By
Ed Garea
Hair-Raising
Hare (WB Merrie Melodies,
1946) – Director: Chuck Jones. Writer: Tedd Pierce (story).
Animation: Basil Davidovich, Robert Gribbroek, Ken Harris, Earl
Klein, Abe Levitow, Lloyd Vaughan, & Ben Washam. Music: Carl W.
Stalling. Sound: Treg Brown. Voices: Mel Blanc. Color, 7 minutes.
Water,
Water Every Hare (WB Looney
Tunes, 1952) – Director: Chuck Jones. Writer: Michael
Maltese (story). Animation: Philip DeGuard, Robert Gribbroek, Ken
Harris, Earl Klein, Phil Monroe, Lloyd Vaughan, & Ben Washam.
Music: Carl W. Stalling. Sound: Treg Brown. Voices: Mel Blanc &
John T. Smith (uncredited). Color, 7 minutes.
Now
that the war was over and there was no longer a need for Private
Snafu cartoons, it was time for Termite Terrace to get down to
business.
Much
had changed. Leon Schlesinger, who owned the cartoon studio and acted
as a subcontractor to Warner Bros., finally sold his operation
outright to Warner’s, who placed producer Eddie Selzer in charge.
Pioneering animators Frank Tashlin and Bob Clampett would leave this
year and Robert McKimson would be elevated to the director’s chair.
Bugs
Bunny, too, had changed over the years. As created by Tex Avery, he
was a rabbit who clashed with hunter Elmer Fudd. As the years went by
his screen image mellowed and he began to be seen as someone who just
wants to be left alone, but characters such as Fudd and others won’t
allow him any peace. In Hair-Raising Hare, director Chuck
Jones now shows the influence on Bugs of another screen icon: Groucho
Marx.
In
no other cartoon would Groucho’s influence be as strong on Bugs as
here. Bugs takes on Groucho’s leer, his breaking of the fourth
wall, and even his duck walk. Like Groucho, all Bugs is really
interested in is chasing the girl.
The
cartoon opens with the camera panning across the dark forest. We hear
Bugs singing a stanza of “Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart” (first heard
in the 1944 all-star extravaganza Hollywood Canteen). A
shaft of light appears and the camera zooms in on Bugs' rabbit hole
as he rises up, dressed in a nightshirt and holding up a candle. “Eh,
I don't know but, did you ever have the feeling you was being
watched?”
In
fact, he is being watched via remote TV by an evil
scientist (a caricature of Peter Lorre, voiced by Blanc). “Being
watched, he says,” the scientist intones as we now hear growling
behind a door labeled “Monster.” “Patience little one,” the
scientist says soothingly. “Your dinner will soon be here. A
nice, tender little rabbit.”
The
scientist winds up a shapely female technical rabbit (the box she
came from reads “One Mechanical Rabbit Lure”) and sends her on
her way to the background tune of “Oh, You Beautiful Doll.”
Bugs
follows the lure to the castle (with “evil scientist” on the
outer castle wall in big neon lights). The scientist locks the door
behind him, but Bugs simply turns and says, “You don't need to lock
that door, Mac. I don't wanna leave.” He catches up to the
mechanical rabbit and begins kissing her hand. After she suddenly
short-circuits, breaking into pieces, Bugs stoically comments,
“That's the trouble with some dames . . . kiss 'em and they fly
apart!”
Nonchalantly
heading for the door to take his leave, Bugs is stopped by the
scientist, who tells him, “I have another friend who would like to
eat . . . I mean, greet you.” Bugs turns both around as he heads
for the monster’s door, saying “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
As
they near the door the monster growls loudly. Bugs wraps himself
around the scientist. “Your friend?” he asks. The scientist
smiles and says, “Yes.” When it becomes clear that this "friend"
is a ferocious beast, Bugs vigorously shakes the scientist's hand in
goodbye and begins packing luggage as if for a vacation trip, all to
the tune of “California, Here I Come.” He tells the scientist, in
typical Groucho fashion, “And don't think it hasn't been a little
slice of heaven . . . ’cause it hasn’t,” as he
bolts for the door. The scientist then opens the door and out comes
the monster, covered completely in bright orange fur and wearing
basketball sneakers. The monster comes up behind Bugs as he’s
trying to get the front door open. He asks the monster for a hand:
“Here, you look like a strong, healthy boy. Gimme a hand!”
Turning and getting a look at his “helper,” Bugs makes a face
while holding up a sign simply saying “Yikes!” He turns it around
and the word is now in big letters, before Bugs drops the sign and
runs off.
The
thin plot gives way and the cartoon becomes nothing more than an
extended chase scene between Bugs and the monster. With the gags
flying so fast and furious, it’s almost hard to keep up.
Of
these gags, there are some notable ones. At one point Bugs rushes up
a staircase and runs right back down, knocking over the monster.
