Rabbit Seasoning

Rabbit Seasoning
← Previous	Mouse-Warming
Next →	The EGGcited Rooster
Airdate:	20 September 1952
Series:	Merrie Melodies
MPAA Number:	14984
Production Number:	1218
Vitaphone Number:	2199
Runtime:	6 minutes, 48 seconds
Copyright Renewed:	19 January 1979
Starring:	Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Elmer Fudd
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Mel Blanc Arthur Q. Bryan (uncredited)
Director:	Charles M. Jones
Written By:	Michael Maltese
Producer:	Eddie Selzer (uncredited)
Animated By:	Ben Washam Lloyd Vaughan Ken Harris Richard Thompson (uncredited)
Layout Artist:	Maurice Noble
Background Artist:	Philip De Guard
Film Editor:	Treg Brown (uncredited)
Camera Operator:	Ken Moore (uncredited)
Musician:	Carl Stalling

Rabbit Seasoning is a 1952 Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones.

Plot

This article/section is a stub. You can help Looney Tunes Wiki by expanding it.

Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck argue over which of them is "in season". It is really Duck Season as Daffy says while hidden from Bugs in the beginning. A befuddled Elmer Fudd tries to figure out which animal is telling the truth. Between using sneaky plays-on-words, and dressing himself in women's clothing, including a Lana Turner-style sweater, Bugs manages to escape unscathed, while Daffy repeatedly has his beak blown off, upside-down, or sideways, by Elmer Fudd.

Availability

(1985) VHS
A Salute to Chuck Jones

(1986) VHS
Elmer Fudd's Comedy Capers

(1990) VHS
Elmer Fudd

(1993) LaserDisc
Bugs Bunny: Winner by a Hare: 14 of Bugs Bunny's Best

(1996) VHS
Elmer Fudd

(1999) VHS
Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition, Vol. 1: All-Stars (1998 "THIS VERSION" print, without dubbed notice) (with DVNR)

(2000) VHS
Mil-Looney-Um 2000 - Bumper Collection

(2001) VHS
Looney Tunes Special Bumper Collection Volume 9

(2003) DVD
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1, Disc One (1998 "THIS VERSION" print, without dubbed notice) (with DVNR)

(2003) VHS
Bugs Bunny (2003)

(2003) DVD
Looney Tunes Collection Best of Bugs Bunny

(2005) Mini-DVD
Looney Tunes Collection Mini Volume 1

(2009) DVD
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 7, Disc 1

(2010) DVD
3 Spooky DVD Treats

(2011) DVD
Looney Tunes Super Stars' Bugs Bunny: Wascally Wabbit (1998 "THIS VERSION" print, without dubbed notice) (with DVNR)

(2011) DVD
Bugs Bunny

(2012) Blu-ray
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, Disc Two (restored without DVNR)

(2012) DVD
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, Disc Two (restored without DVNR)

(2020) DVD
Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny Golden Carrot Collection, Disc 1

Streaming

Boomerang App (2017 - 2024) (restored)

HBO Max (2020 - 2022) (restored)

Max (2024 - 2025) (restored)

Tubi (2025 - ) (restored)

Censorship

• Like "Rabbit Fire" and "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!", all scenes of Daffy getting blasted by Elmer's shotgun were edited when aired in the 1980s and 1990s on ABC, CBS, the syndicated and Fox network versions of Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends, and The WB. While ABC, Fox, and the syndicated versions replaced the actual shots of Elmer firing at Daffy's head with a still shot of Bugs looking off-screen (or, in the case of the end of "Rabbit Seasoning", freeze-framed on the shot of the cabin when Elmer and Daffy go inside) and had the audio play normally, CBS and WB spliced out any and all scenes (both visual and audio) of Daffy getting shot.

Notes

• Not counting the Chuck Jones-directed Private Snafu cartoons from the mid-1940s, this is the first regular Chuck Jones cartoon to have Maurice Noble as a layout artist. Noble's background design style differs significantly from those of his predecessor, Robert Gribbroek, such as the backgrounds appearing more abstract and less detailed, in contrast to Gribborek's more realistic and fully detailed background design style. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Noble's backgrounds would become even more abstract, likely due to shrinking production budgets during those later years.
  • Ironically, Gribbrroek himself would later produce similarly abstract background designs for Robert McKimson's later cartoons when working as a layout artist for McKimson's unit at the same time in the late 1950s and early 1960s, likely due to the departure of McKimson's previous layout artist Bob Givens as well as the similar reason of shrinking production budgets at the time.
• A small scene from this cartoon was used in The Bugs Bunny Road-Runner Movie.
• A clip from this short of Daffy telling Bugs "You're despicable!" was used for the intro to Toon In With Me.
• Although there were a few cartoons released after this with the blue Color Rings red background from the 1951–52 season, this cartoon was the first to be in the 1952–53 season, evident from the rings.
• This cartoon was released the day before Chuck Jones' (the director's) 40th birthday.
• When shown on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, this short played with PAL audio. Beginning in 2019, the short played with its original NTSC audio.
• This cartoon is the sequel to "Rabbit Fire", and the second entry in the "Hunter's trilogy" directed by Jones and written by Michael Maltese (the only major difference in format between "Rabbit Fire" and "Rabbit Seasoning" is that the former takes place during the springtime, while the latter takes place in autumn. The third cartoon in the set, "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!", takes place in the winter.)
• This cartoon is widely considered among Jones' best and most important films. In Jerry Beck's 1994 book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons, it is listed at number thirty.

Gallery

Background layout

Background layout

External links

• "Rabbit Seasoning" at the SFX Resource Wiki