Hare Tonic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hare Tonic is a 1945 Warner Bros. cartoon in the Looney Tunes series, directed by Chuck Jones. It stars Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. Voice characterizations are by Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan, respectively.

[edit] Plot

Elmer Fudd has purchased Bugs Bunny and is taking him home to make a meal. As he bounces along, he sings the tune of "Shortnin' Bread", substituting "Wabbit Stew". Once at home, Bugs easily secures his escape by distracting Elmer, tricking him into thinking the phone has rung. However, just as he's about to leave, he decides he'd rather stay and heckle his would-be devourer. Bugs effects a radio broadcast that warns of the dread disease "rabbititus", which is contracted from rabbits "sold within the last three days" and which causes people to see spots and have "delusions assuming the characteristics of rabbits", among other dubious symptoms. This frightens the gullible Elmer and he informs Bugs that he is free to leave. Bugs, however, points out a sign on the door that says "QUARANTINED DUE TO RABBITITUS."

Thus Bugs stays to torment Elmer, and many hijinks ensue, including Bugs posing as a doctor ("Dr. Killpatient", parodying Dr. Kildare), and pretending to be Elmer's reflection in the mirror (a scene inspired by the famous mirror scene in the Marx Brothers' film, Duck Soup). Finally, Elmer sees Bugs' game and chases him out of the house with a shotgun. But Bugs quickly halts the chase and, in an unusually lengthy breaking of the fourth wall, even by Bugs' standards, he convinces Elmer that members of the audience are now afflicted with rabbititus, which causes Elmer to flee back into his house in terror.

Bugs then addresses the audience and says the whole thing was "just a gag, of course" and that if the audience really had rabbititus, they'd see swirling red and yellow spots, whereupon red and yellow spots are seen swirling on the screen, and the underscore starts to build dramatically. Immediately after Bugs says, "Then everything'd go black!" the screen does go black, and the music stops abruptly and dramatically, followed by a second or two of dark silence. Bugs snickers and the cartoon ends. Bugs reappears, as he sometimes does at the end of Looney Tunes, munching a carrot and saying, "And dat's de end!" rather than the usual "That's All Folks!" of Warner cartoons.

[edit] Notes

• This cartoon marks one of the few times Bugs addresses Elmer by name, albeit in the guise of "Dr. Killpatient", who addresses him as "Mr. Fudd". Despite their frequent cinematic encounters, many of their cartoons are played as if they had never met before.