“Don’t go up there, it’s dark!” (Jones is lifting this gag
from Freling’s 1942 cartoon, The Rabbit Who Came to Supper,
where Bugs uses the same line on Elmer Fudd after running down into
his basement.)
The
Groucho influence again comes to the fore when Bugs locks himself
behind a door as the monster begins breaking in. Bugs turns to the
audience frantically asking, “Is there a doctor in the house? . . .
Is there a doctor in the house,” he asks desperately. A silhouette
in the theater audience stands up and says, “I'm a doctor.” Bugs
now relaxes and grins while pulling out a carrot and munching on it
while asking, “Eh, what’s up, Doc?” Though Tex Avery was the
first director to break the fourth wall between the characters and
the audience in I Love to Singa (read our essay on
it here), Jones is lifting
the gag as a tribute in spirit to Horse Feathers, where
Groucho, along with Chico, trapped the apartment of college widow
Thelma Todd by her boyfriend, has to listen to Chico play the piano
in a desperate attempt to save both their necks. He stands up,
telling the audience that he has to stay but there’s no reason why
they shouldn’t go wait in the lobby “until this thing blows
over.”
As
the monster chases him Bugs spots a trap door opening on the floor
and comes to a quick halt. While tiptoeing backwards and praying, he
bumps into the monster. Suddenly, Bugs produces a table and a chair,
seats the monster in the chair, and begins working on him like a
manicurist, all the while he talking and acting like a girl: “Oh,
for shame! Just look at those fingernails!” He seats the monster
and goes to work in his nails. “My, I'll bet you monsters lead
in-teresting lives . . . 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!” As the monster doers so, two
mousetraps snap, catching his fingers and making him whine in pain.
The
last inspired gag has Bugs ready to leave the castle after knocking
the monster cold. As he rounds a corner he sees the monster standing
on as pedestal in a piece of ill-fitting armor and holding an ax.
Bugs laughs and retreats. The monster then hears a noise and looks up
to see a knight riding a horse and holding a lance heading straight
for him. As we hear the sound of a train, Jones uses a cut showing
Bugs operating the armor and horse like a locomotive. He then cuts to
a unique overhead shot as the lance hits the armored monster head on,
bouncing him off a wall. All that’s left is a small can with the
monster’s picture on it and the words “Canned Monster” written
across the front. It’s a uniquely imaginative gag composed of
several parts, all fitted seamlessly into one continuous shot.
But the cartoon
flags at the end with Bugs finally getting rid of his nemesis by
pointing to the audience. As the monster has him lifted by the
throat, Bugs says “Look out there . . . in the audience.” The
monster shrieks “People! Aaaah!” and runs through a series of
walls, leaving his outline behind. It’s a major plot inconsistency,
for earlier, Jones ran a gag where the monster passes by a mirror and
scares off his reflection. His reaction is to simply turn to the
audience and shrug.
Jones ends the
cartoon by resurrecting the mechanical lure, which we earlier saw fly
apart. As Bugs snickers and says, “Mechanical!” the robot
smooches him on the cheek, leaving a lipstick mark. “Well, so it's
mechanical!” Bugs says as he follows her off the screen with a
mechanical gait.
The constant gags
flying about in Hair-Raising Hare tend to distract
us from the excellent backgrounds of Gribbroek and Klein that give
the cartoon a sinister, Old Dark House look. The backgrounds also
combine nicely with some of Jones’ complex gags. And, of course,
Carl Stalling’s use of music is a plus as it lightens the mood and
provides a pleasant audio distraction.
This
was the first appearance of the orange monster. In Jones’ remake,
the monster was named Rudolph. Eventually, Jones would name him
Gossamer, the name by which we know him today. In Jones’ 1980
cartoon, Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24 1/2th Century,
Space Cadet Porky chases Gossamer into his boudoir with a pair of
electric clippers. When Porky comes out, he is holding only the
basketball sneakers. It seems Gossamer was entirely composed of hair.
This was the final
appearance of Chuck Jones' Bugs Bunny design. Starting with his next
Bugs Bunny cartoon, A Feather in His Hare, Jones would
use Robert McKimson’s model for the character.
In 1952 Warner Bros.
released Water, Water Every Hare, a remake of sorts
to Hair-Raising Hare. The title is a pun on poet Samuel
Taylor Coleridge’s line from The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner, “Water, water, everywhere/Nor any drop to drink.”
As
in Hair-Raising Hare, Bugs finds himself trapped in the
castle of an evil scientist and doing battle with the orange monster.
The cartoon opens with a downpour that floods Bugs’ rabbit hole,
causing his mattress to pop up with him on and float downstream. As
he passes by the castle, the neon sign on the outside flashes “Evil
Scientist,” alternating with “BOO.” The scientist inside (a
caricature of Boris Karloff voiced by Smith) has just finished
building a huge robot and is wondering where he is going to a get a
brain when he sees Bugs float by. Using a fishing pole he hooks the
sleeping Bugs just before the mattress goes over a waterfall.
