Hare Remover Explained

Hare Remover
Caption:The lobby card, labeling the cartoon as Elmer's Hare Remover.
Director:Frank Tashlin
Robert McKimson (both uncredited)[1]
Story:Warren Foster
Melvin Millar (uncredited)
Editing:Treg Brown (uncredited)
Animator:Richard Bickenbach
Art Davis
Cal Dalton
I. Ellis
Anatole Kirsanoff (uncredited)
Layout Artist:Robert Givens (uncredited)
Background Artist:Richard H. Thomas
Starring:Mel Blanc
(Bugs Bunny, Rover)
Arthur Q. Bryan
(Elmer Fudd - uncredited)[2]
Music:Carl W. Stalling
Producer:Edward Selzer (uncredited)
Studio:Warner Bros. Cartoons
Distributor:Warner Bros. Pictures
The Vitaphone Corporation
Color Process:Technicolor
Runtime:7:27
Language:English

Hare Remover is a Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, released in 1946.[3] The film was the second Bugs Bunny cartoon to be directed by Frank Tashlin, the first being The Unruly Hare (1945).[4] It was also the last short Tashlin directed before leaving Warner Bros. in 1944 to direct live-action films. His animation unit was handed over to Robert McKimson upon his departure.

Plot

Mad scientist Elmer tries his best to make a "Jekyll and Hyde potion", but his experiments always end in failure, causing one of his test animals, a dog, to run out and eat grass. He decides to trap a rabbit (Bugs Bunny) as his next subject. After he traps Bugs, Elmer gives Bugs the potion, but to no avail. Elmer has a crying fit until Bugs gives him one of the potions, giving Elmer the same initial looney side effects as the other animals had experienced.

When a Big bear enters the lab from the nearby forest, both Bugs and Elmer mistake the Big bear for one another, until Elmer becomes angry at the bear (still thinking that it is Bugs) after the bear refuses the potion that was going to cure him, which was the same potion Bugs gave to the bear earlier and which made the bear disgusted. Elmer scolds the bear until he discovers that the bear isn't Bugs Bunny when the real Bugs is at the window. Elmer realizes his mistake, and the enraged bear chases Elmer and ends up on the warpath against him, while Elmer is sobbingly panickedly begging the bear not to literally kill him. Elmer, after heeding Bugs' option, plays dead to fool the bear, and is saved by his bad odor. Elmer thinks he's safe until he thinks he hears the bear again. Meanwhile, the bear is standing on the side of the room watching them, convinced that both Elmer and Bugs are crazy, flashing rebus picture cards to the audience showing a screw with a ball, a cracked pot, a dripping faucet, bats in the belfry, etc.

Home media

This cartoon is found on Volume 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection.

Sources

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Cartoon Logic: Cartoon Logic Episode 11: Frank Tashlin (Tale of Two Mice) . cartoonlogic.libsyn.com . 9 August 2021 . en.
  2. Web site: Hare Remover (1946): Cast. IMDb. 1 June 2021.
  3. Book: Beck . Jerry . Friedwald . Will . Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons . 1989 . Henry Holt and Co . 0-8050-0894-2 . 165.
  4. Sigall (2005), p. 73