Hare Remover

Hare Remover
The lobby card, labeling the cartoon as Elmer's Hare Remover.
Directed by	Frank Tashlin Robert McKimson (both uncredited)
Story by	Warren Foster
Produced by	Edward Selzer (unc.)
Starring	Mel Blanc Arthur Q. Bryan (uncredited)
Music by	Carl W. Stalling
Animation by	Richard Bickenbach Art Davis Cal Dalton I. Ellis Anatole Kirsanoff (unc.) A.C. Gamer (effects)
Backgrounds by	Richard H. Thomas
Color process	Technicolor
Production company	Warner Bros. Cartoons
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date	March 23, 1946 (1946-03-23) (U.S.)
Running time	7:27
Language	English

Hare Remover is a Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, released in 1946. The film was the second Bugs Bunny cartoon to be directed by Frank Tashlin, the first being The Unruly Hare (1945).

It was also the last short Tashlin directed before leaving Warner Bros. in late-1944 to direct live-action films. His animation unit was given to Robert McKimson upon his departure.

Plot

Bugs observes the potion's side effects on Elmer, animated by Cal Dalton.

Mad scientist Elmer tries his best to make a "Jekyll and Hyde potion", but his experiments always end in failure, causing one of his test animals, a dog, to run out and eat grass. He decides to trap a rabbit (Bugs Bunny) as his next subject. After he traps Bugs, Elmer gives Bugs the potion, but to no avail. Elmer has a crying fit until Bugs gives him one of the potions, giving Elmer the same initial side effects as the other animals had experienced.

When a bear enters the lab from the nearby forest, both Bugs and Elmer mistake the bear for one another, until Elmer becomes angry at the bear (still thinking that it is Bugs) after the bear refuses the potion that was going to cure him, which was the same potion Bugs gave to the bear earlier and which made the bear disgusted. Elmer scolds the bear until he discovers that the bear isn't Bugs Bunny when the real Bugs is at the window.

Elmer realizes his mistake, and the enraged bear chases Elmer and ends up on the warpath against him, while Elmer is begging the bear not to kill him. Elmer, after heeding Bugs' option, plays 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. 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 to the audience showing a screw with a ball, a cracked pot, a dripping faucet, bats in the belfry, etc.

Home media

This cartoon is found on Volume 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection.

Sources

• Sigall, Martha (2005). "The Boys of Termite Terrace". Living Life Inside the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781578067497.

See also

• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1940–1949)
• List of Bugs Bunny cartoons

External links

• Hare Remover at IMDb