Hare Remover

Hare Remover
Merrie Melodies (Bugs Bunny) series
"I think Spencer Tracy did it much better. Don't you, folks?" Animation by Cal Dalton
Directed by	Frank Tashlin (uncredited)
Produced by	Edward Selzer (uncredited)
Story by	Warren Foster Melvin Millar
Voices by	Mel Blanc Arthur Q. Bryan (uncredited)
Music by	Carl W. Stalling
Animation by	Richard Bickenbach Art Davis Cal Dalton I. Ellis A.C. Gamer (effects animation)
Layouts by	Richard H. Thomas
Backgrounds by	Richard H. Thomas
Studio	Warner Bros. Cartoons
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date(s)	March 23, 1946
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	7:27
Language	English
Preceded by	Baseball Bugs
Followed by	Hair-Raising Hare

Hare Remover is a Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, released in 1946. The film was the second Bugs Bunny cartoon to be directed by Frank Tashlin at Warner Bros., the first being The Unruly Hare (1945).^[1]

The title is another obvious play on "hair", and on patent medicines that had the opposite effect of a "hair tonic" (as with another Bugs title, Hare Tonic).

This short is the last short Frank Tashlin directed before leaving Warner Bros. to direct live-action films. His animation unit was handed over to Robert McKimson after he left the studio.

Synopsis

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 him, Elmer gives Bugs the potion, again with no success. Elmer has a crying fit until Bugs gives him one of the potions, giving Elmer the same initial looney side effects the other animals had experienced. (Bugs comments to the audience, "I think Spencer Tracy did it much better. Don't you, folks?")

When a bear enters the lab from the nearby forest, both Bugs and Elmer mistake the bear for one another (Bugs seeing the bear wear Elmer's hat and Elmer later seeing the bear eat a carrot), until Elmer becomes angry at the bear (still thinking that it's Bugs Bunny) after the bear refuses the potion that was going to cure him, which was the same potion Bugs gave to the bear earlier and of 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 (just as with Wabbit Twouble). Elmer thinks he's safe until he thinks he hears the bear again, but it's Bugs this time, imitating the bear (again, lifted from Wabbit Twouble). 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 a belfry, etc. (a gag Bugs had done earlier when Elmer was freaking out after drinking the potion).

Crew

• Story: Warren Foster, Melvin Millar
• Animation: Richard Bickenbach, Art Davis, Cal Dalton, I. Ellis
• Layouts and Backgrounds: Richard H. Thomas
• Film Editor: Treg Brown
• Voice Characterization: Mel Blanc, Arthur Q. Bryan
• Effects Animation: A.C. Gamer
• Musical Direction: Carl W. Stalling
• Orchestrations: Milt Franklyn
• Production: Edward Selzer
• Direction: Frank Tashlin

Availability

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

Sources

• Sigall, Martha (2005). "The Boys of Termite Terrace". Living Life Inside the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781578067497.

See also

• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1940–1949)
• List of Bugs Bunny cartoons

References