Hot Cross Bunny

Hot Cross Bunny is a 1948 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies theatrical animated short, starring Bugs Bunny. It was directed by Robert McKimson, and written by Warren Foster.

The title is an obvious play on the nursery rhyme "Hot Cross Buns" as well as a punny allusion to the basic plot premise.

ummary

Bugs is "Experimental Rabbit #46" in the Paul Revere Foundation (which sports the unlikely slogan 'Hardly a man is still alive'). Bugs lives a pampered life, oblivious to the fact that a scientist plans on switching his brain (or at least his personality, since no surgery is involved) with that of a chicken.

The scientist brings Bugs out to the operating theater, in front of an audience of fellow doctors. Bugs, of course, thinks he's been brought out to perform. He pulls out all the stops, singing, dancing, scatting, comedy routines, and magic acts. Upon finishing each act, he looks around to see the stern-faced doctors in the exact same frame position each time ("What a tough audience! It ain't like Saint Joe!"). The scientist attempts to retrieve Bugs but is pushed away. He strikes Bugs with a hammer while the rabbit is in the middle of a scat routine, but Bugs quickly revives and, having failed as the entertainment, becomes a vendor instead, selling hot dogs to the scientists, only to be hammered again. Learning the scientist's intentions, Bugs runs and a chase ensues. Finally, Bugs is rendered helpless with laughing gas and placed on the table, metallic mind-switching caps on him and the rather disinterested-looking chicken. But at the last minute, he switches the electrodes (though it is shown later that Bugs cut the wire connecting to his electrode instead) and the scientist ends up clucking like a chicken, while the chicken states in plain English his hope that the experiment can be reversed. (Said chicken bears absolutely no resemblance to the strictly McKimson character, Foghorn Leghorn.)

Production

With production number 1053, this was the first cartoon in the post-1948 package to be produced. [http://www.davemackey.com/animation/wb/prodnumbers.html Warner Bros. Animation Production Numbers, 1946 to Present (A Partial List)] ]

Censorship

*The ABC version shortened the part near the end where Bugs, the doctor, and the chicken are hooked up to the machine to remove the part where all three of them get an electric shock. [http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/ltcutsh2.html]

Trivia

Bugs' dancing from this short would later be reused in the "Tiny Toon Adventures" episode "Prom-Ise Her Anything".

Notes