Une vie de lapin

Heckling Hare, The (1941)

*** (out of 4)

The hunting dog Willoughby is out sniffing for a rabbit and of course finds Bugs Bunny but soon he's going to wish he hadn't. This is another winning short from director Avery who apparently walked away from Warner after a falling out due to the ending here. I certainly don't know all of the details but I did find the ending here to be the best thing about the movie, although one could argue the actual payoff is a tad bit of a cheat. The rest of the film isn't among Avery's best work but I think it's still a good film. Both Bugs and Willoughby work well together and there are plenty of funny scenes including the before mentioned ending as well as another scene where the dog thinks he has killed bugs.

Bugs Bunny sure was a mischievous rascal, particularly in his early years. A smug, conceited and pitiless little fiend, Bugs often appeared to take a near-sadistic pleasure in tormenting his enemies. Of course, that he is the "prey" works considerably in his favour, and audiences will always continue to cheer him on, as nobody likes to see a cute little wabbit become a hunter's next meal. But the most interesting aspect of these cartoons is how the writers cunningly invert the usual scenario, with Bugs, in effect, becoming the hunter of the story, though we instinctively continue to celebrate his successes. Willoughby the hunting dog may be an exceedingly dim-witted canine, perhaps even bordering on mental retardation, but the audience considers him fair game for Bugs' farcical style of bullying. Just why is Bugs the hero in this cartoon, and, indeed, in most of his cartoons? A worthwhile counterpoint to this trend is in Tex Avery's 1941 short 'Hare Beats Rabbit,' starring Bugs and Cecil B. Turtle, in which the bigheaded rabbit is decisively beaten in a foot-race by the quietly-deceitful reptile.

These tantalising questions aside, Tex Avery's 'The Heckling Hare (1941)' provides some solid entertainment, which is the real reason why we're watching it. After Willoughby (voiced by Avery) catches Bugs' scent at the entrance of a rabbit-hole, he goes into digging-overdrive, and is so focused on the task at hand that he fails to notice the rabbit (Mel Blanc, as always) idling above him with a carrot between his teeth. Numerous outrageous chase sequences ensue, one ending in the depths of a river and another in a thousands-of-metres plummet from a ridiculously-high cliff. There is some very convincing personality animation in the sequence where Willoughby believes himself to have crushed Bugs to death with his own hands, and he touchingly collapses into tears as he lays a bouquet of flowers at the entrance to the rabbit-hole. Bugs, displaying that uniquely-compassionless streak of his, thinks nothing of this emotion and merely exploits it for some further humiliation.

'The Heckling Hare' moves at a brisk pace for seven minutes, and continues at this pace until the closing seconds, when it forgets to add an ending. In actual fact, the cartoon's conclusion was severely truncated by producer Leon Schlesinger, who allegedly felt that the final punchline ("Hold on to your hats, folks. Here we go again!" as the pair fall off another cliff) would somehow be perceived by audiences as having undesirable connotations. This lack of resolution blemishes the film to an extent; I liked the idea of the unusually-protracted freefall, but I was waiting for another good idea to bookend the gag, and it never came (perhaps the instantaneous brakes were a spoof of traditional cartoon physics, abused so frequently for comedic effect). In any case, Avery was aghast at the changes made to his cartoon, and he stormed out of the studio. He eventually wound up with the fortunate folks at MGM, with whom he worked until 1953.

That stupid dog that appears now and then in Warner Bros. cartoons is here and he is hunting rabbits. Big mistake. Bugs becomes aware of him and literally launches an all out assault on the poor canine. Because of the denseness of the dog, all kinds of mean spirited tricks are played. Still, it is all action and works pretty well. I liked the ending.

This was an interesting episode, in the way that it is the earliest I have seen of Bugs Bunny where he is most like his later, fully developed self. He plays many gags that he plays in his most famous episodes and of course outwits the dog who is trying to catch him. I enjoyed the episode because these gags were done well, the dog was an amusing character (and not voiced by Mel Blanc, which is surprising, instead voiced by a Looney Tunes director), Bugs Bunny was amusing and the animation was good (the background animation was reminiscent of "Bambi).

There was one thing which slightly put me off the episode, which was the screaming of the dog and Bugs Bunny as they are falling from a high height at one point in the episode. In the era this episode was made, for some reason, you find the occasional long scene of screaming, or pain, which is not only boring but off-putting.

In this cartoon, a dog is sniffing along the ground, obviously hunting, when he realises he has passed a rabbit hole. He starts sniffing into the hole, Bugs Bunny popping up his ears to investigate the intruder and then going above ground through a different hole, while the dog digs a hole elsewhere. Sound familiar? Yes, if you are familiar with Bugs Bunny episodes where he is being hunted, the way Bugs Bunny constantly outwits the dog will be in no way a surprise to you.

I recommend this episode to people who like Bugs Bunny and the way he outwits people trying to kill him. Enjoy "The Heckling Hare"! :-)

8 and a half out of ten.

For years, the only Bugs-Bunny-razzes-hunting-dog cartoon that I knew was "Hare Ribbin'", which I had seen on MGM's video release "Cartoon Moviestars: BUGS!"*. So when I saw "The Heckling Hare", I was just a little surprised that Bugs Bunny had done all this once before. Then again, maybe it shouldn't surprise me that Bugs had done this more than once. After all, Bugs knows exactly what to do in these sorts of situations.

Anyway, this one has a hunting dog named Willoughby looking for rabbits and finding Bugs. So, Bugs spends the next couple of minutes playing every possible trick on Willoughby (even wondering what else to do to the poor canine). And no one - not even the audience - is safe from his jeers.

All in all, I would say that it was a good end for Tex Avery's Warner Bros. career. One has to wonder what else he would have done had he stayed with WB. I recommend it.

*For many years, MGM owned the rights to the pre-1948 Warner Bros. color cartoons. For this reason, the documentary "Bugs Bunny Superstar" was an MGM release. When MGM released it on video in 1988, they also released Cartoon Moviestars collections "BUGS!" (showing Bugs Bunny holding an Oscar), "DAFFY!" (showing Daffy Duck wearing spiffy sunglasses), "PORKY!" (showing Porky Pig driving a fancy car) and "ELMER!" (showing Elmer Fudd sitting in a director's chair). Among the other cartoons on these videos were "The Up-Standing Sitter", "Brother Brat" and "A Pest in the House".