The Old Grey Hare

The Old Grey Hare is a 1944 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Bob Clampett.[2] The short was released on October 28, 1944, and features Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.[3]

The Old Grey Hare
Original title card
Directed byRobert Clampett
Produced byEdward Selzer (uncredited)
Story byMichael Sasanoff
StarringMel Blanc
Arthur Q. Bryan (uncredited)
Music byMusical direction:
Carl W. Stalling
Orchestra:
Milt Franklyn (uncredited)
Animation byRobert McKimson
Uncredited animation:
Rod Scribner
Manny Gould
Basil Davidovich[1]
A. C. Gamer (Effects)
Layouts byThomas McKimson (uncredited)
Backgrounds byDorcy Howard (uncredited)
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date
  • October 28, 1944 (1944-10-28)
Running time
7 minutes 36 seconds
LanguageEnglish

Title

The title is a double play on words. One is the typical pun between "hare" and "hair", with the bunny (who was already grey-haired) rendered "old and grey" for this cartoon. The title also refers to the old song, "The Old Gray Mare". Some of the lobby cards for this cartoon gave the alternate spelling, The Old Gray Hare.

Plot

The cartoon starts with Elmer Fudd sitting under a tree, crying over his failure to catch Bugs. The "voice of God" tells Elmer to keep trying to catch him. Elmer wonders how long it will it take-and is shown exactly how long by being transported "far into the future" past the years 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, until reaching the then-distant year of A.D. 2000, after the sound of the gong.

This offers the chance to use some contemporary gags with a futuristic twist, as Elmer finds a year 2000 newspaper. One headline says, "Smellevision Replaces Television: Carl Stalling Sez It Will Never Work!" In sporting news, another headline says, "Bing Crosby's Horse Hasn't Come In Yet!" (Crosby was known for investing in racehorses that did poorly). Yet another headline, unmentioned, states, "Quintuplets Give Birth To Quintuplets".

By now, both Elmer and Bugs are very old and wrinkled ("What's up, prune-face", "Not so fast, there, Grandpa!") - Bugs even has a large white beard and a cane – and lumbago – but their chase resumes. This time, Elmer is armed with an "original Buck Rogers lightning-quick rabbit killer" gun (with a powerful recoil). After a short chase, at slow speed, due to their ages, Elmer gets the upper hand, shooting Bugs with his ultra-modern weapon, with added Pinball effects and "TILT".

At the moment when it seems Elmer has finally beaten his nemesis, the apparently dying Bugs thinks back to when he and Elmer were much younger. This leads to a flashback sequence with a baby Elmer hunting a baby Bugs – both are still in diapers; Bugs is drinking carrot juice from a baby bottle; Elmer is crawling and toting a pop-gun; and they interrupt their chase to briefly take a baby nap-time together.

After the flashback is over, a tearful Bugs starts to dig his own grave, with Elmer getting equally emotional, but Bugs switches places with the weeping and distracted Elmer and cheerfully buries him alive instead. Elmer quips, "that pesky wabbit is out of my life forever and ever!" However, Bugs suddenly pops in and repeats the popular catchphrase of the "Richard Q. Peavey" character from The Great Gildersleeve, "Well, now, I wouldn't say that," plants a kiss on Elmer, then hands him a large firecracker, lights the fuse and quickly departs. While Elmer shivers and doesn't do anything, the screen immediately fades to black with the firecracker still hissing. The pre-written "That's all, Folks!" card appears, and the firecracker blows up in a tremendous explosion off-screen, rumbling and shaking the title card, leaving Elmer's fate unknown.

Reception

Animation historian Greg Ford writes, "In the last two or three years before Robert Clampett abruptly left the Warner Bros. cartoon studio in the mid 1940s, the renegade director surrendered an unwieldy bunch of late-blooming, oddly self-reflexive masterworks. Clampett's craving for summation reaches epochal proportions in The Old Grey Hare, as Elmer is fast-forwarded all the way to the year 2000 (gasp!). So comically premature is Clampett's yen for retrospection that he essays a cradle-to-grave biopic of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, reminiscing over their longstanding relationship, even though the pair had only existed onscreen for about four years at the time."[4]

Crew

Home media

Censorship
  • When this cartoon aired on The WB, the part where baby Elmer points his toy gun at baby Bugs' face and baby Bugs cracks his bottle of carrot juice over baby Elmer's head was cut.[6]
  • See "Notes/Goofs" section below for edits done to the end gag where the cartoon ends with elderly Bugs giving elderly Elmer a stick of dynamite after burying him in his own grave and the title card shakes in response to the off-screen explosion.

Notes/Goofs
  • This was the first time a Bugs Bunny cartoon credited Warner Bros. Cartoons as producer after Leon Schlesinger had sold the studio to Warner Bros. because Edward Selzer refused to receive on-screen credit as producer.
  • The American Turner "dubbed" print removes the shaking ending card, but the explosion is still heard in the background. The ending card was replaced with the generic 1947-48 ending card as seen on many other cartoons that credit Warner Bros. as producer. The European Turner print retains the shaking ending card and adds the "dubbed" notice after the title card shakes. This was the reason why "The Old Grey Hare" on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4 via Bugs Bunny Superstar used the Associated Artists Productions print. At the time of the inclusion of Bugs Bunny Superstar, the majority on the set were American Turner prints.

See also

References
  1. "Animation Breakdowns #20". Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  2. Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 155. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
  3. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 60–61. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  4. Beck, Jerry, ed. (2020). The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons. Insight Editions. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-64722-137-9.
  5. Barry, Dan (October 8, 2010). "On DVD, 'Essential Bugs Bunny Collection'". The New York Times. Retrieved October 5, 2018.
  6. http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-n-o.aspx
Preceded by
Buckaroo Bugs		 Bugs Bunny Cartoons
1944		 Succeeded by
Stage Door Cartoon
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