Hair-Raising Hare
Encyclopedia
Hair-Raising Hare is a 1946 Warner Bros.
Merrie Melodies
cartoon, released in 1946. It was directed by Chuck Jones
and written by Tedd Pierce
. It stars Bugs Bunny
and features the first appearance of Chuck Jones' imposing red monster character, unnamed here, but in later cartoons named "Rudolph" and then "Gossamer
".
This was the final appearance of Chuck Jones' Bugs Bunny design as starting with his next Bugs Bunny cartoon A Feather in His Hare
, he would use Robert McKimson
's design of Bugs Bunny
After many Bugs cartoon titles that substituted "hare" for "hair" in a punny way, this title includes both words, as homonyms.
One dark night, as the camera pans across a dark, empty forest, Bugs is heard singing a stanza of "Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart" (originally introduced in Hollywood Canteen
). When the camera zooms in on Bugs' rabbit hole, he pokes up out of his hole, dressed in a nightshirt and holding up a candle, and tells the audience, "Did you ever have the feeling you was being watched?" He is, via remote TV, as an evil scientist (a caricature
of Hollywood actor Peter Lorre
; like Bugs, he is played by Mel Blanc
) is planning to catch a rabbit to provide dinner for his large, hairy, orange, sneaker-wearing monster, named Gossamer.
The scientist lures Bugs to his castle via a shapely robotic female rabbit, complete with a large wind-up key in the back, and accompanied by Oh, You Beautiful Doll
in the cartoon's underscore. Once Bugs gets to the castle (labeled "evil scientist" in neon lights) the evil scientist locks the door behind him. Bugs looks at him and says, "You don't need to lock that door, mac. I don't wanna leave." Then he clicks his tongue and raises his eyebrows at the audience and begins kissing the mechanical rabbit on the hand, the robot short-circuits and breaks into pieces. Bugs faces the audience and says, "That's the trouble with some dames... kiss 'em and they fly apart!"
Nonchalantly shrugging off this odd encounter, Bugs heads for the door, but the scientist persuades him to stay and meet another "little friend". When it becomes clear that this "friend" is a ferocious beast, Bugs sizes up the situation, vigorously shakes the scientist's hand "Goodbye!" and launches into a schtick where he packs luggage for a vacation trip, accompanied by a very brassy rendition of California, Here I Come
. Just before bolting for the door, he tells the scientist, in typical Groucho Marx
-ist fashion, "And don't think it hasn't been a little slice of heaven...'cause it hasn't." The scientist then releases Gossamer. This is the last scene with the scientist, as the rest of the cartoon is an extended chase between Bugs and Gossamer, with gags aplenty.
At one point, as Bugs is behind a door and Gossamer is trying to break through, a desperate-sounding Bugs cries out, "Is there a doctor in the house?" A silhouette, seemingly from the theater audience, stands up and offers, "I'm a doctor." Bugs suddenly relaxes, grins, starts munching a carrot, and asks, "What's up, Doc?", just before Gossamer breaks through and the chase resumes. (This is another Marxian joke, lifted from Horse Feathers
and probably older than that.)
Bugs Bunny and Gossamer pass by a mirror; Gossamer looks at the mirror, then his reflection runs away toward the door screaming in horror; Gossamer looks at the audience and shrugs. Bugs rushes up a staircase, but rushes back down and knocks down Gossamer, telling him he can't go up there because it's dark (similar to a gag from The Wabbit Who Came to Supper
). Bugs acts as a lamp; he dances to the tune of Shuffle Off To Buffalo and taunts Gossamer by calling "Hey, Frankenstein
!". Bugs and Gossamer keep running until a door on the floor opens and a rock falls into the empty space. While Bugs is tiptoeing backwards and praying, he bumps into Gossamer. He comes up with an idea and gives him a manicure. He starts talking and acting like a girl and says, "Oh, for shame! Just look at those fingernails! (he pulls out a table and chair and starts working on his nails) My, I'll bet you monsters lead in-teresting lives. I said to my girl friend just the other day, 'Gee, I'll bet monsters are in-teresting.' I said. The places you must go and the things you must see -- my stars! I bet you meet lots of in-teresting people too. I'm always in-terested in meeting in-teresting people. Now let's dip our patties in the water!" He puts the monster's fingers into the water to have his fingernails cut, but it contains two mousetrap
s. The monster yelps in pain, and then sobs.
Bugs twice thinks he has escaped. The first time, the monster is hiding behind a picture frame and Bugs apparently is not aware until he wises up and pokes Gossamer in the eyes. Gossamer gets out from behind the wall, and while looking for Bugs, finds him in a painting. Gossamer then gets the idea to poke Bugs in the eyes too, but before he can fully carry it out, Bugs jumps the gun and pokes Gossamer in the eyes again, and disappears from the painting, making Gossamer go behind the wall again.
The second time, Gossamer is following Bugs behind the wall (which Bugs knows is happening because Gossamer is copying Bugs' footsteps) until Bugs marks where he previously was and smashes the mark with a giant mallet when Gossamer appears behind it. The wall crumbles and a barely conscious Gossamer quickly follows.
