Twelve Missing Hares

This article contains mature content and may not be suitable for all readers. This article particularly deals with content blacklisted from contemporary television for containing harmful, outdated racial stereotypes and/or imagery. This article is not censored, as to censor the article would be to pretend that these prejudices never existed. Please continue at your own risk.

The Twelve Missing Hares is an unofficial term that refers to twelve Bugs Bunny cartoons that were pulled from airing on Cartoon Network's June Bugs marathon in 2001 due to ethnic stereotyping that would be deemed offensive to contemporary audiences. The origin of the term comes from an unaired ToonHeads episode that was originally intended to air during the marathon, but was pulled.

After Cartoon Network acquired the shorts in ABC's The Bugs Bunny Show package in September 2000, the network now had access to the complete Warner Bros. cartoon library. To celebrate, the network announced a marathon containing all of the more than 160 cartoons Bugs Bunny starred in, from "Porky's Hare Hunt" all the way to "From Hare to Eternity" (the most recent Bugs Bunny cartoon released at the time). The more politically incorrect entries were scheduled to air during the overnight hours, when children would likely be asleep.

List

The cartoons that were banned from the marathon included:

•  "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt" (1941)  
•  "All This and Rabbit Stew" (1941) 
• "Any Bonds Today?" (1942) 
•  "What's Cookin' Doc?" (1944)
•  "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" (1944)
•  "Herr Meets Hare" (1945)
•  "A Feather in His Hare" (1948)
•  "Mississippi Hare" (1949) 
•  "Frigid Hare" (1949)
•  "Which Is Witch" (1949)
•  "Bushy Hare" (1950)
•  "Horse Hare" (1960)

ToonHeads episode

The Twelve Missing Hares
← Previous	A ToonHeads Special: The Lost Cartoons
Next →	A ToonHeads Special: The Wartime Cartoons
Series:	ToonHeads
Airdate:	Unaired
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Leslie Fram
Director:	Jerry Beck
Written By:	Jerry Beck George A. Klein
Producer:	George A. Klein

The ToonHeads episode related to these cartoons was scheduled to air either during the marathon (presumably at the same late hours the banned shorts were to air), before the marathon, or afterward. However, due to ethnic stereotyping deemed offensive, it was pulled upon backlash from executives at AOL Time Warner. Unlike other ToonHeads episodes, the episode does not feature any shorts as a whole, but just clips of the cartoons. The documentary episode describes the reasons for why the shorts were withheld, primarily due to the changing social atmosphere compared to when the cartoons first released. The episode concludes with a statement that "Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network are well aware of [their] responsibility to the audience of parents, children, and cartoon buffs", and that "Cartoon Network will not permit negative stereotypes and offensive images to air on the network."

Although the episode had finished production, the episode would be lost until it was publicly uploaded by Jerico Dvorak with permission from Jerry Beck on 26 August 2022. It is one of the only two ToonHeads episodes that was produced, but never aired, joining "The Best of the Worst Cartoons Ever Made," which was banned because Cartoon Network executives at the time did not want to defame the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Critical reaction

Reactions towards the ban of the twelve cartoons has been mixed. Critics of the ban has stated that removing these twelve cartoons was censoring the existence of the shorts, stating that the marathon was intended to be aimed for historical completion over entertainment purposes. Animation historian Jerry Beck stated in an interview that "these [cartoons] are important historical documents, and they're being terribly abused... adults should be able to see this work." Some also criticized the hypocrisy of banning cartoons of these stereotypes when several others featuring similar stereotypes of different races were allowed to be aired (often) uncensored, such as, "A-Lad-In His Lamp", "My Bunny Lies over the Sea", and "Southern Fried Rabbit", among others (coincidentally, "A-Lad-In His Lamp" and "Southern Fried Rabbit" would later be phased out due to racially insensitive content; the former, because of unflattering depictions of Middle Easterners; the later, because of racist imagery involving black slavery and The American Civil War). Veteran director Chuck Jones was critical on the network treatment of the shorts, stating that "networks were lousy editors and lousy child psychologists" in regards to censorship of several shorts.

Despite the criticism, some have defended Cartoon Network's decision to ban the cartoons, stating the channel was intended to entertain and that negative stereotypes to minority groups were deemed offensive.

