Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too!

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Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too!

Directed By: Bob McKimson Produced By: Bill Hendricks Released: June 7, 1969 Series: Looney Tunes Story: Cal Howard Animation: Ted Bonnicksen Jim Davis Laverne Harding Norman McCabe Ed Solomon Layouts: Jaime Diaz Bob Givens Backgrounds: Bob McIntosh Film Editor: Hal Geer Voiced By: Music: William Lava Starring: Rapid Rabbit Quick Brown Fox Preceded By: Fistic Mystic Succeeded By: Shamrock and Roll 1/25 Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too (1969)

Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too! is a 1969 Looney Tunes short directed by Robert McKimson.

Plot

Quick Brown Fox sits alone in his cave looking up recipes in an old cooking book and finds a page on rabbit stew: "~How to make a rabbit stew. First you catch a rabbit..!"

And so Quick Brown leaves to capture a bunny for supper, when he encounters Rapid Rabbit, and tries his hardest to catch with several fiendish plots.

1. First he tries to hang him with a rope, which backfires when Rapid ties the rope around his tail.
2. And then he attempts to get him using a old rabbit trap, a carrot underneath a box ready to drop, Rapid seems to fall for it, however he hugs the walls of the box when Quick Brown lifts it, making it seem as if he had disappeared, Rapid then runs back to his hole and uses a stick of TNT to keep Quick Brown from bothering him.
3. Next Quick Brown tries to shoot Rapid with a large canon, but the weight of the thing tips over to face Quick Brown before firing, Quick Brown tries to out run it but stops a bit too early thinking he got away, only to get a face full of canon ball.
4. After that mishap Quick Brown tries setting up a contraption meant to whack any body who touches a near by carrot with a large hammer, Rapid once again falls for this trick, yet no matter how hard he tugs on the carrot he can't get it loose, and strangely the machine doesn't do anything, Quick Brown is annoyed to see Rapid not being able to something so simple, so he smacks the hare away and tries to take it him self, which results in the device finally operating, and clobbering the fox on the head.
5. With the last idea falling flat Quick Brown decides to use a more simple strategy by dropping a bolder off a cliff onto a napping Rapid, but when he drops the thing it lands on a branch which bounces it back up and onto Quick Brown, he tries it yet again but doesn't pay attention to how he's dropping it, causing it to fall on his head.
6. Quick Brown tries once more to get that rabbit, this time by setting up a door with rocks on top, that will crush any one who opens it, Rapid walks through the door but only opens it half way, keeping the rocks from coming down, this angers Quick Brown who unthinkingly slams the door closed, leaving nothing to keep the rocks from falling on him.
7. Quick Brown goes back to the canon, this time setting it up below a stool along with a sign reading "Free trip to the moon, please be seated"; as he sits on it admiring his sign Rapid sets off the canon sending him flying into the air, and back down too.
8. Stomped and out of ideas Quick Brown watches Rapid run down the road, which gives him a new plan, Quick Brown sets up a sheet of Plexiglas for Rapid to crash into, however when a oncoming car is about to hit him after he sets it all up, Quick Brown is the one who ends up slamming into the glass.. To say nothing of his being ran over and stuck to the front of the car.
9. Finally, having exhausted all of his other schemes, Quick Brown creates a complicated Rube Goldberg machine to lure in Rapid with a carrot, beat him, cook him, and slam him onto a plate resting atop a dinner table, however, as he gets everything ready, Rapid sneaks up behind him and startles him using his horn, resulting in Quick Brown going through the machine, being beaten, burnt, and slammed onto the table smashing it, before finally Rapid takes the tablecloth, ties it to a balloon, and waves goodbye as Quick Brown floats away.

Rapid honks his horn and enjoys the carrot which had been set up to lure him.

Availability

• (2020) Streaming - HBO Max (restored)

Notes

• When shown on television anthology programs like The Merrie Melodies Show, the title was changed to Rabbit Stew and Rabbits, Too.
• This is the only short to feature either Rapid Rabbit or Quick Brown Fox, they were originally going to have a series of shorts made after this, but due to the closure of the studio in 1969, this never came to be.
• Rapid's high speed and the way he honks his horn is rather similar to the Road Runner's speed and the way he goes "Beep Beep", while Quick Brown's setups and traps are quite close to that of Wile E. Coyote's.
• A remastered (but unrestored) copy of the short was shown on Boomerang in the UK, but hasn't been released on DVD, nor has it aired in the US.
• Quick Brown isn't actually brown, he's red. He was likely named after the phase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" which contains every letter of the alphabet.
• There is no voice actor credited but in the scene where Quick Brown gets his head smashed in with the boulder, you can hear him sighing in relief right before it happens. (It may have been an archived stock sound from Warner's sound effects library.)

Gallery

TV Title Cards

The Merrie Melodies Show