The third time, Gossamer is in a knight's armor, holding an axe above his head. He gets hit by Bugs Bunny in his locomotive-style knight-riding horse, causing him to hit the wall to turn into a can labeled "Canned Monster". However, as Bugs saunters off toward the exit, singing to himself, Gossamer gets the bunny in his clutches. Bugs repeats his opening line, "Did you ever have the feeling you were being watched?", and Gossamer's expression changes from anger to anxiety. Bugs points to the audience
. Gossamer (despite having already acknowledged the audience earlier) shrieks, "PEOPLE!" and runs away screaming, breaking through a series of walls, leaving his cartoon outline in all of them.
Having "re-re-disposed of the monster", Bugs is about to "exit stage right", when the female robo-rabbit re-appears, intact, and again accompanied by Oh, You Beautiful Doll. Bugs snickers, "Mechanical!" Then the robot smooches him on the cheek, leaving a lipstick mark on the smitten bunny, who says, "Well, so it's mechanical!" He assumes a robot-like gait (with his tail magically rotating like the robot's wind-up key) and follows her off the screen.
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,...
cartoon, released in 1946. It was 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...
and written by Tedd Pierce
Tedd Pierce
Tedd Pierce , was an American animated cartoon writer, animator and artist. Pierce spent the majority of his career as a writer for the Warner Bros. "Termite Terrace" animation studio, working alongside fellow luminaries such as Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese. Pierce also worked as a writer at...
. It stars 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...
and features the first appearance of Chuck Jones' imposing red monster character, unnamed here, but in later cartoons named "Rudolph" and then "Gossamer
Gossamer (Looney Tunes)
Gossamer is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. The character is a hairy, red monster. His rectangular body is perched on two giant tennis shoes, and his heart-shaped face is composed of only two oval eyes and a wide mouth, with...
".
This was the final appearance of Chuck Jones' Bugs Bunny design as starting with his next Bugs Bunny cartoon A Feather in His Hare
A Feather in His Hare
A Feather in His Hare is a Warner Brothers Looney Tunes animated short, directed by Chuck Jones. It was originally released on February 7, 1948...
, he would use Robert McKimson
Robert McKimson
Robert "Bob" Porter McKimson, Sr. was an American animator, illustrator, and director best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros., and later DePatie-Freleng Enterprises...
's design of Bugs Bunny
After many Bugs cartoon titles that substituted "hare" for "hair" in a punny way, this title includes both words, as homonyms.
Plot
Hollywood Canteen (1944 film)
Hollywood Canteen is a 1944 Warner Bros. film starring Joan Leslie, Robert Hutton, and Dane Clark. The film was written and directed by Delmer Daves, and is notable for featuring many stars in cameo roles...
). When the camera zooms in on Bugs' rabbit hole, he pokes up out of his hole, dressed in a nightshirt and holding up a candle, and tells the audience, "Did you ever have the feeling you was being watched?" He is, via remote TV, as an evil scientist (a caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
of Hollywood actor Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
; like Bugs, he is played by Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...
) is planning to catch a rabbit to provide dinner for his large, hairy, orange, sneaker-wearing monster, named Gossamer.
The scientist lures Bugs to his castle via a shapely robotic female rabbit, complete with a large wind-up key in the back, and accompanied by Oh, You Beautiful Doll
Oh, You Beautiful Doll
"Oh, You Beautiful Doll" is a ragtime love song published in 1911 with words by Seymour Brown and music by Nat D. Ayer. The song was one of the first with a twelve-bar opening. It is well-known by its chorus:*...
in the cartoon's underscore. Once Bugs gets to the castle (labeled "evil scientist" in neon lights) the evil scientist locks the door behind him. Bugs looks at him and says, "You don't need to lock that door, mac. I don't wanna leave." Then he clicks his tongue and raises his eyebrows at the audience and begins kissing the mechanical rabbit on the hand, the robot short-circuits and breaks into pieces. Bugs faces the audience and says, "That's the trouble with some dames... kiss 'em and they fly apart!"
Nonchalantly shrugging off this odd encounter, Bugs heads for the door, but the scientist persuades him to stay and meet another "little friend". When it becomes clear that this "friend" is a ferocious beast, Bugs sizes up the situation, vigorously shakes the scientist's hand "Goodbye!" and launches into a schtick where he packs luggage for a vacation trip, accompanied by a very brassy rendition of California, Here I Come
California, Here I Come
"California, Here I Come" is a song written for the 1921 Broadway musical Bombo, starring Al Jolson. The song was written by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Meyer, with Jolson often listed as a co-author. Jolson recorded the song in 1924...
. Just before bolting for the door, he tells the scientist, in typical Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
-ist fashion, "And don't think it hasn't been a little slice of heaven...'cause it hasn't." The scientist then releases Gossamer. This is the last scene with the scientist, as the rest of the cartoon is an extended chase between Bugs and Gossamer, with gags aplenty.
