Shrunken Cinema/Termite Terrace/Rabbit Seasoning
From Eccentric Flower
Rabbit Seasoning
1951
Summary: Bugs and Daffy each try to convince Elmer to hunt the other.
Director: Chuck Jones
Writer: Michael Maltese
Featuring: Elmer Fudd; Bugs Bunny; Daffy Duck.
Onreel
0:21 Sound cue: The titles use the "What's Up, Doc?" theme written by Carl Stalling.
0:38 The music follows the tempo of the words on the signs if you were reading them aloud.
0:57 As we get closer to the rabbit, the musical cue for the sign speeds up.
5:05 Sound cue for Bugs in drag: "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby."
6:18 Sound cue as Elmer leads Daffy home: "Home Sweet Home."
6:36 "You're despicable."
Offreel
This cartoon was named one of the "fifty greatest cartoons" in a vote of 1000 animation professionals in 1994.
This is the one cartoon of the trilogy (see below) where "A-Hunting We Will Go" is not a theme in the music. Unless I missed it.
The Trilogy
Joe Adamson writes in The Fifty Greatest Cartoons: "This is the most famous authentic trilogy in the history of American studio animation, and, assembled together, would constitute the only Bugs Bunny two-reel comedy." He also notes, however (and correctly) that "there is no development whatsoever - just the acknowledgement ... that this is too good to drop after seven minutes."
Actually, twenty-one minutes is probably a bit too much of a good thing; of the three, "Rabbit Seasoning" is probably the strongest. In case you tend to get the three mixed up - and who could blame you - here is a field guide to telling them apart.
- The usual wisdom is that Rabbit Fire takes place in spring and "Rabbit Seasoning" takes place in autumn; to my eye they have virtually the same palette (that's a lot of orange for spring). Duck! Rabbit, Duck! takes place in winter. This is also the chronological order in which they were made, so it's nice to maintain the idea that these are three acts of a single year.
- "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!" is the one where Bugs does not crossdress.
- The "duck season!" "rabbit season!" exchange where Bugs switches order is the centerpiece of "Rabbit Fire."
- The "pronoun trouble" sequence is the key gag in "Rabbit Seasoning."
- The various seasons of weird animals (mongoose season, dirty skunk season, etc) is the key gag in "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!"
- The "Elmer season" gag is in "Rabbit Fire."
- The "It's baseball season!" gag is in "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!" (made more amusing by the fact that that's the winter one).
- In "Rabbit Seasoning," Daffy confesses to the audience that it's really duck season near the beginning of the cartoon. In "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!" he confesses it to Bugs near the end (and is seen burning legitimate "duck season" signs at the beginning). In "Rabbit Fire" we have no idea what season it really is.
- Daffy says "You're despicable" to Bugs at some point in each cartoon.
- Elmer says "Be vewy vewy quiet; I'm hunting wabbits" at the beginning of "Rabbit Fire."
- Daffy is reduced to making inarticulate noises with his beak in sheer disgust twice in "Rabbit Seasoning."
- Daffy and Bugs disguise themselves as each other in "Rabbit Fire." Bugs reuses his duck disguise briefly in "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!"
- "Rabbit Fire" starts with Daffy making fake rabbit footprints by wearing a pair of rabbit-foot shoes. In "Rabbit Seasoning" he uses a rubber stamp instead.
- The business about "I'm not a stewin' wabbit; I'm a fwicasseein' wabbit" is in "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!"
- Elmer gets mad/impatient and takes shots at both of them, regardless of season, in both "Rabbit Fire" and "Rabbit Seasoning."
- Elmer says he is a "vegetawian" in "Rabbit Fire," in response to the dueling recipe books.
- By my count, Daffy gets shot in a way that rearranges or removes his beak fourteen times, including by a large group of hunters at the end of "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!"; he ends up with his head on upside down once; he gets his head and beak flattened once (after he pokes it up out of Bugs' hole in "Rabbit Seasoning"); and he gets scalped by his own hand (because there is "one buwwet weft") in "Rabbit Fire" - for a total of seventeen incidents. Bugs suffers physical damage once, from a shot that singes and flattens his ears at the beginning of "Rabbit Fire." Elmer only gets hurt once, when the elephant pounds him.
