Rebel Rabbit

"Rebel Rabbit" is a Bugs Bunny cartoon released in 1949, directed by Robert McKimson. It is an anomaly in the Bugs Bunny cartoons: In this one, Bugs is the aggressor, and he ends up losing the fight. Having found out that the bounty for rabbits are only 2 cents, Bugs intends to prove that rabbits are tough — even if he has to be 'more obnoxious than anybody'.

Plot

It starts out with Bugs noting that there are high bounties on various animals (such as $50 for a fox and $75 for a bear), only to be highly insulted by the two-cent bounty on rabbits. When a supercilious game department official explains to him that "rabbits are perfectly harmless" (making one wonder why a bounty is offered in the first place) [probably a bookkeeping thing] , Bugs vows to prove that rabbits are the most dangerous animals around and storms out, declaring "You'll be hearing from me!" He starts his rampage by slamming the official's door so hard that the glass in it shatters.

In short order, he pulls stunts like painting barbershop-pole stripes on the Washington Monument, rewiring the lights in Times Square to read "Bugs Bunny wuz here" (sic), shutting down Niagara Falls, sawing Florida off from the rest of the country ("South America, take it away!" - the closing line from Neptune's Daughter), swiping all the locks off the Panama Canal (the padlocks, that is), filling in the Grand Canyon, and literally tying up railroad tracks (in a gigantic bow).

After an angry Senator Claghorn-esque Congressman demands action ("I demands, I say, I demands a price on Bugs Bunny's head — "noggin", that is. That low-down, miserable, good-for-nothin' hare must DIE."), only to be interrupted by Bugs himself, the cartoon then includes live-action footage of the entire War Department mobilizing against Bugs Bunny. Tanks come rumbling out of their garages, soldiers pour out of barracks, and bugles blow. Bugs, now content with the $1-million bounty on his head (although it is for "him" specifically, not rabbits in general), is snapped out of his daydreams by the whole Army coming after him. A series of shells land in a circle around him and he asks, "Could it be that I carried this thing too far?" After a mighty explosion, he winds up in Alcatraz, where he answers, "Eh, "could" be!".

Censorship

*The FOX and WB airing of this cartoon cut the scene during the montage of Bugs destroying America where Bugs trades Manhattan back to the Native Americans and is shown walking through it wearing a feathered headband and smoking a peace pipe, asiding to the audience that "they wouldn't take it back unless I threw in a set of dishes".
*Cartoon Network did air this cartoon uncut for a time until it aired with the scene where Bugs gives Manhattan back to the Indians cut (and the audio of the guns firing at Bugs after Bugs declares himself king of the beasts muted). The missing scene and the sound effects are reinstated on the of the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection" DVD set.

Credits

* Director: Robert McKimson
* Story: Warren Foster
* Music: Carl Stalling
* Voices: Mel Blanc
* Animators: Manny Gould, John Carey, Charles McKimson, Phil DeLara
* Layout and Backgrounds: Cornett Wood and Richard H. Thomas

ee also

*List of Bugs Bunny cartoons

External links

*imdb title|0041785
* [http://looneytunes.warnerbros.com/web/toons/toons_classics.jsp?check=1&id=toons_classics_rebelrabbit&adsite=site%3Dwb.advertiser.interceptinteractive Rebel Rabbit at Looney Tunes.com] NOTE: It is edited.