Hare Ribbin'

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Hare Ribbin' is a 1944 Bob Clampett cartoon short from Warner Bros. featuring Bugs Bunny. The plot is the standard Bugs Bunny shenanigans in which an intruder invades Bugs' peaceful home and the rabbit sets out to evade and make a fool out of him using one-liners, reverse psychology, disguises and other tricks. It was released theatrically on June 24, 1944.

Although this cartoon short is pretty standard Bugs Bunny chase plot, there are a number of things that stand out:

  • Bugs is pursued by a dog with a frizzy hair and a Russian accent. Actually, the accent is a play on The Mad Russian character originated by comedian Bert Gordan that was popular on radio at the time (the voice here is provided by Sammy Wolfe).
  • This is the famous "Underwater Short". Early in the short Bugs is chased into a lake by the dog and, for no other reason, the rest of the cartoon takes place at the bottom of the lake. This is probably to set up a long gag in which Bugs diguises himself as a sexy mermaid, but otherwise it takes place underwater for no explainable reason.
  • This short actually contains two different endings. In the first (and most commonly played on television) Bugs hands the dog a gun and the dog shoots himself in the head. The second ending, which hasn't been seen publicly in many years, Bugs puts the gun the dog's mouth shoots the dog himself. Neither ending has been seen on television since the late 1980s and when played today there is a noticible cut just before the gun is introduced.