Falling Hare

Falling Hare is a 1943 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Robert Clampett.[1] The cartoon features Bugs Bunny.[2]

Falling Hare
Directed byBob Clampett
Produced byLeon Schlesinger
Story byWarren Foster
StarringMel Blanc
Music byCarl W. Stalling
Milt Franklyn
Animation byRod Scribner
Virgil Ross
Thomas McKimson
Robert McKimson
Phil Monroe
Bill Melendez
Manny Gould
Layouts byThomas McKimson
Backgrounds byMichael Sasanoff
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date
  • October 30, 1943 (1943-10-30) (U.S.)
Running time
8 minutes (one reel)
LanguageEnglish

Plot

This cartoon opens with the title credits over the strains of “Down by the Riverside”, then into an extended series of establishing shots of an Army Air Force base, to the brassy strains of “We’re in to Win” (a World War II song also sung by Daffy Duck in Scrap Happy Daffy two months before). The sign at the base reads "U.S. Army Air Field", and below that is shown the location, the number of planes (which include C-45 Expeditors and a Douglas B-18 Bolo) and number of men, all marked "Censored" as a reference to military secrecy. Beneath those categories, the sign reads "What men think of top sergeant", which is shown with a large white-on-black "CENSORED!!", as the language implied would not pass scrutiny by the Hays Office.

Bugs is found reclining on a piece of ordnance next to a bomber plane, idly reading Victory Thru Hare Power (a spoof of the 1942 book).[3] Bugs Bunny, leaning on a blockbuster bomb, is seen laughing uproariously; he turns to the audience and shares what he is reading: an accusation that gremlins wreck American planes through "di-a-bo-lick-al saa-boh-tay-jee," a notion that Bugs finds ludicrous. A little yellow humanoid with airplane wings on a large blue helmet scuttles by and begins striking the bomb with a mallet, whistling "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Noticing the creature's lack of success, Bugs offers to take a shot at the bomb and takes a long hard swing, stopping immediately before making contact in sudden realization that he had nearly been hoodwinked. He then ponders if the creature in question were a gremlin, and the gremlin affirms with a shout: "It ain't Vendell Villkie!"

The gremlin knocks Bugs out with a monkey wrench, and when the gremlin revives him, Bugs speaks nonsensically as Lennie Small, then Baby Snooks. Quickly regaining consciousness, a now infuriated Bugs gives chase, repeatedly getting slighted by the amused gremlin, which includes repeated strikes with a monkey wrench and laughing to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." Upon chasing the gremlin inside a bomber (which ironically resembles a Heinkel He-111), Bugs finds himself locked from the outside, and then the gremlin takes the plane to the air, unbeknownst to Bugs. Bugs manages to burst out of the exit door and narrowly escapes plunging to his death when he realizes the plane is airborne (realizing he has made himself a jackass as the Private Snafu theme plays). He manages to get back in, in the process showing a heretofore-unseen ability to fly like a bird, only to slide right out the other door due to strategically placed banana skins; when the gremlin opens the door again, he finds a terrified Bugs clinging to it with his heart pounding "4F" (Army code for drastically limiting medical condition, hospitalization required, and/or ineligible to be inducted via the draft).[4]

By this point, the gremlin is flying the plane through a city with two large skyscrapers. Bugs rushes into the cockpit, takes control of the airplane, rolls it vertically, and flies through an extremely narrow slot between the towers to avoid what seemed to be an inevitable impact.

The plane goes into a steep nosedive, its wings ripping off during its descent, with only the fuselage remaining, making Bugs both airsick and terrified. The gremlin nonchalantly awaits the plane's crash while playing with a yo-yo. The plane then unexpectedly sputters to a halt, half a short distance above the ground and hanging in mid-air, defying gravity. Both Bugs and the Gremlin then casually address the audience: the gremlin apologizes for the plane's fuel depletion, while Bugs points to a wartime gas rationing sticker on the plane's windshield and remarks: "Yeah. You know how it is with these A cards!"[3][5]

Availability

Falling Hare is available on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 and Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3.

