The Windblown Hare

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = Windblown Hare
series = Looney Tunes


caption =
director = Robert McKimson
story_artist = Warren Foster
animator = John Carey
Phil DeLara
Manny Gould
Charles McKimson
voice_actor = Mel Blanc
musician = Carl Stalling
producer = Eddie Selzer
distributor = Warner Bros. Pictures
release_date = August 27, 1949
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 7 minutes and 9 seconds
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0042045

The Windblown Hare is a 1948-produced Warner Bros. Looney Tunes animated short directed by Robert McKimson. It was originally released on August 27, 1949. The title, another pun on "hair", refers to Bugs being subjected to the Wolf's "blowing the house [s] in."

Plot

This cartoon features Bugs Bunny, a Wolf, and The Three Pigs. The Pigs, reading their own story in a book of fairy tales, decide to circumvent the story by selling both the straw house and the wooden house "before" the Wolf can blow them down. Bugs is persuaded to buy the straw house; when the Wolf arrives, homeowner Bugs starts to greet him with the usual "What's up, Doc?", only for the Wolf, carrying out his pre-determined role in the story, to blow down the house before Bugs says "Doc." Bugs then buys the wooden house, leaving the Pigs to hole up in the brick house. When the Wolf comes by again, he ignores Bugs' protests and blows the wooden house down as well.

Wanting revenge on the Wolf, Bugs tricks him into acting out the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” instead. After the Wolf chases Grandma out of her house (claiming he has "no time" to eat her per the story's instructions), Bugs, as Red Riding Hood, arrives. When Bugs Bunny says what big eyes, ears, teeth, and feet the wolf has when he's in grandma's clothing, he pokes both the wolf's eyes, pulls his ears up and down, pull out his teeth and back in his mouth, and step on his foot causing pain. When the wolf becomes indignant after realizing Bugs is not Red Riding Hood, Bugs refuses to give the Wolf the "present" he brought him. After the Wolf begs Bugs to give him his present, Bugs relents and puts the present (a cake) right into the Wolf's face. Pursued down the basement steps of Grandma’s house, Bugs turns off the light switch downstairs, forcing the Wolf to go back to the upstairs switch to restore the light rather than risk falling in the dark. After this procedure is repeated, Bugs tricks the Wolf by saying “click” instead of actually turning off the light, prompting the Wolf to automatically turn the upstairs light "off" and continue down the stairs, taking quite a fall in the process.

When Bugs chides the Wolf for blowing his houses down, the Wolf explains his obligation to blow down the "Pigs"' houses, and Bugs realizes how he was tricked by the Pigs, who knew full well what the Wolf would do. Bugs tells the Wolf to blow down the brick house, where the Pigs are laughing it up. The Wolf blows, to no effect, but at the same time Bugs blows the house "up" using dynamite.

Trivia

In the opening of the cartoon each of The Three Pigs are wearing a shirt that corresponds with the type of house each lives in. The Pig that lives in the straw house is wearing yellow, the wood house is wearing green, and the brick house is wearing red. By the middle of the cartoon the Pig that owns the brick house is wearing the yellow shirt.

Censorship

*When this cartoon aired on CBS, the part where Bugs pokes the Wolf's eyes as Bugs does the, "My, what big eyes you have!" routine was cut.