Frigid Hare

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frigid Hare is a 1949 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies short, directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese.

[edit] Synopsis

While travelling to Miami Beach for an overdue vacation from Warner Brothers, Bugs Bunny mistakenly ends up at the South Pole, having yet again missed the left turn at Albuquerque. While there, he meets a young penguin being pursued by an Eskimo hunter. Bugs sends the hunter in the opposite direction but finds the penguin has grown attached to him. Wanting to get back to his vacation, Bugs distracts the penguin, then pushes him down a snowbank, only to see him land in the hunter's bag. Bugs starts to resume his journey but is overcome by his better nature and rescues the penguin. Although successful, Bugs grumbles that he only has four days of vacation left, only to learn from the penguin that, at the South Pole, the nights are six months long. Figuring this means he can stretch his four-day vacation until 1953, Bugs dons top hat and tails and accompanies the penguin on "a nice long formal vacation."

[edit] Trivia

On the syndicated Merrie Melodies show, Bugs calling the Inuit hunter an "Eskimo pie-head" was muted out.
This cartoon was initially banned from airing on the 2001 installment of Cartoon Network's June Bugs due to the stereotypical portrayal of the Inuit (Eskimo) hunter. The cartoon resurfaced on a February 2002 airing of The Looney Tunes Show on Cartoon Network (in an installment showing Chuck Jones cartoons due to his then-recent death), with only one edit: After Bugs finds out from the penguin that the days and nights are six months long in the Antarctic, Bugs’ line about how he won’t have to return to work until July 1953 is edited. When the cartoon aired again on a 2002 June Bugs where all the Bugs Bunny cartoons are shown in alphabetical order, both the 1953 line and the “Eskimo pie-head” line that was cut from the syndicated Merrie Melodies show were edited out of the CN version.
On a 1965 telecast of The Bugs Bunny Show, Bugs’ 1953 reference was changed to July 1968.
The opening gag was reused in Friz Freleng's 1955 short Sahara Hare.