merrie Melodies short planned by Frank Tashlin and finished by Robert McKimson.

Title

The title is another obvious play on "hair", and on patent medicines that had the opposite effect of a "hair tonic".

Plot

Elmer tries his best to make one of those "Jekyll and Hyde potions" that "changes a normal character into a devilish fiend", but his experiments always end in failure, causing his test animals to run for the hills and eat grass. He decides to trap a rabbit as his next subject. After he traps him, Elmer forcefully gives Bugs the potion, again with no success. Elmer gets a little upset with a little frustration until Bugs gives him one of the potions, giving Elmer the same initial looney side effects the other animals had experienced. Bugs comments, "I think Spencer Tracy did it much better. Don't you, folks?" When Elmer experiences the looney side effects of the potion, Bugs flashes rebus picture cards at Elmer showing a "screwball," a "crackpot," a "drip," "bats in the belfry," and so on.

When a bear enters the lab from the nearby forest, both Bugs and Elmer think the potion changed the other one into a bear and unsuccessfully attempt to "cure" each other with potions, until they discover that the bear is real. Elmer plays dead to fool the bear, and is saved by his bad odor. Elmer thinks he's safe until he thinks he hears the bear again, but it's Bugs this time, imitating the bear. Meanwhile, the bear is standing on the side of the room watching them, convinced that both Elmer and Bugs are crazy, flashing rebus picture cards just like Bugs did earlier.

Availability

(1988) VHS
Cartoon Moviestars: Bugs Vs. Elmer

(1990) VHS
Bugs Bunny Collection: Here Comes Bugs 

(1992) LaserDisc
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vol. 2, Side 3: Frank Tashlin 

(2005) DVD
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3, Disc One

(2005) DVD
Looney Tunes Collection Best of Bugs Bunny Volume 3

(2018) DVD
Looney Tunes Collection Volume 3

(2020) DVD
Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny Golden Carrot Collection

Streaming

HBO Max (2020 - ) (restored)

Notes

• Elmer seldom referred to his perennial co-star by name, but typically only as "that scwewy wabbit" or similar expressions. This cartoon is one of the few in which Elmer actually acknowledges the bunny's name. When he sees the bear munching a carrot and assumes that it's the rabbit transformed by his drug, Elmer cries with delight, "Bugs Bunny!" In the reverse situation, when Bugs mistakes the bear for Elmer, Bugs still calls him, "Doc!"
• In the original release of this cartoon there is an abrupt jump cut which occurs between Elmer celebrating Bugs' capture and Elmer sternly carrying Bugs to his laboratory. The missing scene is most likely to be lost; as the release on Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3 never restored it.
• This is Frank Tashlin's last cartoon that he directed before leaving Warner Bros. Cartoons. As such, he is not credited.
• This short is also the second and last short Tashlin directed to feature Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

Gallery

"I think Spencer Tracy did it much better. Don't you, folks?"

Lobby card

External Links

• "Hare Remover" at SuperCartoons.net
• "Hare Remover" at B98.TV