DUCK AMUCK vs. RABBIT RAMPAGE

[Tintin]

Who's that your favorite cartoon between "Duck Amuck" and "Rabbit Rampage"?

[PorkyandDaffy]

DUCK AMUCK.

[Tintin]

Han han, mine are RABBIT RAMPAGE. Duck Amuck is not worst, but RABBIT RAMPAGE is one of only cartoon where Bugs was the loser!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!;)

[J Lee]

There were more cartoons than you think where Bugs was the loser:

Tortoise Beats Hare (loses race, cash, kissed by turtles)
Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (kissed by Ward Kimball Indian characture)
The Heckling Hare -- original version (falls off another cliff)
Tortoise Wins By A Hare (loses race, but at least doesn't get brains blown out)
Porky Pig's Feat (locked up by the palooka manager in the Broken Arms Hotel)
What's Cookin' Doc? (kissed by booby prize Oscar statuette of dubious sexual prefrence)
Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears (chased out of rabbit hole by Mama Bear of dubious sexual attractiveness)
Rabbit Transit (Wins race, but gets dragged away by NYC police)
A Feather In His Hare (Faints at thought of massive parental responsbilites)
Haredevil Hare (Left hanging from the blown-up moon with Marvin and K-9 hanging onto his legs; would later say under threat of streetcar attack it took 22 years to get home)
Rebel Rabbit (Runs afoul of U.S. military over terrorism activities and lands in Alcatraz -- Osama bin Laden obviously never watched this cartoon)
8-Ball Bunny (Leaves penguin with Bogey, runs away screaming)
Foxy By Proxy (De-cotton tailed by dopier version of Avery's Willoughby)
Hare Brush (Arrested by IRS for non-payment of taxes)
Rabbit Rampage (already mentioned)
Hyde and Hare (not really a loss, but he does get transformed into a monster)
Half-Fare Hare (Waylayed by overhanging railroad signal, gets real ugly looking head of McKimson lumps)
Baton Bunny (gets treated like Daffy after his dance in "Show Biz Bugs" when his performance produces cricket noises)
The Unmentionables (20 years in Juliet Prison with Rocky and Mugsy)
Mad as a Mars Hare (not really a loss, but he does get transformed into a monster)
Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare (gets mangled by Frankie after getting a cigar blown up in his face).

[Sogturtle]

"Duck Amuck" is easily(hands down even) the better of the two cartoons (and I'm an inveterate Bugs-fiend). The thing that is so upsetting about the wildly mis-named "Rabbit Rampage" is the ending. To put the greatest cartoon character (our Bug-sy) in the hands of the ultimate schmiel (Elmer) in a victim/victor situation is ludicrous. ANY OTHER antagonist (Yosemite Sam, Marvin Martian, even Daffy) would have worked, but to have the moronic Fudd out-think Bugs??? No way. Annnnnd it's a cryin' shame, because solo animator Ben Washam put in some very nice animation in "Rabbit Rampage". Whilst "Duck Amuck" is a comedy tour-de-force, and is logical in having Bugs as the hidden tormentor.

[Jack]

I chose Duck Amuck, it's easily the best, as others have said. It has excellent comedic timing and gags. The Bugs cameo at the end is great, playing up on Bugs heckling side, and it's completely unexpected (if you've never seen it before).

I also sort of think a cameo by any other character than Elmer at the end of Rabbit Rampage would have been better. Daffy would be my first choice for two reasons:

-It's part of his very nature. Daffy has always heckled others, knowingly and unknowingly, ever snce he was first created. He can be obnoxious and likeable at the same time.

-The only time I think Daffy ever really got the best of Bugs was in a Tang commercial. That's just not right. If Elmer, or even Taz, can get the best of Bugs more than once, then a smart duck like Daffy should be allowed SOME payback (especially when looking at the cartoons to follow). Besides, it's only logical that Daffy would want to get back at brer rabbit after "Duck Amuck."

Rabbit Rampage is a good cartoon, by no means a dud, but it could have been a tad better, I think...



Jack:D

[J Lee]

"Duck Amuck" is easily(hands down even) the better of the two cartoons (and I'm an inveterate Bugs-fiend). The thing that is so upsetting about the wildly mis-named "Rabbit Rampage" is the ending. To put the greatest cartoon character (our Bug-sy) in the hands of the ultimate schmiel (Elmer) in a victim/victor situation is ludicrous.
ANY OTHER antagonist (Yosemite Sam, Marvin Martian, even Daffy) would have worked, but to have the moronic Fudd out-think Bugs??? No way.

Tim

Notice that in all of the 20 years of the Bugs-Elmer rivalry at the Warner Bros. studio, only two cartoons were made where Elmer came out on top -- "Rabbit Rampage" and "Hare Brush" both of which were made virtually back-to-back, and both of witch were made immediately after the reopening of the cartoon studio following J.L.'s failed attempt at 3-D production.

