What's Cookin' Doc?

Bob Clampett's 'What's Cookin', Doc?' is a brilliant cartoon with one major flaw. The premise here is that Bugs Bunny is attending the Oscars, confident that he will win a statuette for best performance. When the honour is instead bestowed upon James Cagney, Bugs blows his top and attempts to convince the voters to change their mind by showing a clip of one of his previous performances. This is where the problem comes in. Up to this point, 'What's Cookin', Doc?' has been a cartoon bursting with Clampett's trademark energy. The clip Bugs shows to the audience, however, is a poorly chosen extract from Friz Freleng's 'Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt' in which very little happens. While this perverse choice was likely an in-joke of some kind, the segment from Freleng's cartoon severely slows 'What's Cookin', Doc?' down.

This little niggle aside, 'What's Cookin', Doc?' is a marvellous short. After the success of Chuck Jones's one character Daffy Duck cartoon 'Duck Amuck', a few attempts were made to create a solo vehicle for Bugs, resulting in the lacklustre 'Rabbit Rampage' and 'Baton Bunny'. This was entirely unnecessary since Clampett had already made the great one-bunny show with 'What's Cookin', Doc?'. While other characters are seen in silhouette or heard off screen, Bugs carries the bulk of 'What's Cookin', Doc?' entirely by himself with a remarkably energetic, shape-shifting performance. He impersonates Hollywood stars and pantomimes various acting styles, he shifts from smug, laidback nonchalance to disbelieving, ego-driven frenzy. Clampett makes this all characteristically beautiful. Bugs looks amazing here and snaps from one pose to another with breathtaking smoothness. Clampett tosses in a few of his trademark dirty gags too, one of which is the closing joke of the cartoon. 'What's Cookin', Doc?' is, in part, a masterpiece but its partial brilliance makes the unfortunate interruption from Freleng's uneventful excerpt positively infuriating.

"What's Cookin' Doc?" probably looked a lot funnier when they first created it, but the racist portrayal of Indians will probably make most people cringe in the 21st century. Aside from that, there's some pretty funny stuff, as Bugs Bunny hopes to win an Oscar but loses to James Cagney, and tries to make the audience change their mind by showing a short movie starring himself.

Watching this cartoon nowadays, I realize that they mentioned people like Edward G. Robinson. I don't know whether or not any six-year-old children would have recognized that name in 1944, but I can guarantee that as a six-year-old I wouldn't have recognized that name.

Anyway, pretty interesting, but just be sure that you understand the racist portrayal of Indians.

What's Cookin' Doc? (1944)

*** (out of 4)

Entertaining short has Warner Brothers spoofing the Oscars as Bugs Bunny shows up to the award ceremony to pick up a trophy but instead he's beaten by James Cagney. After losing he demands a re-count and shows a clip from his film HIAWATHA'S RABBIT HUNT. Overall this is a nice little film, although there's no doubt that it's far from a classic and doesn't rank as one of the best Bugs shorts. I say that because the film shown within this film is actually so much better and we only get one brief clip from it. With that said, Bugs does give a good impersonation of a few legends like Edward G. Robinson and that alone makes this worth watching.

One of the most famous of all Bugs Bunnies, in which our hero believes he's a shoo-in for a Best Actor Oscar. Behind the comedy is a laceratingly cruel satire.

The film opens with a traditional Voice of God introduction to the Oscars, as our narrator shows us the Hollywood sights before showing us the hotel where the event will take place, the crowds awaiting their favourite stars. Already Hollywood, the entity, the myth is reduced to a series of recognisable signs - the Hollywood Bowl, the Troccadero, the Chinese Restaurant etc.; the stars who exist only as their popular image, cemented in a ghostly pair of feet on some footpath.

Bugs is convinced that he will win because he can do impressions of all the stars. This is a stunningly versatile monologue as Bugs mocks everyone from Jimmy Cagney to Bing Crosby, but surely it's an insolence to think that mere mimicry can be as worthy as a great performance? But Bugs' point is precisely this - the Awards pretentiously think that they are rewarding high art, when these great actors are locked in stereotype and received image. They are the sums of their persona. Bugs IS greater than them because he can do an impression of Cagney AND Crosby; they can only do impressions of themselves. A list of Oscar winners from the period proves Bugs unerringly right (MRS. MINIVER, according to Oscar, is a far greater film than CITIZEN KANE.)

As a further treat we are shown a clip from Bugs' LITTLE HAIWATHA, in which a bathing Bugs realises that he is about to become rabbit-meat for a placid Indian/Elmer Fudd. This remarkable clip, stunningly self-reflexive about Hollywood ideology and racism, reveals Bugs' true worth, but for the Academy to reward him would be to admit their own worthlessness and fraudulence. So they stone him. He is awarded, however, the first Raspberry, moulded in his own image, which comes to life and kisses him. This is Hollywood's ultimate insult, but it's eventual proof of Bugs' superiority, his versatility, his embracing of fragmentation and metamorphosis at the expense of rigid, conservative, stereotypical, wholeness.

As animation, the short isn't as fleet-footed, violent or versatile as the great Tex Avery masterpieces, but there's a belligerent gaudiness of colour that suits the subject admirably.

I found this cartoon under the heading "banned cartoons" on Youtube. Now if it's true that Warner Brothers DID pull this from circulation because it might be seen as culturally insensitive, then the people responsible for this are total idiots. While SOME older cartoons are truly insulting and awful in how they depict minorities (particularly awful films featuring the character "Black Sambo"), this one can only be seen as insulting to someone so devoid of a sense of humor and so politically correct that practically nothing is funny to them and everything is offensive. Sure, this is an Indian (the American-type, not the Apu-type) in the cartoon, but he's the basic Bugs Bunny foil--nothing more and nothing less. Does this mean that ANY depiction of Indians is forbidden in cartoons unless they are Earth-loving and noble like the film POCAHONTAS--which, by the way, was highly inaccurate and silly in how it portrayed the natives.

As for the cartoon itself, I saw this one several times over the years and it's a darn clever one that features an obnoxious Bugs Bunny trying to convince the Oscar people (A.M.P.A.S., by the way) to give him the award for Best Actor. While I wasn't thrilled with its use of a clip from a previous film, the odd style where Bugs appears in the real world with real people is pretty interesting and worth a look.

Don't believe the hypersensitive. This is a good cartoon and it probably won't offend the average sane viewer.