Rabbit Every Monday is a 1951 Looney Tunes short directed by I. Freleng.
Title
The title is a play on the 1949 20th Century Fox film, Chicken Every Sunday.
Plot
Bugs is cooking carrots on a rotisserie and singing about his love of carrots to the tune of "It's Magic".
Yosemite Sam is hunting and smells carrots cooking and says, "And where there's carrots, there's rabbits." In a "breaking the fourth wall" moment, an audience member in the movie theater comes across and then Sam tells him if he plans on telling Bugs about him he would be shot, so the person goes back to his seat. He tells the people if any of the others tell Bugs about him, they would be shot as well. And he'll do it, too. As Sam comes closer to the hole, he is by Bugs' rotisserie and Bugs thinks that Sam's nose is a carrot and starts basting and cooking it and yanks Sam into his hole and bites his nose. Sam comes out with a hurt nose and he is now angry and asks Bugs to come out. Bugs comes out in Sam's gun and says "Eh, what's up Doc?" and Sam tells him he ain't no Doc and tells him to get out of his gun. Bugs replies that he likes the smell of gunpowder. When Sam tries shooting to get him out, Bugs comes out as a caricature of a bullet. Sam reloads his gun and then Bugs puts bubble gum on the shooter and then when Sam shoots, he is inside the bubble gum in a circle. Sam is in the air and is blowing his way back up but Bugs is there with a pin in hand and pops Sam's bubble gum leaving him with a mess of bubble gum all over as he chases Bugs back to his hole. He then digs around the hole with Bugs in it and puts him in a sieve to get the rocks and dirt and gets Bugs out. Then, Sam takes Bugs by gunpoint and takes him to his cabin.
At Sam's cabin, Bugs is seen hanging by a rope and Sam is putting wood in the stove. Bugs decides to have a little fun himself and throws Sam's hat in the fire, missing at first, but then throws it again and it is in the stove. Sam mistakes a piece of wood as his hat and it is on fire. This makes Sam even angrier and he tells Bugs to get in the stove, which Bugs obliges in doing. Bugs comes out several times and does a few things like bringing a fan and a pitcher of water, chairs, party favors, emptying ashtrays in Sam's hat. Sam gets angry and Bugs pops out of the stove and says that a party is going on and the girls are waiting for them, so Sam decides to go inside the stove. Bugs comes out and starts putting more wood in the fire, but Bugs has regretted it. Little does Bugs know that the party is real when he looks in the stove and sees dancing girls and a bunch of people partying and having a good time as Sam shouts "What a party!" Bugs goes back in and comes out in the end with party favors and wearing a hat and says "I don't ask questions, I just have fun."
Availability
Bugs Bunny Hare Beyond Compare: 14 More Bugs Bunny Classics
Looney Tunes Collection - Yosemite Sam
Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection, Disc 2 (restored and HD)
Streaming
Music Cues
- What's Up, Doc? - Carl W. Stalling [Credits]
- It's Magic - Jule Styne, & Sammy Cahn [Sung by Bugs' with substitute lyrics]
- I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles - James Brockman, James Kendis, & Nat Vincent [Sam rolls around in a bubble]
- Auld Lang Syne - Traditional [Ending]
Notes
- This cartoon and "Stooge for a Mouse" were written by Friz Freleng while he was trying to get Warren Foster as his writer.
- This is the only cartoon in which Yosemite Sam is a hunter.
- This is the first cartoon in which Sam's lower lip is part of his mustache. However, six shots still have his lip rendered under his mustache.
- Except for one shot, this cartoon is staged left to right throughout the entire run time.
- "It’s Magic" is sung by Bugs with alternate lyrics, as it was a popular tune by the time of production sung by Doris Day in her first movie, "Romance on the High Seas".
- The song is heard in eleven Warner Bros. Cartoons total.
- Bugs sings it again in "Robot Rabbit" and again with different lyrics in "Transylvania 6-5000".
- The audience member gag is recycled from "Little Red Walking Hood" and "Daffy Duck & Egghead", with the rotoscope animation of Tedd Pierce being recycled from the former.
- The dialogue of the man reacting to Sam's threat is taken from "Bacall to Arms".
- Sam is clearly carrying a double barrel shotgun, yet he works a slide action to eject a shell casing. Shotguns are either double barrel or slide action but are never both.
- John Carey is the only animator to draw Bugs with three whiskers, whereas the other animators draw two.
- When Sam digs up Bugs hole, the inside is shown to be much bigger than the hole Sam is digging up.
- The cement bags have “HP” in giant letters, which is a reference to layout man Hawley Pratt.
- Old fashioned flour sack towels are sat on the windows of Sam's cabin.
- A pin up of a woman dressed in a 20th-century bathing suit is seen briefly next to the fireplace.
- An unknown piece of stock music plays when Bugs walks in and out of the stove.
- It begins when Sam shout's "Now quit stallin' and start roastin'!" Which is a play on words as Carl Stalling was the musical composer for all of the Warner Bros. Cartoons at this time.
- The live-action footage seen within the cast iron stove is taken from the 1948 film “Romance on the High Seas”.
- This is one of a few Bugs vs. Sam cartoons where both parties win in the end.
- This cartoon, alongside "Hare We Go" and "The Fair Haired Hare" are the only cartoons from 1951 to not get a Blue Ribbon reissue. Coincidentally, all of these cartoons star Bugs Bunny.
- "Rabbit Every Monday" was the first cartoon to be featured in the first episode of The Bugs Bunny Show in 1960. Also featured were "A Mouse Divided" and "Tree for Two". Coincidentally, all three cartoons in the first episode are directed by Friz Freleng.
- This cartoon was used in the Thanksgiving special "Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet", but the scenes where Bugs is throwing a party in the oven were changed to Bugs being in a late 1970s disco.
- This cartoon was originally slated to be included on the Looney Tunes Super Stars' Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire DVD, but was replaced early in development due to executive backlash from Warner Home Video.[3]
- This short was featured on the 25 May 2003 episode of "The Chuck Jones Show", presumably in error.
Gallery
_-_Cooking.jpg "Rabbit Every Monday (1951) - Cooking.jpg (185 KB)")
References
External links
- "Rabbit Every Monday" on the SFX Resource