At one point, as Bugs is behind a door and Gossamer is trying to break through, a desperate-sounding Bugs cries out, "Is there a doctor in the house?" A silhouette, seemingly from the theater audience, stands up and offers, "I'm a doctor." Bugs suddenly relaxes, grins, starts munching a carrot, and asks, "What's up, Doc?", just before Gossamer breaks through and the chase resumes. (This is another Marxian joke, lifted from Horse Feathers
Horse Feathers
Horse Feathers is a Marx Brothers film comedy. It stars the four Marx Brothers and Thelma Todd. It was written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, and Will B. Johnstone. Kalmar and Ruby also wrote some of the original music for the film...
and probably older than that.)
Bugs Bunny and Gossamer pass by a mirror; Gossamer looks at the mirror, then his reflection runs away toward the door screaming in horror; Gossamer looks at the audience and shrugs. Bugs rushes up a staircase, but rushes back down and knocks down Gossamer, telling him he can't go up there because it's dark (similar to a gag from The Wabbit Who Came to Supper
The Wabbit Who Came to Supper
The Wabbit Who Came to Supper is a 1942 American Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies cartoon featuring early appearances by Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd...
). Bugs acts as a lamp; he dances to the tune of Shuffle Off To Buffalo and taunts Gossamer by calling "Hey, Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
!". Bugs and Gossamer keep running until a door on the floor opens and a rock falls into the empty space. While Bugs is tiptoeing backwards and praying, he bumps into Gossamer. He comes up with an idea and gives him a manicure. He starts talking and acting like a girl and says, "Oh, for shame! Just look at those fingernails! (he pulls out a table and chair and starts working on his nails) My, I'll bet you monsters lead in-teresting lives. I said to my girl friend just the other day, 'Gee, I'll bet monsters are in-teresting.' I said. The places you must go and the things you must see -- my stars! I bet you meet lots of in-teresting people too. I'm always in-terested in meeting in-teresting people. Now let's dip our patties in the water!" He puts the monster's fingers into the water to have his fingernails cut, but it contains two mousetrap
Mousetrap
A mousetrap is a specialized type of animal trap designed primarily to catch mice; however, it may also trap other small animals. Mousetraps are usually set in an indoor location where there is a suspected infestation of rodents. There are various types of mousetrap, each with its own advantages...
s. The monster yelps in pain, and then sobs.
Bugs twice thinks he has escaped. The first time, the monster is hiding behind a picture frame and Bugs apparently is not aware until he wises up and pokes Gossamer in the eyes. Gossamer gets out from behind the wall, and while looking for Bugs, finds him in a painting. Gossamer then gets the idea to poke Bugs in the eyes too, but before he can fully carry it out, Bugs jumps the gun and pokes Gossamer in the eyes again, and disappears from the painting, making Gossamer go behind the wall again.
The second time, Gossamer is following Bugs behind the wall (which Bugs knows is happening because Gossamer is copying Bugs' footsteps) until Bugs marks where he previously was and smashes the mark with a giant mallet when Gossamer appears behind it. The wall crumbles and a barely conscious Gossamer quickly follows.
The third time, Gossamer is in a knight's armor, holding an axe above his head. He gets hit by Bugs Bunny in his locomotive-style knight-riding horse, causing him to hit the wall to turn into a can labeled "Canned Monster". However, as Bugs saunters off toward the exit, singing to himself, Gossamer gets the bunny in his clutches. Bugs repeats his opening line, "Did you ever have the feeling you were being watched?", and Gossamer's expression changes from anger to anxiety. Bugs points to the audience
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
. Gossamer (despite having already acknowledged the audience earlier) shrieks, "PEOPLE!" and runs away screaming, breaking through a series of walls, leaving his cartoon outline in all of them.
Having "re-re-disposed of the monster", Bugs is about to "exit stage right", when the female robo-rabbit re-appears, intact, and again accompanied by Oh, You Beautiful Doll. Bugs snickers, "Mechanical!" Then the robot smooches him on the cheek, leaving a lipstick mark on the smitten bunny, who says, "Well, so it's mechanical!" He assumes a robot-like gait (with his tail magically rotating like the robot's wind-up key) and follows her off the screen.
Availability
- Hair-Raising Hare is currently available in several issues of the *Looney Tunes Golden CollectionLooney Tunes Golden CollectionThe 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...
DVD box sets. The short occurs in its entirety in the documentary Bugs Bunny: SuperstarBugs Bunny: SuperstarBugs 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 2, which is available as a special feature on Disc 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4Looney 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...
. It had previously been released independently on Disc 3 of the *Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1 is a DVD box set that was released by Warner Home Video on October 28, 2003. It contains 56 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and numerous supplements...
. It can also be found in What's Up, Doc: A Salute to Bugs Bunny part 2 as a Special Feature on Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3, disc 3.
- In addition, Hair-Raising Hare is featured on side 8 of the LaserDiscLaserdiscLaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
release "The Golden Age of Looney Tunes: Volume 1".