Looney Tunes Wiki
Register
Advertisement

The Big Snooze is a 1946 Looney Tunes short planned by Bob Clampett and finished by Arthur Davis.

Title[]

The title was inspired by the 1939 book The Big Sleep and its 1946 film adaptation, also a Warner release.

Plot[]

Bugs and Elmer are in the midst of their usual hunting-chasing scenario. Elmer angrily quits, because he feels the writers will not "allow him" to catch Bugs.

Elmer decides to go fishing instead, thinking that he will not be around anymore rabbits, including Bugs. He was wrong, as Bugs follows Elmer to his fishing spot and sees him sleeping.

Bugs worms his way into Elmer's dream by taking sleeping pills and lying next to him in order to torment the inept hunter with nightmare imagery; Bugs chooses 'zillions of red and yellow wabbits' to start off the agony. Later, Bugs runs Elmer over with a "train" made of rabbits. Elmer's failed pursuit of the "wabbit" through the surreal landscape, as well as down connected rabbit holes, allows Bugs to dress Elmer in drag, making Elmer look like Rita Hayworth.

Bugs inspects his handiwork, then introduces Elmer to a trio of literal wolves, lounging by the sign at Hollywood and Vine. Upon noticing "Elmer", one wolf cries out, "How-ooooold is she?" Another wolf begins flirting with Elmer, causing the gender-morphed Elmer to exclaim "Gwacious!", and flee from the wolves, pausing long enough to ask, "Have any of you giwls evew had an expewience wike this?"

In an attempt to "help", Bugs persuades Elmer to follow a mad dash towards stage right, as Bugs plays the old gag "run 'this way'!", putting Elmer through a bizarre series of steps which include him running on his feet and on his hair, hopping like a frog, as well as Russian folk dancing.

Bugs and Elmer jump off the edge of the dreamscape. During the descent, Bugs drinks some "Hare Tonic - Stops Falling Hare" and screeches to a halt. The dream-Elmer lands roughly back in his own body and awakens. Elmer swiftly returns his job back at Warner Bros. Bugs happily speaks the catchphrase from the "Beulah" character on the radio show Fibber McGee and Molly, "I love dat man!"

Musical Cues[]

  • "Some Sunday Morning" - played over the opening titles.
  • "Beautiful Dreamer" - sung by Bugs, and plays instrumentally as he takes the sleeping pills
  • "Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat" - sung by Bugs as he invades Elmer's dream, and plays instrumentally
  • "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals" - Plays as Bugs turns Elmer's dream into a nightmare
  • "The Campbells are Coming" - Sung as "The Rabbits are Coming, Hooray Hooray"
  • "September in the Rain" - Sung by Bugs as he and Elmer fall in the dream

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Production[]

According to Milton Gray, Bob Clampett, who wrote and directed The Big Snooze, left the short unfinished as he left the studio mid-production. Arthur Davis, who had inherited Clampett's unit after his departure, would finish the cartoon. Davis told Gray that he did not understood Clampett's humor, so he "finished what he had to and just through out everything else that Clampett did." Gray theorized that Clampett directed the cartoon's nightmare sequence while Davis directed the short's unfinished elements, including its opening and closing. Clampett would not see the finished cartoon until decades later with Gray, in which he commented that "some things were done very differently than he would have done them."

The short also reuses animation and backgrounds from previous cartoons, mainly those by Tex Avery. The opening sequence, in which Bugs traps Elmer inside a log and rolls it toward a cliff each time Elmer tries to exit, reuses the animation from the 1941 cartoon "All This and Rabbit Stew". Instead of Elmer, though, the previous film features a black hunter chasing Bugs. Elmer was simply drawn in over the animation of the black hunter, right down to the same body poses and facial expressions. Backgrounds from "A Wild Hare" and "The Crackpot Quail" were also reused in this cartoon.