Maybe Chuck and Friz were trying to send the studio bosses a little message about how they felt about being put out of work for six months, or maybe not...

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by J Lee


Tim

Notice that in all of the 20 years of the Bugs-Elmer rivalry at the Warner Bros. studio, only two cartoons were made where Elmer came out on top -- "Rabbit Rampage" and "Hare Brush" both of which were made virtually back-to-back, and both of witch were made immediately after the reopening of the cartoon studio following J.L.'s failed attempt at 3-D production.

Maybe Chuck and Friz were trying to send the studio bosses a little message about how they felt about being put out of work for six months, or maybe not...


Hi John~

Interesting points. Shame we don't know how audiences took to these two toons back when they were released. My hunch is that they reacted identically as we do, some laughter mixed with puzzlement (and maybe more than a LITTLE ire). The differences of Elmer besting Bugs in "Rabbit Rampage" and " Hare Brush" are notable though... In "Rabbit Rampage" his getting the better of Bugs is purely arbitrary and without any justification (just a device). Whereas in "Hare Brush" he is quasi-victorious due to his REAL mental-illness (BTW a real mental condition known as "Boanthropy", imagining oneself to be an animal). The Feds DON'T haul him away because he looks and acts like a "wabbit", whereas Bugs acts and (sort of) looks like a human Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. It works very well as a closing gag and I at least have a sense that brer Bugs will get out it and head back to the woods. BUUUUUT the whole idea of Elmer Fudd as a MILLIONAIRE is radically bizarre too... You can't imagine Elmer REALLY have built that company, can you??? The man's a moron for cryin' out loud!! Soooooo the only way we can reconcile the two concepts of millionaire with Elmer J. Fudd is through a large, large inheritance... Presumably he really had ended up inheriting a fortune from "Uncle Wouie"!!!! ...

Your idea of Chuck and Friz sending a message via these two cartoons to the front office is intriguing. I guess such a message would be that J.L. was crazy, and that if he didn't "mind his ps' and qs' then a boob like Elmer COULD up and replace him... (It was likely at this moment that Chuck's deep-hatred of Jack Warner started). Although for this theory to be really sound, Bob McKimson should have weighed in with a similar cartoon (he'd been off making TV commercials).

[J Lee]

Tim --

Given the timing of their release, it's very possible both cartoons went into production, at least at the storyboard level, just before the studio shut down (McKimson had two Sid Marcus-penned `toons done after the studio re-opened when Sid was not hired back and "Rabbit Rampage" carries Maltese's name, and he didn't return from Lantz' for a couple of months after the studio reopened). So it's possible the stories were written as Chuck and Friz were getting word that they and the rest of their staffs were about to be put out of work and the whole staff was probably at its angriest over this idiotic 3-D idea.

In that case -- and with both knowing how J.L. and/or Leon felt about what Avery did in "The Heckling Hare" 14 years earlier -- both cartoons can be seen as something of an act of artistic rebellion; taking the studio's most famous character and main breadwinner and having him lose to a bird-brain he had been defeating with ease since 1940. Given that they didn't even know if the studio would reopen and the two cartoons would ever be made, and given Jones statements about how his last few one-shot cartoons in 1962-63 were designed to annoy J.L., its possible that both cartoons were written with the same idea in mind, to make Bugs the fall guy and piss off Mr. Warner, Eddie Seltzer and the other suits pushing the 3-D idea at the same time (though Seltzer would likely be the only one of that group who would ever see the storyboards).

When production did resume and those same suits wanted some new (and more profitable) Bugs cartoons rushed into the theaters as soon as possible, those storyboards were brought out and put into production as a sly "dig" at the people who had dumped them in the first place.

Unless Chuck or one of the few other surviving WB staffers decides to speak on this great puzzlement of mankind, we'll never know if the "Fudd wins" toons were deliberate or just a coincidence, but given all the inside jokes Warner's had in their cartoons over the years, it's hard to believe two similar-themed cartoons could come out so close together from the studio's top directors without some alterior motive in there.

[DarthGonzo]

Originally posted by J Lee


Tim

Notice that in all of the 20 years of the Bugs-Elmer rivalry at the Warner Bros. studio, only two cartoons were made where Elmer came out on top -- "Rabbit Rampage" and "Hare Brush" both of which were made virtually back-to-back, and both of witch were made immediately after the reopening of the cartoon studio following J.L.'s failed attempt at 3-D production.

Maybe Chuck and Friz were trying to send the studio bosses a little message about how they felt about being put out of work for six months, or maybe not...

I know bugs wasnt really dead, but arent we forgetting What's Opera Doc?