To Hare Is Human

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = To Hare is Human
series = Merrie Melodies
director = Chuck Jones
story_artist = Michael Maltese
animator = Abe Levitow
Richard Thompson
Ken Harris
Ben Washam
voice_actor = Mel Blanc
musician = Milt Franklyn
producer = Eddie Selzer
distributor = Warner Bros. Pictures
release_date = December 15, 1956
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 7 min (one reel)
movie_language = English

"To Hare is Human" is a 1956 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones. It stars Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote. The title is a play on the expression, "To err is human; to forgive, divine."

Plot

Wile E. Coyote captures his prey, Bugs Bunny, by forcing him into a sack. However, Bugs is easily able to escape his predicament ("What ya got in the bag, doc?" Bugs asks, prompting Wile E. Coyote explanation about how he is a genius). The bunny replaces himself with dynamite, and it isn't long before Wile E. Coyote is the victim of a pair of explosions, the second coming when he runs to the elevator.

The determined coyote then builds his latest contraption: A do-it-yourself UNIVAC Electronic Brain, which he consults for suggestions in capturing Bugs. The machine provides the recommendations after Wile E. supplies key words.

Wile E. Coyote's efforts include the following:

* "Rabbit," "in hole," and "combination lock." The UNIVAC suggests burglary methods, providing a combination to the door of Bugs' hole. Wile E. Coyote breaks in that night, but slips on a banana peel Bugs nonchalantly places at the base of his hole. The Coyote falls into the Coyote Disposal and over a cliff.
* "Breakfast," "toaster," and "carrots," resulting in Wile E. Coyote placing hand grenades in Bugs' carrot toaster. The grenades spring right back at Coyote and explode in his face. Bugs: "One of these days, I'm going to have that spring fixed."
* Upon asking "What now?", Coyote tries a plunger, but Bugs uses a ventilation pipe to cause his would-be captor to get sucked in.
* A recommendation to "slip TNT stick into vacuum cleaner" appears to be the break Wile E. Coyote is looking for, as the live stick is vacuumed up. However, Wile E. Coyote doesn't count on Bugs emptying the vacuum bag into a garbage can that he is hiding in.
* "Well, how about trying a booby trap in the carrot patch?" Wile E. Coyote places a boulder above Bugs' carrot patch, but Bugs safely harvests the carrot meant to set Coyote loose the trap (nonchalantly singing "Carrots wait for no one / So I'll eat them now / Before they are eaten / By some sloppy cow."). However, when Wile E. Coyote pulls at the trap, it is triggered. A panicked Wile E. Coyote desperately asks the UNIVAC, "Rock," "falling." "What," "will","I," "do?" The answer provides no solace: "Go back and take your medicine." Wile E. goes back and is flattened by the boulder, once and for all.

The UNIVAC's intelligence is then revealed when the computer screen slides open. Bugs: " 'Course the real beauty of this machine is like it has one moving part."

Censorship

ABC: Wile E. looking into his sack and being blasted in the face by the detonating TNT inside of the sack, Wile E. suffering another dynamite explosion in his portable elevator, two hand grenades dropped by Wile E. into Bugs' toaster popping prematurely into a position beside Wile E. and exploding there, and the lit dynamite stick that Wile E. placed in Bugs' vacuum cleaner exploding in the trash can where Wile E. is hiding and into which Bugs dumped the contents of his vacuum cleaner bag, were all removed from this cartoon.