People would find it hard to believe that "Superman" was around in the early '40s, early enough to be parodied in this 1943 cartoon. George Reeves made the character famous on television but that wasn't for about another eight or nine years. Before that, there were two serials. I was shocked myself that they were imitating Superman this early on in a cartoon.
Superman began on the radio in 1941 and Bud Collyer, who became famous years after as host on TV's "To Tell The Truth" voiced the title role!
Anyway, in this cartoon we get the tale of "Bugs Bunny: Super-Rabbit" and what "caused this extraordinary metamorphose of a timid woodland creature into the super-dynamic rabbit of tomorrow!"
It seems a wild-looking scientist (aren't they all in classic movie era?) has an experimental rabbit which has a scientific name: rabbitus idiotus americanus. I wonder if the Road Runner cartoon writers got their inspiration for that watching this? Anyway, Richard Haydn's unmistakable voice plays "Professor Canafrazz," so that's an unexpected bonus. Haydn was always fun to hear in regular movies. Eating a special carrot gives Bugs his new super powers. Looking a newspaper headline about a guy who wants to wipe out all the rabbits gives Bugs his first assignment as the new superhero.
For an early BB cartoon, this was great stuff and not far off his wise guy character of the next decade which brought him super fame. True, it has that early '40s cornball humor that is more stupid than the better material of the '50s, but it's still Bugs and it's still pretty clever and unpredictable most of the time. Bugs' disguise with the Clark Kent-glasses and the phone booth out in the middle of Texas was hilarious!
