Wet Hare

Wet Hare
Looney Tunes (Bugs Bunny) series
Directed by	Robert McKimson
Story by	David Detiege
Voices by	Mel Blanc
Music by	Milt Franklyn
Animation by	Keith Darling Ted Bonnicksen Warren Batchelder George Grandpre'
Layouts by	Robert Gribbroek
Backgrounds by	Robert Gribbroek
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	January 20, 1962 (USA)
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	6:29
Language	English

Wet Hare is a 1962 animated short film in the Looney Tunes series produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. In this cartoon, Bugs Bunny finds himself at odds with Blacque Jacque Shellacque, a ruthless lumberjack with a French Canadian accent who wants to control the water supply by building a series of dams. The title is yet another pun on "hair/hare".

Plot

Bugs Bunny is taking his morning shower under a waterfall, singing "April Showers" (à lá Al Jolson) when the water stops flowing. After a brief delirium that the supply has permanently dried up, he decides that beavers are responsible, and climbs up the waterfall to the source of the problem. The source of the problem turns out to be the villainous Blacque Jacque Shellacque, who has built an illegal rock dam in an effort to control the water supply and sell it at inflated prices. Bugs demands Jacque explain what gives him the right to build the dam, and Jacque responds "This give me the right!" as he sticks a revolver into Bugs' neck (this exchange is cut out of most commercial showings). Bugs next asks Jacque what would happen if certain rocks become loose, to which Jacque simply states he would replace them. Bugs then tricks Jacque into removing a tiny rock, at the dam's base, which then dislodges the dam.

Later, Bugs resumes showering, but Jacque has built a replacement dam ("This time I build him stronger!"). Jacque expects another sabotage attempt from Bugs, and thinks he's still one step ahead of the rabbit when he spots what he believes to be a phony shark fin in the impounded water. The shark is real, however, and threatens Jacques until Bugs "saves" him by crashing a log through the dam.

Still later, Bugs has resumed showering again, but Jacque has built an even bigger replacement dam, and gloats at Bugs from above. Unintimidated, Bugs turns to the audience and quotes Red Skelton's "mean widdle kid": "He don't know me vewy well, do he?". Bugs then sends a single lighted stick of dynamite on a miniature raft towards the new Shellacque-built dam, but as Jacque tends to it (or vice versa, as the dynamite blows up in Jacque's face off-screen), he also immediately notices a huge raft full of lighted dynamite subsequently headed toward the dam and they explode and demolish it.

Finally fed up with Bugs, Jacque fires his rifle into the waterfall not knowing Bugs is not there, thinking he's killed off his nemesis once and for all ("So much for crazy seec rabbets! Bah!"). Nearby, Bugs - at his carrot garden - sees that his record player has been destroyed by Jacque's gunfire. Although mad at first, Bugs calmly declares his famous line: "Of course you know, this means war."

Later, a triumphant Jacque boasts about his new steel dam, but quickly finds his water supply has been cut off. Bugs, it turns out, has turned the tables and built a dam of his own, in revenge for the aforementioned shooting of the record player. Declaring this as the last straw, an angry Jacque retrieves a cannon and blows the dam apart, only to find another rabbit-built dam. Jacque blows that one up as well, only to find more dams to destroy. Finally, Jacque reaches the "Grand Cooler Dam" (a pun on "Grand Coulee Dam", although the dam looks more like Hoover Dam). Jacque tries to blow that dam up as well, but his attempt fails (the cannonball bounces off of the face of the dam and back into the muzzle of the cannon) and he is launched into a police paddy wagon instead and hauled away for attempting to destroy the Cooler Dam.

"He's not foolin' me--he'll be back..." says Bugs as he watches his nemesis being taken away. "Like, uh, in about 20 years?"

Sources

• Beck, Jerry and Will Friedwald, "Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons," Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1989. (ISBN 0-8050-0894-2).

External links

• Wet Hare at the Internet Movie Database
• Wet Hare at the Big Cartoon DataBase