Porky's Hare Hunt

This black & white cartoon short looks in many ways like a 1940s cartoon with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. However, this short stars Happy Bunny (an early Bugs-like rabbit) and Porky. During the course of the cartoon, the annoying rabbit pretty much does what Bugs does to Elmer...prevents the hunter from catching anything while bothering him constantly.

I am glad Happy evolved into Bugs, as Happy is more annoying with his Woody Woodpecker-style laugh. Otherwise, despite looking very different, Hoppy is like Bugs on crack and the cartoon is fun to watch. Not nearly as good as the later Bugs/Elmer cartoons but for a Looney Tunes release from 1938, it's awfully good....with plenty of zaniness and nice animation.

And thus is born the earliest version of Bugs Bunny (informally called Happy Rabbit). Though anonymous in "Porky's Hare Hunt" and hardly resembling the rascal famous today, the screwball rabbit is one of the funniest characters whom I've ever seen. Sporting a Woody Woodpecker voice, he does pretty much the same sorts of things that the early Daffy Duck did in "Porky's Duck Hunt".

So at the very least, this cartoon should be required viewing for animation historians. The hooligan hare utters Groucho Marx's "Of course you realize this means war!" for the first time. It would still be two years before audiences would hear "What's up, doc?" spoken by the rabbit's more familiar form, but there's a sense that this bunny has some really cool tricks up his sleeve. You gotta love it.

All in all, definitely a cartoon milestone. Available on YouTube.

Although not the best short of Warner Bros. I find the short one quite funny and funny, with a clever humor that makes anyone laugh. Highly recommend.

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

While not one of my favourite cartoons of all time and never will be, 'Porky's Hare Hunt' is nonetheless very well made and very entertaining. It is interesting to see a proto-version of Bugs Bunny before Bugs Bunny became famous and Porky Pig paired with a character that wasn't primarily Daffy Duck. There's not much wrong actually in 'Porky's Hare Hunt', it is very slight on story and there's not much original in it.

Porky is a lot of fun and very likable in a type of role that suits him, but he makes more of an impression as a supporting character later on, he sometimes was a little bland in early lead roles. Having said that, there is so much to recommend.

However, the animation is very good. It's beautifully drawn, very detailed and it's done in a crisp black and white, complete with some great expressions for particularly the rabbit.

Carl Stalling's music score is typically lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms, it's also beautifully synchronised with the action and gestures/expressions and even enhances the impact. All of those things Stalling was an unparalleled master at in animation, or at least in my view.

The rabbit is no Bugs, not as interesting in personality, but the character drives the action to fun effect. There are a lot of very funny and cute moments. Zero is the same. Timing is lively. Mel Blanc's versatility as ever shines impeccably.

Overall, very good. 8/10 Bethany Cox

On the Cartoon Brew site, Jerry Beck linked from YouTube a video by one Martha Sigall called The Story of Bugs Bunny. Who is this woman who's now in her 90's? She was in the Ink and Paint department at "Termite Terrace" during the various formations of what would become "that wascally wabbit". It's quite a fascinating tale with Ms. Sigall using a framed demonstration of the various character poses and different drawings of the wabbit to the one we know of him today. That YouTube segment led me to watch the original cartoon that featured what was the first version of what became Bugs Bunny (named after the director who made this cartoon, Ben "Bugs" Hardaway) on the same site. It's sort of the same short as Porky's Duck Hunt made by Tex Avery except Porky's hunting rabbits. "Bugs" here is actually all white and has the voice and laugh of Woody Woodpecker which is not surprising since this rabbit's voice originator, Mel Blanc, would create that same voice and laugh for that character at Walter Lantz a couple of years later. Anyway, there were some creative gags I liked such as when a toy decoy rabbit kicks Porky's dog Zero in the face or when the rabbit uses his ears as propellers in escaping from Porky and his dog. And how about the first time he quotes Groucho Marx's line from Duck Soup, "Of course you know, this means war!" Quite enjoyable this early short but since Daffy Duck was already the resident "crazy", it was decided to make Bugs more of the wiseguy type by the time Avery recreated him in the form we know him as today in A Wild Hare. Good move, Tex! So on that note, I recommend Porky's Hare Hunt. P.S. Ms. Sigall has a book about her experience at Leon Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros. Cartoons called "Living Life Inside the Lines" out now.