Airtime and availability

Previous airings

Some of the shorts had aired previously prior to the June Bugs marathon, primarily on non-Turner networks:

• "A Feather in His Hare" aired periodically on Cartoon Network's anthology shows such as Bugs and Daffy and The Acme Hour and was on TBS and TNT in the days before Cartoon Network was created as the Turner library's way of showcasing pre-1948 Warner Bros. shorts, but the short was pulled from rotation shortly before the marathon.
• Although "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" never aired on Cartoon Network (not counting its appearance in clips on the ToonHeads special about World War II-era cartoons), it aired regularly on the Turner networks throughout the 1980s, and last aired as part of TBS' Tom and Jerry's Funhouse block in 1991.
• "Mississippi Hare" and "Frigid Hare" would both air with edits as part of The Bugs and Daffy Show on The WB, ABC's The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, and Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends (both the FOX version and the syndicated version), respectively. "Mississippi Hare" and "Frigid Hare" also aired on Nickelodeon uncut, but weren't aired often and would be dropped from rotation after a while.
• "Which Is Witch" was formerly part of the normal rotation of cartoons included on The Bugs Bunny Show (when it was called The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show on CBS), on Nickelodeon, and had aired on the previous June Bugs marathon. However, the short was almost always censored in some way when aired on CBS and Nickelodeon. "Which Is Witch" also aired on Cartoon Network's Japanese channel, with the same edit as the CBS version (Bugs being forced in the cauldron by Dr. I.C. Spots).
• "Bushy Hare" and "Horse Hare" were part of the normal rotation on Nickelodeon with edits (though Nickelodeon edited "Bushy Hare" for violence, not racially insensitive content. "Horse Hare," however, was cut for racially insensitive content), with the former airing as part of the previous June Bugs marathon.

During the marathon

Despite what the press, news, and Cartoon Network themselves have said about the pulled cartoons, "What's Cookin' Doc?" surprisingly aired completely uncensored. However it only aired once at 3:00am and didn't rerun after all the shorts played in order.

Later airings

Cartoon Network would later levy some of the banned cartoons and air them on the network after the marathon. "Frigid Hare" was first aired on the network the following year (as part of a special marathon dedicated to Chuck Jones). When it first aired then, Bugs calling the Inuit hunter an "Eskimo Pie-Head" was, surprisingly, not cut, but Bugs' line about not going back to work until July of 1953 was cut for time and to make the cartoon less dated. Later runs of this short (until the Warner Bros. shorts aired less frequently on Cartoon Network) edited the "Eskimo Pie-Head" line (which was also edited on Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends back in the 1990s) and the line about Bugs not returning to work until July 1953.

"What's Cookin' Doc?" aired as part of The Bob Clampett Show and cropped up in some Looney Tunes installment shows. In recent years, these cartoons have since been removed from rotation on Warner owned networks, primarily due to lesser airtime for Looney Tunes programming on both Cartoon Network and Boomerang.

"What's Cookin' Doc", "Frigid Hare", and "Bushy Hare" all have aired on MeTV and MeTV Toons without edits. As of currently, the nine remaining members of the Twelve Missing Hares have yet to be aired on contemporary television.

Home media availability

Nearly all members of the Twelve Missing Hares that are part of the Associated Artists Productions package have been made available on the LaserDisc set The Golden Age of Looney Tunes. However, due to The Japanese American Citizens League criticizing the inclusion of "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" on the LaserDisc set, the LaserDiscs and VHSes containing the cartoon was recalled, with later pressings replacing the cartoon with "Racketeer Rabbit", being the only double dip on the aforementioned set. Due to its inclusion in the Censored Eleven, "All This and Rabbit Stew" was never released onto official home media, though it is a public domain cartoon and can easily be found on gray market home media releases and on online video sites.

"Frigid Hare", "Herr Meets Hare", and "Mississippi Hare" were later released restored on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set. "Bushy Hare" would be restored for the Looney Tunes Super Stars' Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire DVD, "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt" would be restored for the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection DVD set, and "What's Cookin' Doc?" would be restored for the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection Blu-ray set.

"All This and Rabbit Stew" was originally intended to be released in a DVD containing all of the Censored Eleven cartoons, but such DVD set has been indefinitely delayed. As of this writing, "All This and Rabbit Stew", "Any Bonds Today?", "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips", "A Feather in His Hare", "Which is Witch", and "Horse Hare" have no known restorations, and "All This and Rabbit Stew" and "Which is Witch" are not available on any official home media (although "Which is Witch" was planned to have appeared on the Hare Exraordinaire DVD).

See also

• Censored Eleven