Rabbit Fire

Rabbit Fire (1951)

It's open season on everyone!

Daffy Duck and Bugs argue back and forth whether it is duck season or rabbit season. The object of their arguments is hunter Elmer Fudd.

Date of release
1951-05-19
TMDB
7.5 / 10 (149)
Runtime
7m
Genres
Animation, Comedy
Director
Chuck Jones

Casting

Interesting facts

Rabbit Fire is a 1951 Looney Tunes cartoon starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd. Directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese, the cartoon is the first in Jones' "hunting trilogy"—the other two cartoons following it being Rabbit Seasoning and Duck! Rabbit, Duck! It is also the first cartoon to feature a feud between Bugs, Daffy and Elmer. Produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons, the short was released to theaters on May 19, 1951 by Warner Bros. Pictures and is often considered among Jones' best and most important films.

Production details

In two interviews conducted years after this cartoon was first released, director Chuck Jones fondly recalled voice artist Mel Blanc improvising hilariously as Daffy when he was trying to think of another word besides "despicable". However, in the finished film, only the words from the original dialogue script actually appear.

Rabbit Fire and its two sequels often have two characters in the same frame for some length of time – an atypical aspect of the "Hunting" trilogy. In order to keep budgets under control, most Warner Bros. cartoons would cut back and forth between characters, rather than put two or more in the same shot, or, at least, both characters might be in the same shot, but only one would actually be animated.

Although the film is introduced by the Looney Tunes music "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", the opening card indicates a Merrie Melodies "Blue Ribbon" release from 1960, and the end card is Merrie Melodies, replacing the original orange-red Looney Tunes title sequences.

Rabbit Fire marked the first cartoon where Bugs and Daffy starred and appeared together. While Bugs had made a cameo in Porky Pig's Feat (which co-starred Daffy and Porky Pig), this was the first where both were the stars.

Although this is the first cartoon with Daffy's selfish side replacing his screwball side, he still hollers "hoo-hoo", a catchphrase from his screwball personality.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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