Cast

Production notes

Falling Hare went into production under the title Bugs Bunny and the Gremlin. Walt Disney was developing a feature based on Roald Dahl’s novel The Gremlins, and asked other animation studios not to produce any films involving gremlins. However, Warner Bros. was too far into production on this cartoon and Russian Rhapsody to remove the references to gremlins, so Leon Schlesinger merely re-titled the cartoons as a compromise.[3]

This is one of the few Bugs Bunny cartoons to have fallen into the public domain, as in 1967, United Artists, the copyright holder for most of the pre-1950's Warner Bros. cartoons at the time, failed to renew the copyright in time.

Release and reception

Because of the cartoon’s public domain status, it can be found on budget compilations in lower quality prints, while Warner Home Video issued a restored print on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 and Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3, with optional audio commentary by John Kricfalusi and Bill Melendez (Melendez was one of the animators on the cartoon). In 1989, it was included in the MGM/UA Home Video release Bugs & Daffy: The Wartime Cartoons.

When the Southern Television broadcast interruption occurred in the United Kingdom, the interruption ended shortly before the start of this cartoon.

Elements from the short have been used in other Warner Bros. works.

  • Footage of this cartoon's climax was incorporated as a flashback into a later Bugs Bunny cartoon, His Hare-Raising Tale (1951). Bugs, narrating to his nephew Clyde, describes himself as a World War II test pilot who narrowly escaped death in a near-crash (fortunately, as in Falling Hare, he ran out of gas). There is no mention of the Gremlin character, and one of Bugs' screams ("Yow-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!!") from earlier in the cartoon is inserted into the soundtrack. The scene fades out as it zooms in on the stalled aircraft suspended inches above the ground.
  • Black-and-white footage from the cartoon was featured in the second trailer for Gremlins 2: The New Batch (directed by Joe Dante). Though no footage was used in the theatrical cut of the film, a clip from the cartoon appeared in the VHS version.[6]
  • The Gremlin nemesis makes two reappearances in Tiny Toon Adventures. In "Journey to the Center of Acme Acres", the Gremlin appears (with several look-alikes) as the cause of earthquakes in Acme Acres after their gold is stolen by Montana Max. Clampett is given an acknowledgement in the credits for their design. In the special Night Ghoulery, a singular Gremlin antagonizes Plucky Duck in the segment titled "Gremlin on a Wing" (a spoof of the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet").
  • It also made a brief cameo in "Plane Pals" (an episode from Animaniacs) as a passenger.
  • The scene in which a flattened Bugs mutters "I’m only 3½ years old" and rolls on the floor flat as a pancake is used in "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" (an episode from Tiny Toon Adventures).
  • The ending "out of gas" gag is referenced in the 2003 theatrical release Looney Tunes Back in Action. Bugs and the live-action characters in the airplane are suspended above the ground until one character comments on the situation's lack of realism, prompting the plane to fall the remaining few feet.

This cartoon had a scene where a 2-engine USAAF bomber was flown directly at a skyscraper in what looked to be a certain impact. Two years after its release, a USAAF B-25 Mitchell bomber was inadvertently flown into the Empire State Building on a foggy day, and 56 years after that, the September 11 attacks occurred on a sunny day.

The climactic scene in Falling Hare is described in detail in the novel The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

gollark: Ah, a dependency, you mean.
gollark: Using libraries, you mean?
gollark: Doesn't mean you can actually, say, access the GPU or screen.
gollark: "since it's turing complete it's definitely possible"
gollark: Also, fairly sure you can't really.

See also

References
  1. Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 145. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
  2. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 60-61. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  3. Shull, Wilt (2004), p. 61
  4. "Army Regulation 40-501: Standards of Medical Fitness (pp75,84)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-08-15. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  5. (An 'A card' was the lowest priority, entitling 3–4 gallons of gasoline per week)
  6. "Gremlins 2: The New Batch". Movie-Censorship.com. 2010-05-11. Retrieved 2015-08-08.
Preceded by
A Corny Concerto (not explicitly billed a Bugs Bunny cartoon)		 Bugs Bunny Cartoons
1943		 Succeeded by
Little Red Riding Rabbit
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