Shrunken Cinema/Termite Terrace/Stage Door Cartoon
From Eccentric Flower
Stage Door Cartoon
1944
Summary: Elmer chases Bugs (and himself) into a variety of stage performances.
Director: Friz Freleng
Writer: Michael Maltese
Featuring: Elmer Fudd; Bugs Bunny.
Onreel
0:22 Sound cue: Yet another occurrence of Stalling's "What's Up, Doc?" theme, in a slightly different arrangement. Actually, this might be the earliest use of it!
0:47 Sound cue: "A-Hunting We Will Go."
1:56 I'm not sure if the "which way did he go" lines, which have a peculiar intonation like they're imitating some known schtick, actually are a reference to anything. (They reappear in other cartoons, so if it is their own internal joke, they liked it enough to reuse it.) But Bugs' "Here I ay-um!" at the end of them is him doing Clem Kadiddlehopper (one of Red Skelton's recurring characters). Maybe the rest of it is too?
2:11 Sound cue: The can-can here is Harry Warren's "Latin Quarter." I don't think this is significant enough to count as a Bugs in Drag score.
2:34 "Clampett Trained Seals." Bob Clampett, of course.
2:39 The sound cue for Bugs' soft-shoe number is apparently a Carl Stalling original, and is reused in other cartoons. It has no title that I know of.
3:35 Sound cues: The beginning of the piano solo is supposedly part of Mendelssohn's "Ruy Blas" overture, which I have never heard, but it quickly segues to Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1 in B-flat Minor, which I have.
4:19 Sound cue: Sousa's "The Black Horse Troop." I've never heard this particular Sousa piece, but I notice it bears more than a passing similarity to the Liberty Bell March.
4:54 "Tell ya what he's gonna do." This line and its exact delivery are heard in several barker routines of the period. I have no idea which is its origin. This one in particular reminds me of the patter in Spike Jones' version of "By the Beautiful Sea," where the barker explains that the high diver will do his dive "into a damp dishrag."
5:17 This darkening effect is supposed to look like them lowering a semi-transparent scrim at the end of the act, instead of a solid curtain. It's not very well done.
6:25 Sound cue for the striptease: "If I Could Be With You."
6:53 Behind the scrim again. Some viewers see the genesis of Yosemite Sam in the "sheriff" character, but I think he is just another in a string of Kentucky-colonel types. Sam is more Wild West than Deep South (which is also why this character sounds more like Foghorn Leghorn than like Sam).
7:00 Cartoon inside a cartoon! Complete with repeats of "Merrily We Roll Along" and Stalling's "What's Up, Doc?"
7:56 "I got a million of 'em": Bugs is doing Jimmy Durante.
Offreel
This cartoon's title is a joke on the 1943 film Stage Door Canteen.
This cartoon contains my favorite Elmer line of all time: "You tweachewous miscweant!"
