A Wild Hare
Encyclopedia
A Wild Hare is a 1940
1940 in film
The year 1940 in film involved some significant events, including the premieres of the Walt Disney classics Pinocchio and Fantasia.-Events:*February 7 - Walt Disney's animated film Pinocchio is released....

 Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...

animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 short film
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

. It was produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions
Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical...

, directed by Tex Avery
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Fred/Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, voice actor and director, famous for producing animated cartoons during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He did his most significant work for the Warner Bros...

, and written by Rich Hogan. It was originally released on July 27, 1940. A Wild Hare is considered by many film historians to be the first "official" Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...

 cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

.
The title is a play on "wild hair", the first of many puns between "hare" and "hair" that would appear in Bugs Bunny titles. The pun is carried further by a bar of I'm Just Wild About Harry
I'm Just Wild About Harry
"I'm Just Wild About Harry" is a song written in 1921 with lyrics by Noble Sissle and music by Eubie Blake for the Broadway show Shuffle Along. "I'm Just Wild About Harry" was the most popular number of the production, which was the first financially successful Broadway play to have...

playing in the underscore of the opening credits. Various directors at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio had been experimenting with cartoons focused on a hunter pursuing a rabbit since 1938, with varied approaches to the characters of both rabbit and hunter.
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
Elmer Fudd
Elmer J. Fudd/Egghead is a fictional cartoon character and one of the most famous Looney Tunes characters, and the de facto archenemy of Bugs Bunny. He has one of the more disputed origins in the Warner Bros. cartoon pantheon . His aim is to hunt Bugs, but he usually ends up seriously injuring...

. 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.
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 animator of this cartoon, Virgil Ross, gave his first-person account of the creation of the character's name and personality in an interview published in Animato! Magazine, #19, copyright 1989 Pixar.

Bugs is unnamed in this film, but would be named for the first time in his next short, Elmer's Pet Rabbit
Elmer's Pet Rabbit
Elmer's Pet Rabbit is a 1941 Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Elmer Fudd and, ostensibly, Bugs Bunny. The short was released on January 4, 1941...

, directed by Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...

. 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.

Plot

The basic plot of A Wild Hare, which centers on Elmer Fudd's hapless pursuit of the much smarter Bugs, would serve as a template for many subsequent cartoons.

Elmer first approaches one of Bugs' holes, puts down a carrot, and hides behind a tree. Bugs' arm reaches out of the hole, feels around, and snatches the carrot. He reaches out again and finds the business end of Elmer's shotgun. His arm quickly pops back into the hole before returning to drop the eaten stub of Elmer's carrot before apologetically caressing the end of the barrel. Elmer shoves his gun into Bugs' hole, with a tug of war resulting in a the barrel being bent into a pretzel.

Elmer frantically digs into the hole while Bugs emerges from a nearby hole with a carrot in his mouth. He lifts Fudd's hat and raps the top of his head until Elmer notices, then chews his carrot a bit before delivering his definitive line, "What's up, Doc?"

Elmer explains that he's hunting "wabbits", and Bugs chews his carrot while asking what a wabbit is. Bugs teases Elmer by displaying every aspect of Fudd's rabbit description until Elmer begins suspecting that Bugs is a bunny.

Bugs draws Fudd close and says, "Listen, Doc, don't spread this around, but, uh... confidentially..." before yelling "I AM A RABBIT!" (a variation of Mischa Auer
Mischa Auer
Mischa Auer was a Russian-born American actor.-Early life:Auer was born Mikhail Semyonovich Unskovsky in St. Petersburg, Russia...

's line "Confidentially, she stinks" from 1938's You Can't Take It with You
You Can't Take It with You
You Can't Take It with You is a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The original production of the play opened at the Booth Theater on December 14, 1936, and played for 837 performances...

, a then-well-known catchphrase used in other Warner Brothers cartoons).

Bugs hides behind a tree, then sneaks up behind Elmer, covers his eyes and asks "Guess who?"

Elmer tries the names of contemporary screen beauties whose names exploited his accent ("Hedy Wamaw" for Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...