Bugs
awakens on a table to find himself beneath a mummy. He first jumps
into the scientist’s arms ("Eh, eh, eh, w-w-what's up,
doc?"), then to a sarcophagus ("What's going on
around here?") and finally onto the robot ("Where am
I anyway?"), before running away from the terror of seeing
all three.
The
scientist, complaining of “delays delays,” opens a door marked
“Monster.” A hairy orange monster the scientist calls “Rudolph”
emerges. The scientist tells Rudolph to retrieve the rabbit, with the
promise of a spider goulash as a reward.
Jones
repeats the trap door gag from Hair-Raising Hare,
embellishing it with a rock falling into the water below and
crocodiles snapping their jaws. Bugs begins walking backward and
praying. He bumps into Rudolph, saying to himself, “Uh oh. Think
fast, rabbit!” and uses the same gabby beautician gag as in the
previous cartoon, but deciding to give Rudolph a new hairdo.
Telling
Rudolph he’ll be right back, Bugs goes to a storeroom and returns
with sticks of dynamite, which he fastens to Rudolph’s head like
curlers. He lights the dynamite and takes his leave just before the
dynamite explodes, leaving a bald patch on Rudolph’s head, which he
fixes by tying his hair together on top.
Rudolph
follows Bugs into the laboratory. Bugs douses himself with a bottle
of “vanishing fluid” and becomes invisible. Bugs opens a bottle
of “reducing fluid" and dumps the contents on Rudolph, causing
him to shrink as he lets out a roar that goes from a bass to a
soprano. Putting on a coat and hat and grabbing two suitcases,
Rudolph enters a mouse hole and kicks its resident out, before
slamming the door (which bears a sign saying "I QUIT!”) The
mouse holds up a bottle of whiskey and says, "I quit too,”
before dashing away.
Triumphant,
Bugs gnaws on a carrot (“Well, that's that.”). Suddenly he
re-appears as the scientist, on the table above him holding a
hatchet, pours a bottle of “hare restorer” over him, while
remarking, “Never send a monster to do the work of an evil
scientist.” He insists Bugs hand over his brain, “Now
be a cooperative little bunny and let me have your brain.” When
Bugs again refuses (“Uh, sorry doc, but I need what little I've
got”), the scientist throws his hatchet at Bugs, who ducks as
it flies over his head, shattering a large bottle of ether and
sending fumes into the air.
In
the next scene the laboratory door opens and Bugs runs out in slow
motion with the scientist in pursuit. “Come … back …
here … you … rab … bit.” Bugs runs behind a door and
sticks out his foot, tripping the scientist, who flies slowly through
the air and tells us “nighty night,” before landing asleep on the
floor. Bugs slowly lopes down to the river, trips over a rock and
falls asleep, landing in the same stream, which now takes Bugs
straight back into his flooded hole and onto his bed. He suddenly
wakes up and looks around. “Whew. It must’ve been a
nightmare,” he declares, before we see the miniature
Rudolph, still in his hat and coat, passing by on a rowboat, telling
him in a high-pitched voice, “Oh yeah!? That's
what you think.” Bugs looks
confused as the cartoon ends.
Water,
Water Every Hare is not only a far superior cartoon
than Hair-Raising Hare, it’s one of Jones’ best.
Bugs Bunny has now become someone who isn’t out looking for
trouble, but whose problems arise just from being in the wrong place
at the wrong time. While he doesn’t instigate the trouble, once the
villain starts, Bugs will not rest until it’s ended.
In
this case he has come across an evil scientist who wants his brain
for his robot. The scientist, small with light green skin, a bulbous
head and a unibrow, is one of Jones’ better creations. Smith gives
him a voice somewhat akin to Vincent Price.
The
orange monster finally gets a name and Jones uses him well, this time
not allowing the gags to overtake the plot. Even the way Bugs
dispatches Rudolph makes sense given the surroundings. This time,
Jones takes full advantage of the marvelously detailed backgrounds by
Gribbroek and Klein, integrating the action with them. Nowhere is
this better seen than at the cartoon’s climax with a stoned Bugs
running from an equally stoned scientist, as if in zero gravity and
speaking in slowed-down voices. Carl Stalling beautifully punctuates
the scene by using a slower version of the William Tell
Overture.
Water,
Water Every Hare is a solid example of the growth and
evolution of Chuck Jones from the ‘40s through to the ‘50s. Along
with fellow director Friz Freleng, he refused to rest on his laurels,
instead continuing to push the boundaries of animation, which led to
some of the best and most imaginative cartoons ever to come out of
one studio.
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