Porky's Hare Hunt

Porky's Hare Hunt

Directed By: Ben Hardaway Cal Dalton (uncredited) Produced By: Leon Schlesinger Released: April 30, 1938 Series: Looney Tunes Story: Howard Baldwin Animation: Volney White Rod Scribner (uncredited) Layouts: Backgrounds: Film Editor: Treg Brown Voiced By: Mel Blanc Music: Carl W. Stalling Starring: Porky Pig Happy Rabbit Preceded By: The Penguin Parade Succeeded By: Now That Summer Is Gone

Porky's Hare Hunt is a 1938 Looney Tunes short directed by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway and Cal Dalton.

Plot

Several rabbits are eating carrots and ruining crops. Bugs Bunny warns them to evacuate. Soon, Porky and his dog meet Bugs and try to outwit him in the forest. Porky and Bugs get in a long, long fight and soon the hare thinks he has won the war that is over. Porky however finds Bugs and he doesn't have any brainstorms to protect him. Bugs shows Porky a photo of himself and of how many children he has with his wife.

While Porky attempts to shoot down and procure the Bugs, he befalls to an inundation of quick-witted gags as Bugs asks Porky: "Do you have a hunting license?" As Porky reaches for his pocket to obtain the document within sight of the hyper-hare, he suddenly snatches it out of Pork's grasp, rips it in two and remarks: "...well you haven't got one now...hoohoohoohoohahahahah..hoo hoo hoo ha ha ha!" and makes a getaway by twisting his ears as though they were a helicopter propeller and flies away. Ultimately, Bugs wins with Porky ending up in the hospital from injuries sustained in the ill-fated attempt to catch his game.

Availability

• DVD - Porky Pig 101, Disc 2
• Blu-ray, DVD - Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, Disc 2

Notes

• The first appearance of Bugs Bunny, who later became the biggest superstar of Warner Bros. cartoons. He is barely recognizable compared to his more familiar later form. Bugs' first starring role would come two years later in Tex Avery's Oscar-nominated masterpiece, "A Wild Hare".
• The "Do you have a hunting license?" gag was revived (but modified) in the 1953 short "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!" where Bugs Bunny asks Elmer Fudd, "Do you have a fricasseeing rabbit license?"
• The prototype is seen chewing on a carrot, the only time he is.
• This cartoon also introduces the rabbit repeating a well-known Groucho Marx line for the first time that would become part of Bugs Bunny's lexicon. The exact wording, in this first appearance, is "'Course you know that this means war!" The proto-Bugs' rendering in this cartoon is a direct impression of Groucho, including dropping the trailing "r" of "war".

Gallery

An ad for the cartoon appearing in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in Spartanburg, SC on June 19, 1938.

Porky's Hare Hunt (Redrawn)

Porky's Hare Hunt (Redrawn Iris)

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