Hare Remover
From Loonipedia
Hare Remover is a 1945 Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, released in 1946. The film was the last cartoon to be directed by Frank Tashlin at Warner Bros. (Tashlin was left uncredited because he had left the studio before the cartoon was released). 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).
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
Elmer tries his best to create one of those "Jekyll and Hyde potions" that "changes a normal character into a devilish fiend", but his experiments always end in failure, causing his test animals to run for the hills and eat grass. His "Experimental Dog" Rover was his last remaining victim. He decides to trap a rabbit as his next subject, that being Bugs Bunny. Bugs is aware of Elmer planning to trap him but decides to go along with the charade. After he traps him, Elmer forcefully gives Bugs the potion, again with no success.
Elmer gets upset about his failures until Bugs gives him one of the potions, causing Elmer to experience similar side effects the other animals had. Bugs comments, "I think Spencer Tracy did it much better. Don't you, folks?" while watching Elmer act funny. As Elmer experiences the "looney" side effects of the potion, Bugs flashes rebus picture cards at Elmer showing a "screwball," a "crackpot," a "drip," "bats in the belfry" (or a "dingbat"), and so on off-screen before Elmer runs outside and eats grass with Rover, himself still eating grass.
When a bear enters the lab from the nearby forest wearing Elmer's hat, Bugs thinks the potion changed him into a bear. Bugs' attempt to create an antidote proved to be unsuccessful as it only set the bear's mouth on fire. Just before the bear angrily tosses the vial of failed antidote at Bugs, the rabbit makes a run of it.
The bear then picks up Bugs' carrot and eats it to try and get the awful taste of the antidote out of his mouth. When Elmer returns to his lab, he thought Bugs had transformed into a bear and tries to make an antidote for him. However, the bear smacked the vial away from Elmer. The scientist chastises him until he discovers that the bear is real after finding Bugs behind a window. The bear chases Elmer around the lab until Bugs told Elmer to play dead to fool the bear and is saved by his bad odor. Elmer thinks he's safe until he thinks he hears the bear again, but it's Bugs this time, imitating the bear. 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 just like Bugs did earlier.
Notes[edit | edit source]
- Elmer seldom referred to his perennial co-star by name, but typically only as "that scwewy wabbit" or similar expressions. This cartoon is one of the few in which Elmer actually acknowledges the bunny's name. When he sees the bear munching a carrot and assumes that it's the rabbit transformed by his drug, Elmer cries with delight, "Bugs Bunny!" In the reverse situation, when Bugs mistakes the bear for Elmer, Bugs still calls him, "Doc!" (Coincidentally, in the aforementioned Hare Tonic, Bugs himself addresses Elmer by name.)
Availability[edit | edit source]
This cartoon is found on Volume 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection.