Shrunken Cinema/Termite Terrace/The Heckling Hare
From Eccentric Flower
The Heckling Hare
1941
Summary: Bugs is pursued ineptly by a hunting dog.
Director: Tex Avery
Writer: Michael Maltese
Featuring: Bugs Bunny.
Onreel
0:23 This cartoon uses a title slide which is a photograph of real-life objects - in this case what looks like a clay model with the title scratched into it. See also Wabbit Twouble, also 1941. Sound cue: "A-Hunting We Will Go," naturally.
0:50 Sound cue: A few notes of something that at least starts off sounding like "The Umbrella Man" as the dog tiptoes.
2:03 Sound cue: "While Strolling Through the Park One Day."
2:51 Sound cue: "Frühlingslied."
2:55 Bugs stops to put on a swim cap. After the bubble encounter he has apparently lost it (mostly since the split-ears gag wouldn't work otherwise).
3:19 Sound cue: "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles."
Offreel
This is the first cartoon that begins with Bugs riding out on top of the WB shield. This was only the fifth cartoon in which Bugs could properly be considered Bugs, and this is proof that his identity as a star character was now completely established.
This is the cartoon Tex Avery quit over. It wasn't the last of his cartoons to be released; his next-to-last production, "All This and Rabbit Stew," was released after this. (It is now in the Censored Eleven.)
Avery's version of the cartoon had two cliff falls at the end. (Many sources say "three" falls and I think they must be counting some different way.) If you look closely, you'll notice that the cartoon has already begun its fadeout as the dog says "Yeah!" This is to cover up the fact that the rest has been abrubtly cut. The next thing that is supposed to happen is that Bugs and the dog walk away - only to fall off another cliff. Bugs says to the audience, "Hold onto your hats, folks, here we go again!" and the cartoon fades out as they fall.
There are two stories floating around about why Warner and/or Schlesinger ordered Avery to change the end of this cartoon, and you can choose which you believe, as there is no definite proof of either:
1. Modern audiences may not realize that "Hold onto your hats, folks, here we go again!" was once the punchline of a dirty joke; I certainly didn't. The first story is that Jack Warner got cold feet about including this line, either because of the dirty joke or because it didn't date well. This seems unlikely, because no one objected to Daffy saying a very similar line in 1938 in Daffy Duck and Egghead - and no one was concerned about how well these cartoons would age at the time; they were meant to be ephemeral, with a life cycle of weeks.
2. Warner and/or Schlesinger didn't like the indeterminate ending because they were scared audiences would think they had killed off the Bugs Bunny character - or just because it was indeterminate and that was too edgy for them. This is the explanation I prefer.
Either way, Avery was incensed over the unilateral demand to make this change, and walked out. (He was promptly hired by MGM.) Since Schlesinger did not have a director to make a better ending for the cartoon, he simply cut the end off at the only point he reasonably could.
Some people think this cartoon depicts "the longest fall in cinema history" (about a minute long). I guess people don't count Falling Hare since it's inside a plane.
