People Are Bunny

People Are Bunny is a 1959 Warner Bros. cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, along with an appearance by a caricature of Art Linkletter named "Art Lamplighter". "People Are Bunny" is a takeoff of the Art Linkletter show "People Are Funny" where people do different tasks to win money.

Plot

Watching TV, Daffy Duck is excited by a hunting show that offers $1,000.00 for the first viewer to bring a rabbit to Station QTTV. Attempting to convince Bugs Bunny to come to the station, Daffy first tries a ruse with TV show tickets, but Bugs immediately suspects Daffy is up to no good and declines. Daffy then grabs a gun and tells Bugs to oblige or be shot.

At the scene of Station QTTV, Daffy has Bugs at gunpoint when they see a parade of prizes coming out of a studio (car, boat, fur coat, refrigerator, etc), and they see people going into the show "People Are Phony" starring Art Lamplighter. With dollar signs in his eyes, Daffy puts Bugs in a telephone booth and runs into the show. Bugs receives a call in the telephone booth from an announcer who tells Bugs if he correctly answers a question, he will win a jackpot. Bugs answers the math question and a the jackpot dispenses through the coin return slot. The announcer then asks Bugs how he knew the answer so quickly. Bugs says, "One thing we rabbits know how to do is multiply."

Meanwhile, Daffy is on the show "People Are Phony" where his task is to help a little old lady across the street while on camera. Things backfire in a hurry when the old lady starts hitting Daffy with her umbrella, saying she knows how to walk the street. Daffy staggers, is missed by a speeding bus, then gets hit by a motorcycle. Art Lamplighter tells the hysterical audience that Daffy didn't quite make it, and it goes to show that "People Are Phony".

Sorely mad, Daffy comes back to the telephone booth where Bugs is counting the jackpot. Bugs says he got a call in the phone booth, which Daffy doesn't believe. Bugs says at any time now an announcer might call again. Bugs makes the sound of a ringing phone and cons Daffy that they want another contestant. Daffy pushes Bugs out of the booth, telling Bugs to let him have it. Daffy grabs the "receiver" - now a stick of dynamite - and it explodes as Bugs walks away. Bugs says, "So I let him have it."

Looking for Bugs, Daffy asks a studio page (actually Bugs in disguise) if he saw a rabbit. Bugs points him to a door, and Daffy is sent to the show "Were You There?" depicting Custer's Last Stand. Daffy then comes out with his head scalped.

At the end, Bugs is disguised as a producer and he tells Daffy that he is wanted for a show, tricking him into donning a rabbit costume. The show he is sent to is the very hunting show to which Daffy intended to bring Bugs, and Bugs collects the fee Daffy wanted for himself. When Daffy protests that he is no rabbit but a duck, the host declares it is now duck season, and a bunch of hunters shoot at Daffy. Bugs shrugs off Daffy's plight, noting, "Eh, they always shoot blanks on TV," Daffy, his beak full of bullet holes, mutters "'Blanks', he says." Emptying a stack of buckshot from his mouth, he offers them to Bugs: "Have a handful of blanks! Sheesh!"

Trivia

The part where Bugs is a studio page was first seen in the 1956 cartoon "Wideo Wabbit" with Elmer Fudd as his victim. Elmer was "also" sent to a re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand, except the TV show was "You Were There" instead of "Were You There?" In this cartoon, the "Were You There?" episode was called "Indian Massacre at Burton's Bend." This was an inside joke directed at the cartoon division's producer, John W. Burton.

Censorship

*The syndicated Merrie Melodies show edited the ending where Daffy is shot by hunters and the "Blanks, he says" sequence by fading out after Bugs says, "Eh, they always shoot blanks on TV".
*The FOX Merrie Melodies show, in contrast to the syndicated version, leaves in Daffy coming in after getting shot, but replaces the scene of the hunters shooting Daffy with a still shot of Bugs before he comments on how the hunters are shooting blanks.