Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk

Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk is a 1943 Warner Bros. cartoon in the Merrie Melodies series, directed by Friz Freleng and starring Bugs Bunny. Voices are provided by Mel Blanc. This is one of only two cartoons where Elmer's speech impediment is referenced in the title(without Elmer appearing!), the other one is Wackiki Wabbit.

Plot

The film opens as if it's Jack and the Beanstalk, and finds Warner's famous "jackrabbit" (Bugs), already in the giant's lofty realm, chopping down gigantic carrots. It turns out they belong to a dim-witted giant.

The giant is incensed at Bugs invading his "Victory garden", and Bugs spends most of the rest of the film trying to elude the giant. At one point he challenges him to a duel, and the giant starts pacing off into the distance and is soon over the horizon. Bugs' self-congratulation ("You know, I'm so smart, sometimes it almost frightens me") is short-lived, as the giant comes toward him from the other horizon.

Finally, the giant accidentally falls from his sky-borne realm and crashes into the ground, making a huge giant-shaped hole. Instead of being dead, the hard-headed giant simply sits up, dizzy, and invokes a well-known comic catch-phrase, "Duh, watch out for dat foist step - it's a lulu!".

Connections

Friz Freleng had already directed four fairy-tale films: Beauty and the Beast (1934), The Miller's Daughter (1934), and The Trial of Mister Wolf (1941) . He would go on to direct Little Red Riding Rabbit (1944), Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears (1944), Red Riding Hoodwinked (1955) and Tweety and the Beanstalk (1957).^[1]

Sources

• Zipes, Jack (2011). "Filmography". The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films. Routledge. ISBN 978-1135853952. 

See also

• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1940–1949)
• List of Bugs Bunny cartoons

References