Hair-Raising Hare

No need to tell you the plot, others have done that wonderfully, but I should mention that this was made at the beginning of the Cold War, and Bugs was (and is) the perfect realization of every American- saucy, inventive, alone, and a little bit selfish- so watching him deal with the Peter Lorre character is great fun. Animated with such pizazz and humor that you'll be astonished, Chuck Jones is indeed a treasure and a joy. One of the best Bugs Bunny's ever made!.

Bugs Bunny thinks he's being watched. Is the bunny getting paranoid in his old age? Nope, because as we see, someone IS watching him, an Evil Scientist. The scientist uses a robotic female rabbit to lure Bugs into his castle. Once there the robot self-destructs as Bugs kisses it. Then the evil scientist lets Gossamer, the hair monster to catch the wasscily rabbit. That's when the fun starts. For some reason this short didn't tickle my fancy as much as others that I've seen with Gossamer in them. Not to say this one isn't worth seeing, as it most definitely is.This cartoon is on Disk 3 of the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1" It also has an optional commentary

My Grade: B

Bugs Bunny is enticed out of his home by a mechanical girl robot, which he then follows into the castle of a mad scientist. Trapped in the castle, the scientist lets his monster out to feed, leading to a chase around the castle.

Just before I watched this short I had the pleasure of seeing `Birth of A Notion'. Both cartoons have a character based on actor Peter Lorre. `Birth' has great animation whereas here that character is awful and the voice work is poor too. This is one example of it, but the animation here is quite poor – Bugs looks basic and the monster itself is about as easy to draw a creation as you could imagine! Happily this doesn't feed through the whole cartoon in a bad way. The material is better than the animation and it is actually quite funny.

Bugs may look average but he does his usual stuff well here. The scientist character is poor and is happily not used very well, but the monster needed to be good and, sadly, isn't at all. It's just like having a ginger haystack in the movie – and it's never given more personality than that either!

Overall this cartoon lacks imagination and spark. It's lack of real quality can be best seen in the animation but happily it doesn't ruin the whole thing. It may only be average but it is still Bugs Bunny and it is still pretty amusing.

Bugs finds himself in a laboratory where Peter Lorre is housing a monster. The monster isn't all that frightening and bugs sort of has him for lunch. There are continuous chase scenes and typical schtick. Nothing new to this, but, then, Bugs is Bugs. This episode has him yelling, "Is there a doctor in the house" with predictable results.

Chuck Jones's 'Hair-Raising Hare' pits Bugs Bunny against a genuinely disturbing Peter Lorre scientist caricature and his huge orange monster. The monster (later named Gossamer and also featured in Jones' luscious sequel to this short, 'Water, Water Every Hare' under the name Rudolph) is an extremely memorable villain who, despite his size, never poses much real threat to Bugs once he turns on his heckling. Although it is not as visually luscious as 'Water, Water Every Hare', Tedd Pierce has turned in a great script which includes some viciously amusing eye-poking, a priceless scene involving a suit of armour and the best "What's up, Doc" joke you'll ever hear. Bugs' wisecracks are top drawer ("Don't go up there, it's dark") and the high energy level is kept up throughout. It's also the only cartoon in which you'll get to hear Gossamer speak. All in all, then, 'Hair-Raising Hare' is a blast and makes a cracking double bill with its less gag-driven sequel.