Censorship[]

  • The scene of Bugs taking a sleeping pill (from a bottle labeled, "Sleeping Pills: Take Dese and Doze") to invade Elmer's dream was originally edited out when shown on most TV channels in the United States, particularly on local TV stations (both affiliates and independent stations) and the Ted Turner-owned cable networks TBS, TNT, and Cartoon Network, most often deleted with a jump cut, though most of the Ted Turner-owned networks used a fake black-out.[3] In 2001, "The Big Snooze" was shown uncut on Cartoon Network's The Bob Clampett Show and has been shown uncut ever since, including on Boomerang (after The Bob Clampett Show aired it uncut) and on MeTV.
    • Prior to 2001, Cartoon Network USA aired this scene edited with a jump cut as opposed to a fake black-out like what TBS and TNT did, much like the local TV stations (both affiliates and independent stations) which aired before it.[4]
    • This scene in question is however left unedited on various international Cartoon Network and Boomerang feeds outside the United States, including on the Latin American TV network Tooncast.[5][6]

Notes[]

  • The question of whether or not any of the girls in the audience have to put up with what was going on in a scene was later used in "Hare Splitter".
  • Elmer tears up his contract with Warner Bros. and leaves. This was the last cartoon directed by Robert Clampett in production order before he left Warner Bros. As such, Clampett is not credited.
  • In the sequence where Bugs ties Elmer to the railroad tracks and pretends to run him over with a train, Elmer's cries of "Oh, agony, agony, agony!" are provided by Mel Blanc instead of Arthur Q. Bryan.
  • As Bugs is pleading with Elmer not to quit, he turns to the audience and comments, "'Bette Davis' is gonna hate me for this." Nine years prior, Davis was sued by Warner Bros. for doing work for another studio while under exclusive contract with Warner Bros. Davis was unhappy with her contract, as she felt the movies she was making with Warner Bros. at the time were low quality and damaging her career. [7]
  • After the dream, Elmer arrives back at the log in a rush and the pieces of contract blow about in the air. A nearly off-screen Bugs on the left looks like he mouths his catchphrase, "Ehhhh, What's up Doc?", but there is no sound.
  • The Polish dubbing version has the 1946-55 version of The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down opening music theme replaced with the 1945-46 opening theme.[8][dead link]
  • The scene where Bugs Bunny is about to drink his "Hare Tonic" to prevent his falling became a meme in 2015, known as "Bugs Bunny's no".[9]

Gallery[]

References[]

External Links[]

