All This and Rabbit Stew

Tex Avery's last Bugs-starred cartoon is actually pretty funny. Unfortunately though, few will be able to see it because of the black stereotype that has been used on this new hunter.

If one ignores the racial slur, the jokes throughout the film are hilarious (including one in which a group of bullets takes on a life of its own) and only makes one wonder what future Avery Bugs cartoons would have been like.

Hopefully all fans of animated cartoons will be able to see it one day in the proper historical context. When they do, they'll be in for a treat.

When cartoons and movies were made in the 1930's, 40's and 50's the racial attitudes in America were different. Jim Crow laws discriminated against people of color in the south, the Army and pro sports were segregated until after World War II. Many of the ideas, laws and attitudes were wrong.

This cartoon has racial stereotypes and I cannot and will not speak for the cartoonists who produced it as to what their feelings and reasons were for making cartoons like this.

To ignore cartoons like All This and Rabbit Stew is to ignore our past, both good and bad. In order to understand the history of our great land, we must never hide from our past, but rather confront our past in an honest way.

Your typical Bugs Bunny chase cartoon, although he doesn't dress up in this one and Elmer Fudd's place been taken by a black hunter, which probably is the reason why it was banned in the first place.

The hunter tries to catch Bunny in which he obviously doesn't succeed, as he has an encounter with a huge bear and falls from a mountain a number of times. When in the end he finally does catch him, Bugs persuades him into a game of dice which the black hunter loses, and Bugs is leaving him without his gun and clothes.

Maybe a bit racist (though the hunter basicaly does the same things as Elmer Fudd), this cartoon isn't the best Bugs Bunny has offered the world. 5/10.

A dimwitted black hunter is hunting Bugs Bunny. It does not go well. This is the old Hollywood stereotypical idiot black character. For a long time, that's all the work that black actors could get in mainstream films. Many black stars have based their performances on this type of role. It is no surprise that this character does not last into the modern era. Aside from that, this is fairly basic Bugs antics. Normally, we see this with Elmer Fudd except for the dice rolling. Again, the dice throwing is an old black stereotype. I won't mark this down too much, but the fact that it hasn't lasted is notable.

I admit, I spent part of this aghast and yet delighted. I've seen "Coal Black and the sebben little dudes" and others but had never seen this -- or a character depicted like this.

This is not just a wee bit stereotyped, this is BIG stereotype. From the drawl, jumbled language, slouched posture, slow, awkward gait.. this is bad.

Yes, some of the hijinks are EXACTLY what is done with/to Elmer in other cartoons (including the classic, "through the log and over the cliff"), I've yet to see a cartoon where Bugs gets out of what looks like Sure Death by rattling.. dice.

I wasn't aware that in '41, Blacks were considered avid gamblers, but I'm sure if we searched, we'd find SOMETHING alluding to it (beyond this cartoon, I mean).

I wrote this, though, to let interested parties know that I found this cartoon on a DVD-for-a-dollar at *shudder* Wal-Mart! It was on a bugs bunny disc titled, "Falling Hare" (alluding to the classic episode with Bugs and the gremlin in the airplane). Also included is another wonderful Bugs where Elmer is a mounty. THIS, TOO, ends with blackface singalong -- even bugs goes blackface.

Well worth a dollar. I'm off to see if there are other gems hidden among other cheapie $1 discs!