Shrunken Cinema/Termite Terrace/Tortoise Wins by a Hare
From Eccentric Flower
Tortoise Wins by a Hare
1943
Summary: Bugs and Cecil turtle race again, but some bettors are confused as to who's who ....
Director: Bob Clampett
Writer: Warren Foster
Featuring: Bugs Bunny.
Onreel
0:22 Sound cue: The traditional "Call to the Post" (followed by a bell as if starting the race, and race commentary).
0:38 This footage is reused directly from Tortoise Beats Hare, which makes perfect sense once it is revealed that Bugs is watching it on a projector. However, the music is not the music from the original cartoon. The cue is "In the Stirrups" by Zamecnik.
1:26 The sound cue during Bugs' rant is "Black Coffee." This is not the 1948 song (Peggy Lee/Ella Fitzgerald/etc) that will clog up your searches so you can't find this one. Here's a 1935 recording of the correct one.
2:08 Bugs' speech and some of his phrases when in disguise as the old man are based on the "Old Timer" character from "Fibber McGee and Molly." The sound cue under their conversation is "Tain't No Good."
2:41 Bugs has a typewriter concealed beneath his beard.
2:46 The blueprint bears the name of layout artist Michael Sasanoff.
3:29 The first few notes here are evocative of the "Anvil Chorus" (from Il trovatore), but only just.
3:45 All of the smaller stories on this front page are from a real copy of the Chicago Tribune on the date shown (1 November 1942), except the one that says "Adolph Hitler Commits Suicide" - a little grim wartime humor, that. The name of the paper has also been altered from "Tribune" to "Tribunk" ("bunk" being "BS" or "nonsense"). The sound cue cue is "Black Coffee" again.
4:03 Bugs is holding up wartime gasoline rationing cards. He not only has a nearly-worthless A card but an extremely valuable C card. For more on gas rationing, see comments at Falling Hare.
4:23 Can't have too many "Calls to the Post."
4:35 Sound cue: The turtles are singing "We Did It Before (and We Can Do It Again)," a war propaganda song (the reference is to winning the previous war) written just after Pearl Harbor in 1941 by Charles Tobias and Cliff Friend, whose names appear all over our cue sheet.
5:41 Sound cue: "Frat."
6:13 Sound cue (Cecil in bunny suit): "Tain't No Good" again.
6:44 This second "Frat"-like cue is one that several other cartoons have, and it may also be "Frat" but I have never been able to tell. (Have you ever tried to find a recording of "Frat?" Don't try. It's impossible.)
7:36 As you might expect, the mass suicide has been cut in some airings of this cartoon by the squeamish.
Offreel
This is the second of three cartoons where Bugs races against Cecil Turtle. In this one, it is very clearly a rematch, Bugs and Cecil both being aware of the events in Tortoise Beats Hare. (The third is Rabbit Transit.)
Around this point Bugs begins to change over to the Robert McKimson model sheet. This is obvious when comparing the Bugs in most of the cartoon with the earlier model in the reused footage in the first few seconds of the cartoon.
This cartoon is essentially Bob Clampett riffing on an idea of Tex Avery's, and as such is useful for comparing the styles of the two men.
