Big House Bunny
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Big House Bunny is a 1950 Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny cartoon, directed by Friz Freleng.
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[edit] Plot
Needing to get away from hunters, Bugs digs a tunnel and accidentally winds up in Sing Song Prison (a clear reference to Sing Sing Prison). As he tries walking away, prison guard Yosemite Sam (here called Sam Schultz, presumably as a character role) beats Bugs with a billy club, telling him, "Trying to pull an escape, 777174, huh?" To which Bugs replies, "I'm not 77174 - I'm only 3 1/2." Sam finds this fine, and soon Bugs is in a prison uniform, breaking rocks, with the prison number "3 1/2" (as Bugs says, "Eh, my mother told me there'd be days like this.")
When Sam tells Bugs he'll be in prison for 50 years (reasons not known), Bugs tries to make an escape, telling Sam that a different prisoner is escaping over the wall. Bugs puts his own ball which he's chained to in the cannon, which Sam fires, causing Bugs to leave. Sam chases after Bugs and brings him back.
When Sam attempts to put Bugs into a jail cell, Bugs manages to pull a switch on Sam, causing Sam to be locked up instead. When this ploy fails, Sam vows to place Bugs in solitary confinement for 99 years, to which Bugs replies "You wouldn't be so tough if you weren't wearing that uniform!" Sam takes the bait and doffs his jacket and cap, while Bugs, in striped prison tunic and hat, does the same. After a few fight gestures from Sam, Bugs concedes and dons Sam's guard uniform, leaving Sam to unthinkingly don the prison garb, at which point Bugs summons the guards and gets Sam locked up instead. Although now free to leave through his tunnel, Bugs is having too much fun to quit outsmarting Sam so soon, and, posing as a sympathetic guard, hands Sam an 'escape kit', complete with map and pickaxe. Sam winds up digging into what appears to be a jungle, but turns out to be oversized plants in the office of the warden, who yells at Sam before he's kicked out.
After a few more attempts at getting Bugs (including mistaking Bugs for the warden, and soon after the actual warden for Bugs), Sam has finally had enough. He opens the door, yelling for Bugs to get out. With Bugs gone, Sam is delighted... until he hears the warden over the intercom, "SCHULTZ! OFFICE!" The next scene is of Sam in a prison uniform, breaking rocks, wondering who was the 'stool pigeon' who squealed on him. We then see Bugs standing on a stool, acting like a pigeon and cooing.
[edit] Trivia
- The original cartoon included a sequence where Bugs ran up to an executioner's scaffold and used the platform as an elevator to get away from Sam. When Sam tried to do the same thing, he wound up temporarily hanged on a noose. This was removed from the cartoon when it aired on Nickelodeon, ABC, and Cartoon Network in the United States, but it has been restored in the DVD edition.
- ABC also cut the scne where Sam is offered a cigar and a seat--on the electric chair.
- The syndicated Merrie Melodies Show also edited out the noose gag and a scene where Bugs sneaks in a prison escape kit for Sam and Sam tunnels his way into the warden's office.
