Tortoise Beats Hare

Tortoise Beats Hare (1941)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Bugs challenges Cecil Turtle to a race and you just know who is going to win. This classic film from Tex Avery contains plenty of nice action and some great jokes, although in a way I find it rather hard to cheer for anyone from either side since both are cheating throughout the film. Perhaps that's just my brain over thinking things but this is still a very entertaining and very funny film. There are many great gags but the best are Bugs when he starts to go mad wondering how Cecil keeps passing him up. The final gag is also a winner. As good as this short is I think its sequel TORTOISE WINS BY A HARE is even better.

Aesop's fable gets brought to life in the first pairing of Bugs Bunny and Cecil Turtle. I guess that you could say that Bugs Bunny has a tendency to let his ego get in the way of everything, especially since Cecil has friends in high - and low - places. A previous reviewer said that Tex Avery helped bring Bugs to his fullest potential here. I don't know whether I fully agree with that, but there's no doubt that Avery (or, as Bugs pronounces it: a-vary) had some neat ideas.

Anyway, the title explains how it ends. Some scenes in "Tortoise Beats Hare" were shown in the sequel "Tortoise Wins by a Hare". I suppose that no matter what happens, that'll never be all, folks. At least not for the Looney Tunes.

Bugs Bunny is incensed after seeing the name of the cartoon. There's no was a small slow turtle can beat his wiry fast rabbit legs and he aims to prove it. Enter Cecil Turtle, in the first of three races he'd have with Bugs. The short is funny and it's nice seeing Bugs being the fall guy once in a while. I found it very humorous, yet I still maintain that "Tortoise Wins by a Hare" has the edge over this cartoon, as slight as that edge may be. This animated short can be seen on Disc 1 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2. It also features an optional commentary by Chuck Jones via old interviews. If that's not enough it also features a SECOND commentary by Micheal Barrier.

My Grade: A

After Bugs' disastrous second outing, "Elmer's Pet Rabbit," to a point it's nice to see him back with his creative father Tex Avery. However, Tex seems to have forgotten what he did in his first Bugs cartoon to make him successful.

In this cartoon, which (and hopefully this isn't spoiling the should-be-obvious plot to anyone) concerns Bugs racing against the slow yet shifty Cecil Turtle, Bugs has changed roles. He is no longer the heckler but the heckled, constantly being outwitted by Cecil at every turn.

Perhaps Avery likes the idea of the littler, thought-to-be weaker guy being the wiseacre, regardless of the situation. Sadly, it just doesn't work here as far as sheer character. Of course the gags are hilarious, but Cecil is definitely and knowingly rotten. He makes asides to the camera affirming his cockiness, something Bugs didn't do in "A Wild Hare." In that film, the prey was heckling the hunter for private humiliation, whereas in this one the "prey" is confiding in the audience that he's humiliating his opponent for their benefit. It comes off as a little seedy, so one starts to even root for Bugs to win (even though his arrogance caused the situation in the first place).

But at this point Avery, like Chuck Jones before him, is still getting to know his new character and is still figuring out that the jokes work best when Bugs is pulling them on others. Both Tex and Bugs fortunately succeed soon in the future.

Despite not being terribly well-versed in American animated shorts, I have already seen and enjoyed Wilfred Jackson's 'The Fox and the Hare (1934),' an amusing adaptation of Aesop's classic fable, in which cockiness leads to defeat, and perseverance proves invaluable ("slow and steady wins the race"). This Disney Silly Symphonies short was spoofed in 1941 by Tex Avery at Warner Bros., in a film titled 'Tortoise Beats Hare,' featuring Bugs Bunny and (in his cartoon debut) Cecil Turtle. The short opens in an interesting fashion, as Bugs – while chomping down on a carrot – ambles into the opening credit screen, casually mispronounces the name of each crew member, and splutters the title of the film. Determined to prove his superiority to as sluggish a creature as a tortoise, Bugs tears away the credit screen and stamps towards Cecil's home, and the tortoise agrees to a race in his own lazy drawl.

This, however, is where Avery turns the fable on its head. Not content with playing it fair – and recognising, no doubt, that his opponent is not stupid enough to fall asleep underneath a shady tree – Cecil calls up a few of his identical-looking friends and sets about baffling and humiliating an increasingly-exasperated Bugs. With tortoises positioned at periodic intervals along the racetrack, the zippy rabbit finds himself unable to outrun his dawdling opponent, and is driven crazy trying to understand how the tortoise keeps turning up ahead of him. Interestingly, in a break from the typical story, both racers exhibit a considerable amount of arrogance, and the harmless-looking Cecil, having implemented his cunning plan, at one point turns to the audience and remarks "we do this kinda stuff to him all through the picture!" With a suitably cynical outlook on sporting ethics, Avery appears to be telling us that "slow and steady" can't guarantee a gold medal, but cheating certainly can.

Mel Blanc, as usual, provides the voices for each of the film's characters, though his characterisation of Bugs Bunny is slightly different to what I remember – I can't quite put my finger on it, but the disparity is there. However, this only being Bugs' third appearance (following 'A Wild Hare (1940)' and 'Elmer's Pet Rabbit (1941)'), I can certainly appreciate that both Avery and Blanc were still toying about with ideas and details in order to perfect the character. Though not a perfect animated short – I think I prefer the corresponding Silly Symphony in comparison – 'Tortoise Beats Hare' is an enjoyable alteration of a predictable formula, and Bugs Bunny, rather than being the character who dishes out the pranks, is given a healthy dose of his own medicine. I wonder if he managed to get his ten dollars back?