A Wild Hare
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| A Wild Hare
Merrie Melodies series |
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|---|---|
 Screen title of A Wild Hare. |
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| Directed by | Fred Avery |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
| Story by | Rich Hogan |
| Voices by | Mel Blanc Arthur Q. Bryan (uncredited) |
| Music by | Carl Stalling |
| Animation by | Virgil Ross Robert McKimson Rod Scribner Charles McKimson |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 27, 1940 |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 7 min (one reel) |
| IMDb profile | |
A Wild Hare (re-released as The Wild Hare) is a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short film. It was produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions, directed by Tex Avery, and written by Rich Hogan. It was originally released on July 27, 1940. A Wild Hare is considered by many film historians as the first "official" Bugs Bunny cartoon.[1][2] The title is a play on "wild hair", the first of many puns between "hare" and "hair" that would appear in Bugs Bunny titles.
Various directors at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio had been experimenting with cartoons focused on a hunter pursuing a rabbit since 1939, with varied approaches to the characters of both rabbit and hunter.[3] A Wild Hare is noteworthy as the first true Bugs Bunny cartoon, as well as for settling on the classic voice and appearance of the hunter, Elmer Fudd.[4] Although the animators continued to experiment with Elmer's design for a few more years, his look here proved the basis for his finalized design.[5] The design and character of Bugs Bunny would continue to be refined over the subsequent years, but the general appearance, voice, and personality of the character were established in this cartoon. The rabbit is unnamed in this film, but would be christened "Bugs Bunny" in his very next short, Elmer's Pet Rabbit, directed by Chuck Jones. The opening lines of both characters—"Be vewy, vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits" for Elmer, and "Eh, what's up Doc?" for the rabbit—would become catchphrases throughout their subsequent films.
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[edit] Plot
The basic plot of A Wild Hare, which centers on Elmer Fudd's hopeless pursuit of the much smarter Bugs, would serve as a template for many subsequent cartoons. In addition, many of the specific gags and plot devices in this cartoon became part of the template for later Bugs/Elmer confrontations, with subsequent shorts repeating them or varying them for comic effect. Examples include Elmer failing to recognise Bugs as a rabbit, Bugs kissing Elmer,[6] and Bugs feigning death.
[edit] Cast
Virgil Ross is credited with the animation, and Carl Stalling with the musical score. Uncredited talent on A Wild Hare include animator Robert McKimson, layout man Robert Givens (who redesigned Elmer and the rabbit for this film), and voice artists Mel Blanc (as Bugs Bunny) and Arthur Q. Bryan (as Elmer Fudd).
The short was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons in 1941. Another contestant was Puss Gets the Boot, a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer short, directed by Joseph Barbera, William Hanna and produced by Rudolph Ising, notable for introducing Tom and Jerry. Both nominations lost to The Milky Way, another MGM Rudolph Ising short which featured three nameless kittens.
[edit] Censorship
- In the original version, when Bugs plays "Guess Who" with Elmer, Elmer's second answer was Carole Lombard. In the reissue prints that were released following Lombard's death in a plane crash, Elmer's second answer was redubbed with Barbara Stanwyck. Both names involve letters (L and R) that Elmer has difficulty enunciating.
[edit] What's up, Doc?
- Bugsy's nonchalant carrot-chewing stance, as explained many years later by Chuck Jones, and again by Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett, comes from the movie, It Happened One Night, from a scene where the Clark Gable character is leaning against a fence eating carrots more quickly than he is swallowing (as Bugs would later often do), giving instructions with his mouth full to the Claudette Colbert character, during the hitch-hiking sequence. This scene was so famous at the time that most people immediately got the connection.[7][8]
- The line, "What's up, Doc?", was added by director Tex Avery for this short. Avery explained later that it was a common expression in Texas where he was from, and he didn't think much of the phrase. But when this short was screened in theaters, the scene of Bugs calmly chewing a carrot, followed by the nonchalant "What's Up, Doc?", went against any 1940s audience's expectation of how a rabbit might react to a hunter and caused complete pandemonium in the audience, bringing down the house in every theater. Because of the overwhelming reaction, Bugs eats a carrot and utters some version of the phrase in almost every one of his cartoons after that, sometimes entirely out of context as compared to this original use.[9]
- Cartoon Network once ran an all-day Bugs Bunny marathon. In each cartoon, when he said, "What's up, Doc?" a bell would ring and a banner would pop up for a couple of seconds.
- Working the phrase or its variants into some cartoons could require some invention. In Rhapsody Rabbit, Bugs was onstage alone, playing the piano a mostly-mime sketch. He uses the phrase when he has to answer the phone at one point. In Hair-Raising Hare, borrowing a joke from Horse Feathers, he uses it as a gag, speaking to a supposed audience member who was a doctor. In The Old Grey Hare, the octogenarian Bugs asks the octogenarian Elmer, "What's up, Prune-Face?"
- In the cartoon What's Up Doc?, the phrase was expanded into a song.
- He usually uses the phrase (or a variant) only once per cartoon. There are a few exceptions to this axiom.
- Variants of the phrase appear in many cartoons. They range from things as simple as "What's up dogs?" when facing down a canine street gang, to "What's cooking, Lolly?" to his press agent when he was a movie star, and "What's all the hubub (gulps), bub?" In Ali-Baba Bunny, when Daffy Duck buries him in his rabbit hole to keep the treasure for himself, Bugs Bunny says, "What's up, duck?" In Knight-Mare Hare, after being introduced to "Sir O of K, Earl of Watercress, Sir Osis of Thiliver, Knight of the Garter, and Baron of Whoostishistashiestashistasheestashostasha-sher," he says, "What's up, duke?"
- When his antagonist is Yosemite Sam, the short-fused Sam often takes the question literally, firing back with, "I ain't no 'Doc'!" and then telling Bugs (and the audience) who he is.
[edit] Availability
The short occurs (unrestored) in its entirety in two documentaries available as bonus material in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection series. One documentary is What's Up, Doc? A Salute to Bugs Bunny Part 1, which is available as a special feature on Discs 3 and 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3, with the original title cards. The other documentary is Bugs Bunny: Superstar Part 1, which is available as a special feature on Discs 1 and 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4 with the Blue Ribbon reissue titles and 'dubbed version' end title, although it has not been refurbished or released independently in that series yet.
An uncut, restored version appears on the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection - 15 Winners, 26 Nominees DVD set.
[edit] Notes
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008) |
- ^ Michael Barrier, Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age, 2003, Oxford University Press, 978-0195167290
- ^ Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Grey Hare, by Joe Adamson (1990), Henry Holt, ISBN 0-8050-1855-7.
- ^ That's Not All, Folks!, 1988 by Mel Blanc, Philip Bashe. Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-39089-5 (Softcover), ISBN 0-446-51244-3 (Hardcover)
- ^ Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Grey Hare, by Joe Adamson (1990), Henry Holt, ISBN 0-8050-1855-7.
- ^ A Wild Hare trivia at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ The "insulting kiss", which Bugs plants on Elmer in this cartoon and many others, and which may seem strange to 21st century viewers, back-references a schtick sometimes done by early film comedians, including Charlie Chaplin.
- ^ It Happened One Night film review by Tim Dirks - Filmsite.org
- ^ A Wild Hare trivia at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Adamson, Joe, Tex Avery: King of Cartoons, New York: De Capo Press, 1975.
[edit] See also
[edit] External Links
| Preceded by none |
Bugs Bunny Cartoons 1940 |
Succeeded by Elmer's Pet Rabbit |
