Tuesday 21 February 2017

Rabbit Hood Smears

A wonderful twist comes at the end of Rabbit Hood (released in 1949), which features a running gag of the dopey Little John insisting in rhyme that Robin Hood is coming. Each time, there’s a pause and no Robin Hood. But at the end of the cartoon, Little John is right. Robin arrives. In the form of Errol Flynn in footage taken from the 1938 feature The Adventures of Robin Hood. Check out the in-betweens as Bugs Bunny looks where Little John is pointing. Each takes up one frame of film.



More Bugs reactions.



Bugs thinks for a moment. “Nah! That’s silly. It couldn’t be him,” he tells us as the iris closes to end the cartoon.



Ken Harris, Lloyd Vaughan, Ben Washam and Phil Monroe are the animators of this sterling effort by Chuck Jones and writer Mike Maltese.

4 comments:

  1. Gotta admit at age 7, when "Rabbit Hood" first showed up in Warners' post-48 syndication package, I didn't get the end gag as being specific to WB's movie with Errol Flynn, just that it was a live-action guy dressed as Robin Hood. Took finally seeing the movie itself a few years later to get the connection.

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  2. I wonder if Warner's re-released The Adventures of Robin Hood around this time.

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  3. THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD was reissued in 1948.

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  4. Always one of my favorites. The whole " Knighting " scene had me on the floor as a kid laughing uncontrollably. " Arise Sir loin of Beef, Duke of Brittingham, Baron of Munchhausen, Essence of Myrrh, Milk of Magnesia, Quarter of ten "...something to that affect. I had actually seen " The Adventures Of Robin Hood " first, so the Errol Flynn scene was icing on the cake. Also loved the feeble Little John, ala Lon Chaney Jr/Lennie Small type character.

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