Rabbit Fire

Daffy Duck once again successfully negotiates his way into a gunshot

1951 Looney Tunes short by Chuck Jones, featuring another attempt by Elmer Fudd to hunt Bugs Bunny, only with a new twist: this one also features Daffy Duck, and he and Bugs each spend the entire picture trying to get Elmer to shoot the other.

This short was very popular, featuring the famous "Duck season!", "Wabbit season!" scene, and establishing the rivalry between Bugs and Daffy. It was the first in a trilogy of Bugs-Daffy-Elmer cartoons known as The Hunting Trilogy, the others being Rabbit Seasoning (1952) and Duck! Rabbit, Duck! (1953).


This short is part of The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes list.


Wabbit Fire is the Twope Namer for: ... er, Rabbit Fire is the Trope Namer for:
Tropes used in Rabbit Fire include:
  • Ass in a Lion Skin: Bugs pretends to be a duck; Daffy pretends to be a rabbit and a dog.
  • Attractive Bent Gender: Elmer falls for one of Bugs' female disguises again.
  • Bowdlerization: These cartoons were shown edited on a lot of network TV channels (and one cable channel), all for the same gag: Daffy getting shot in the face by Elmer.
    • Versions of these cartoons shown on ABC and “The Merrie Melodies Show” (the syndicated version) would cut to a freeze-framed shot of Bugs looking off-camera while the audio of Daffy getting shot was still heard.
    • CBS and the WB, however, chose not to give viewers the satisfaction of using their imaginations and edited both audio and visual of Daffy getting blasted.
    • Nickelodeon (the one cable channel mentioned above) actually left “Rabbit Seasoning” and “Duck! Rabbit! Duck!” alone in the editing department, but “Rabbit Fire” wasn’t so lucky. The famous “no more bullets” part (where Daffy looks down the barrel of Elmer’s rifle and gets shot through his scalp) was cut.
      • To quote the blog, Saturday Morning Hangover on how editing the gun violence affects the cartoons:

"The ABC, “Merrie Melodies Show,” and Nickelodeon cuts you can tolerate. The CBS and WB versions aren’t recommended for theatrical cartoon lovers with short tempers...Without it [the edited scenes], they [the cartoons] just lie there, like an unsatisfied wife waiting for her husband to finish penetrating her when really he’s just humping a blanket fold."

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