Comments on Elmer's Pet Rabbit

[Brandon Pierce]

Plot: Elmer Fudd spots Bugs in a pet shop window, but after he takes him home Bugs heckles him and complains about having to eat carrots.

Grade: C

Comments & Observations:
1. Pretty good Chuck Jones cartoon. It's lacking something, though. But, I just LOVE the scene where Bugs is complaining about eating carrots. And, during all this time he IS eating carrots.
2. Mel Blanc apparently was still searching for the right voice for Bugs. Has anybody heard Bugs's voice in this cartoon?
3. Bugs is wearing kitchen gloves.
4. Bugs does a brief Katherine Hepburn imitation in one scene.
5. I guess Elmer didn't pay his electric bill. Elmer walks into the room, turns on a light. Bugs comes into the room later, and the light is off, Bugs quickly turns it back on. Odd.
6. What in the world is Bugs doing to that newspaper?! He takes it out of the chair. Unfolds it, then refolds it, and puts it back in the chair. :confused:
Favorite Line: "How do you like this guy? He saves my life! And after all the things I've done to him in this picture!"
--Bugs Bunny

Technical Information: Made in 1941, directed by Chuck Jones

Brandon "Ask the man who owns one!" Pierce

[Sogturtle]

My one comment on "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" would be that Elmer's singing is very charming, which then has the horrendous counterpoint of Bugs' strange voice. I view it as stranger than strange that Chuck didn't have Mel re-record the REAL Bugs voice within a couple of years of the cartoon's release (and before the Blue Ribbons started). Left as is it is one of the cartoons Chuck wants to forget (and ditto for us). But as for me, I still like it 'cause of Elmer's singing (okay, and because I love Bugsy).

[J Lee]

Tim --

I'll bet if they had continued the policy of re-releasing Bugs Bunny cartoons as Blue Ribbons, Mel would have re-recorded the voice, though some of the dialogue wouldn't have fit perfectly with the personality Avery gave the rabbit. But when Warner's started charging extra cash to theaters to air the Bugs shorts in 1944 at the same time the Blue Ribbon re-releases began, the decision was made (or more likely forced) on Leon after only two Bugs cartoons were re-released that if the theaters were going to have to spend more for Bugs, they were going to get new cartoons (a policy that didn't change until the pre-1948 color cartoons were sold to AAP in 1957).

From a hisotrical standpoint then, it's probably better that Bugs Blue-Ribbon ban was adopted, because everyone would have grown up watching the re-released version with the dubbed voice, and original version would be as much a piece of trivia today as Clampett's director's cut of "Hare Ribbin'" is.

[Matthew Hunter]

I don't like Bugs' voice in this, but it's a funny cartoon, and much better than Jones' first Bugs/Elmer effort, "Elmer's Candid Camera". This has one of the best cartoon openings in the whole WB output, with Elmer singing and walking down the sidewalk, then spotting the rabbit.
-Matthew

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by J Lee
Tim --

I'll bet if they had continued the policy of re-releasing Bugs Bunny cartoons as Blue Ribbons, Mel would have re-recorded the voice, though some of the dialogue wouldn't have fit perfectly with the personality Avery gave the rabbit. But when Warner's started charging extra cash to theaters to air the Bugs shorts in 1944 at the same time the Blue Ribbon re-releases began, the decision was made (or more likely forced) on Leon after only two Bugs cartoons were re-released that if the theaters were going to have to spend more for Bugs, they were going to get new cartoons (a policy that didn't change until the pre-1948 color cartoons were sold to AAP in 1957).

From a hisotrical standpoint then, it's probably better that Bugs Blue-Ribbon ban was adopted, because everyone would have grown up watching the re-released version with the dubbed voice, and original version would be as much a piece of trivia today as Clampett's director's cut of "Hare Ribbin'" is.

John~

IFFFF Chuck had had Mel re-record all his dialogue for "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" all of us would have grown up thinking what a unique but charming cartoon it was, rather than focusing on its two oddities (Bugs' voice and those yellow gloves). And indeed then people would 'ooh' and 'ahhhh' when word got about that 'THE ORIGINAL VERSION' had turned up in someone's basement. Great expense later it would debut and... everybody would go "YUCKKK!!! what an awful voice for Bugs"!!! :) :) ;) ;)

[J Lee]

Yea, I suppose from an entertainment standpoint a redubbed voice would have been better. But for those of us who get into the historical trivia of the old cartoons, having the original around shows that, if nothing else, Jones started "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" before the reports of Avery's success with "A Wild Hare" were known, since there was no reason not to use Tex's voice once the audience reaction (and Oscar nomination) of his cartoon came back.