, "Bawbawa Stanwyck" for Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...

, "Wosemawy Wane" for Rosemary Lane, and "Owivia de Haviwand" for Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...

) before he arrives at "Say, you wouldn't be that scwewy wabbit, would you?"

Bugs responds "Hmm..... Could be!", kisses Elmer, and dives into a hole. Elmer sticks his head into the hole and gets another kiss from Bugs, so wet that Elmer needs to wipe his mouth for a bit before deciding to set a trap. Bugs puts a skunk in the trap and Elmer assumes that he's caught the rabbit. Fudd blindly grabs the skunk and carries it over to the watching Bugs to brag to the bunny about how he outsmarted him. As Elmer comprehends the situation, Bugs gives him a smooch on the nose. Fudd looks at the skunk, who winks and nudges Elmer while saying "Confidentially... uh, hmm, you know..."

Fudd winces and gingerly sends the skunk on his way.

Bugs then offers to let Elmer have a free shot at him. After Elmer fires, Bugs fakes an elaborate death scene and plays dead, leaving Elmer sobbing (despite the fact that killing Bugs was presumably his intention all along). Bugs then sneaks up behind the despairing Fudd, kicks him in his rear, shoves a cigar into his mouth, and tiptoes away, ballet-style.

Finally, the frustrated Elmer, driven to distraction by the rabbit's antics, walks away sobbing about "wabbits, cawwots, guns", etc. Bugs asides to the audience, "Can ya imagine anybody acting like that? Ya know, I think the poor guy's screwy!" Bugs then begins to play his carrot like a fife, playing the tune The Girl I Left Behind Me
The Girl I Left Behind
"The Girl I Left Behind" also known as "The Girl I Left Behind Me" is a long-standing popular folk tune and song, dated by most authorities to the late 18th or early 19th century.-History:...

, and marches with one stiff leg towards his rabbit hole, as with the fifer in the painting, The Spirit of '76.

Academy Award Nomination

The short was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....

. Another nominee was Puss Gets the Boot
Puss Gets the Boot
Puss Gets the Boot is a one-reel animated cartoon and the first Tom and Jerry short, although not billed as such in the cartoon. It was released on June 24, 1940 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer...

(the first Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...

 cartoon), directed by William Hanna
William Hanna
William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...

 and produced by Rudolf Ising. Both nominations lost to The Milky Way
The Milky Way (1940 short film)
The Milky Way is a one-reel animated cartoon short subject, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres in 1940 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. The short, produced and directed by Rudolf Ising with musical supervision by Scott Bradley, explores the adventures of the "three little kittens who lost...

, another MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

 Rudolph Ising production.

1944 Blue Ribbon reissue

On June 17, 1944, Warner Bros re-released this cartoon as a Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodie. Many other cartoons were also reissued.

Changes in the Blue Ribbon

  • In the original version, when Bugs plays "Guess Who" with Elmer, Elmer's second answer was Carole Lombard
    Carole Lombard
    Carole Lombard was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s...

    . In the reissue prints released following Lombard's death in a plane crash, "Carole Lombard" was redubbed with "Barbara Stanwyck
    Barbara Stanwyck
    Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...

    ."

  • If you can you look close enough, you can see that before it says MCMXL, it says MCMXLIV (The Blue Ribbon reissue was made in 1944). It quickly changes to MCMXL with a big black outline (So that MCMXLIV can't be seen).


This and Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt
Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt
Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt is a Warner Bros. cartoon in the Merrie Melodies series, starring Bugs Bunny and Hiawatha, first released on June 7, 1941. The short makes several direct references to The Song of Hiawatha, an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow...

were the only Bugs Bunny cartoons that ended up in the a.a.p.
Associated Artists Productions
Associated Artists Productions was a distributor of theatrical feature films and short subjects for television. It existed from 1953 to 1958. It was later folded into United Artists. The former a.a.p. library was later owned by MGM/UA Entertainment and then Turner Entertainment. Turner continues...

 package to be reissued as Blue Ribbons. This is because WB started making theaters pay more to show Bugs Bunny cartoons (excluding reissues) than other WB cartoons. As a result, it would be more than another decade before another Bugs Bunny cartoon was reissued - by that point, the original credits remained on reissues.

Wild Hare on the radio

In a rare promotional broadcast, A Wild Hare was loosely adapted for the radio as a sketch performed by Bryan and Blanc on the April 11, 1941 edition of The Al Pearce
Al Pearce
Albert Pearce was a comedian, singer and banjoist who was a popular personality on several radio networks from 1928 to 1947....

 Show
. The sketch was followed by a scripted interview with Leon Schlesinger.

Although the script is available for public online viewing, as of June 2010 no recording of the broadcast is known to exist.

What's up, Doc?

  • Bugs's nonchalant carrot-chewing stance, as explained many years later by Chuck Jones
    Chuck Jones
    Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...

    , and again by Friz Freleng
    Friz Freleng
    Isadore "Friz" Freleng was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros....

     and Bob Clampett
    Bob Clampett
    Robert Emerson "Bob" Clampett was an American animator, producer, director, and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes animated series from Warner Bros., and the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil...

    , comes from the movie It Happened One Night
    It Happened One Night
    It Happened One Night is a 1934 American romantic comedy film with elements of screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra, in which a pampered socialite tries to get out from under her father's thumb, and falls in love with a roguish reporter . The plot was based on the story Night Bus by Samuel...

    , from a scene where the Clark Gable
    Clark Gable
    William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...

     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
    Claudette Colbert
    Claudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...

     character, during the hitch-hiking sequence. This scene was so famous at the time that most people immediately got the connection.
  • The line, "What's up, Doc?", was added by director Tex Avery
    Tex Avery
    Frederick Bean "Fred/Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, voice actor and director, famous for producing animated cartoons during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He did his most significant work for the Warner Bros...

     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.

Availability

The short occurs (unrestored) in its entirety in two documentaries available as bonus material in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection
Looney Tunes Golden Collection
The Looney Tunes Golden Collection was an annual series of six four-disc DVD box sets from Warner Bros.' home video unit Warner Home Video, each containing about 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated shorts...

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
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 is a DVD box set from Warner Home Video that was released on October 25, 2005. It contains 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical short subject cartoons, 9 documentaries, 32 commentary tracks from animators and historians, 11 "vintage treasures from...

, with the original title cards. The other documentary is Bugs Bunny: Superstar
Bugs Bunny: Superstar
Bugs Bunny: Superstar is a 1975 Looney Tunes documentary film, narrated by Orson Welles and produced and directed by Larry Jackson.The film includes nine Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons which were previously released during the 1940s :* What's Cookin' Doc? * The Wild Hare Bugs Bunny:...

 Part 1
, which is available as a special feature on Discs 1 and 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4
Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4 is a Looney Tunes collection on DVD. Following the pattern of one release each year of the previous volumes, it was released on November 14, 2006...

with the Blue Ribbon reissue titles and 'dubbed version' end title, although it has not been refurbished or released independently in that series. The most noticeable effect of this is that the backgrounds appear to be in muted, autumn-like tones (visible in the picture of Elmer and Bugs above), rather than the vibrant springtime colors the backgrounds were painted in (although this is mainly due to the age of the prints). An uncut, restored version appears on the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection - 15 Winners, 26 Nominees
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection
Due to the success of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection and Popeye DVD series, Warner Home Video issued a 3-DVD set on February 12, 2008 showcasing the various animation properties that they own including their home-grown product Looney Tunes...

DVD set, but did not surface on the Golden Collection series, despite being the debut for Bugs Bunny, Warner Bros.' most popular cartoon star. The restored version is also featured on the Disc 1 of The Essential Bugs Bunny
The Essential Bugs Bunny
The Essential Bugs Bunny is a DVD set featuring cartoons focusing on Bugs Bunny. It was released October 12, 2010-Contents:The contents are split over two discs. The first disc features 12 Bugs Bunny shorts which have all previously been released on Looney Tunes Golden Collection sets...

.

See also


External links

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