Preceded by
Racketeer Rabbit
Bugs Bunny Cartoons
1946
Succeeded by
Rhapsody Rabbit
Bugs Bunny Shorts
1938 Porky's Hare Hunt
1939 Prest-O Change-OHare-um Scare-um
1940 Elmer's Candid CameraA Wild Hare
1941 Elmer's Pet RabbitTortoise Beats HareHiawatha's Rabbit HuntThe Heckling HareAll This and Rabbit StewWabbit Twouble
1942 The Wabbit Who Came to SupperAny Bonds Today?The Wacky WabbitHold the Lion, PleaseBugs Bunny Gets the BoidFresh HareThe Hare-Brained HypnotistCase of the Missing Hare
1943 Tortoise Wins by a HareSuper-RabbitJack-Wabbit and the BeanstalkWackiki WabbitFalling Hare
1944 Little Red Riding RabbitWhat's Cookin' Doc?Bugs Bunny and the Three BearsBugs Bunny Nips the NipsHare Ribbin'Hare ForceBuckaroo BugsThe Old Grey HareStage Door Cartoon
1945 Herr Meets HareThe Unruly HareHare TriggerHare ConditionedHare Tonic
1946 Baseball BugsHare RemoverHair-Raising HareAcrobatty BunnyRacketeer RabbitThe Big SnoozeRhapsody Rabbit
1947 Rabbit TransitA Hare Grows in ManhattanEaster YeggsSlick Hare
1948 Gorilla My DreamsA Feather in His HareRabbit PunchBuccaneer BunnyBugs Bunny Rides AgainHaredevil HareHot Cross BunnyHare SplitterA-Lad-In His LampMy Bunny Lies over the Sea
1949 Hare DoMississippi HareRebel RabbitHigh Diving HareBowery BugsLong-Haired HareKnights Must FallThe Grey Hounded HareThe Windblown HareFrigid HareWhich Is WitchRabbit Hood
1950 Hurdy-Gurdy HareMutiny on the BunnyHomeless HareBig House BunnyWhat's Up Doc?8 Ball BunnyHillbilly HareBunker Hill BunnyBushy HareRabbit of Seville
1951 Hare We GoRabbit Every MondayBunny HuggedThe Fair Haired HareRabbit FireFrench RarebitHis Hare Raising TaleBallot Box BunnyBig Top Bunny
1952 Operation: RabbitFoxy by Proxy14 Carrot RabbitWater, Water Every HareThe Hasty HareOily HareRabbit SeasoningRabbit's KinHare Lift
1953 Forward March HareUpswept HareSouthern Fried RabbitHare TrimmedBully for BugsLumber Jack-RabbitDuck! Rabbit, Duck!Robot Rabbit
1954 Captain HareblowerBugs and ThugsNo Parking HareDevil May HareBewitched BunnyYankee Doodle BugsBaby Buggy Bunny
1955 Beanstalk BunnySahara HareHare BrushRabbit RampageThis Is a Life?Hyde and HareKnight-Mare HareRoman Legion-Hare
1956 Bugs' BonnetsBroom-Stick BunnyRabbitson CrusoeNapoleon Bunny-PartBarbary-Coast BunnyHalf-Fare HareA Star Is BoredWideo WabbitTo Hare Is Human
1957 Ali Baba BunnyBedevilled RabbitPiker's PeakWhat's Opera, Doc?Bugsy and MugsyShow Biz BugsRabbit Romeo
1958 Hare-Less WolfHare-Way to the StarsNow, Hare ThisKnighty Knight BugsPre-Hysterical Hare
1959 Baton BunnyHare-abian NightsApes of WrathBackwoods BunnyWild and Woolly HareBonanza BunnyA Witch's Tangled HarePeople Are Bunny
1960 Horse HarePerson to BunnyRabbit's FeatFrom Hare to HeirLighter Than Hare
1961 The Abominable Snow RabbitCompressed HarePrince Violent
1962 Wet HareBill of HareShishkabugs
1963 Devil's Feud CakeThe Million HareHare-Breadth HurryThe UnmentionablesMad as a Mars HareTransylvania 6-5000
1964 Dumb PatrolDr. Devil and Mr. HareThe Iceman DuckethFalse Hare
1979 Bugs Bunny's Christmas CarolFright Before Christmas
1980 Portrait of the Artist as a Young BunnySpaced Out Bunny
1990 Box Office Bunny
1991 (Blooper) Bunny
1992 Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers
1995 Carrotblanca
1997 From Hare to Eternity
2004 Hare and Loathing in Las VegasDaffy Duck for President
Elmer Fudd Cartoons
1937 Little Red Walking Hood
1938 The Isle of Pingo PongoCinderella Meets FellaA Feud There WasJohnny Smith and Poker-Huntas
1939 Hamateur NightA Day at the ZooBelieve It or Else
1940 Elmer's Candid CameraConfederate HoneyThe Hardship of Miles StandishA Wild HareGood Night Elmer
1941 Elmer's Pet RabbitWabbit Twouble
1942 The Wabbit Who Came to SupperAny Bonds Today?The Wacky WabbitNutty NewsFresh HareThe Hare-Brained Hypnotist
1943 To Duck .... or Not to DuckA Corny ConcertoAn Itch in Time
1944 The Old Grey HareThe Stupid CupidStage Door Cartoon
1945 The Unruly HareHare Tonic
1946 Hare RemoverThe Big Snooze
1947 Easter YeggsA Pest in the HouseSlick Hare
1948 What Makes Daffy DuckBack Alley Op-RoarKit for Cat
1949 Wise QuackersHare DoEach Dawn I Crow
1950 What's Up Doc?The Scarlet PumpernickelRabbit of Seville
1951 Rabbit Fire
1952 Rabbit Seasoning
1953 Upswept HareAnt PastedDuck! Rabbit, Duck!Robot Rabbit
1954 Design for LeavingQuack Shot
1955 Pests for GuestsBeanstalk BunnyHare BrushRabbit RampageThis Is a Life?Heir-Conditioned
1956 Bugs' BonnetsA Star Is BoredYankee Dood ItWideo Wabbit
1957 What's Opera, Doc?Rabbit Romeo
1958 Don't Axe MePre-Hysterical Hare
1959 A Mutt in a Rut
1960 Person to BunnyDog Gone People
1961 What's My Lion?
1962 Crows' Feat
1980 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bunny
1990 Box Office Bunny
1991 (Blooper) Bunny
1992 Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers
2012 Daffy's Rhapsody
Advertisement