Stage Door Clampett

Here’s an inside joke from Friz Freleng’s “Stage Door Cartoon.” Well, maybe it’s a sly editorial comment by someone in Freleng’s unit about the animators in Bob Clampett’s unit, because you can see a reference to Clampett in one of the background drawings.



Paul Julian liked referring to fellow Warners employees in his backgrounds. Julian didn’t get credit on this cartoon but it’s obviously his work. I love the little light reflection highlights he draws. Here are a couple of other backgrounds of his from early in the cartoon. They’re from layouts by an uncredited Hawley Pratt.





Jack Bradbury gets the sole animation credit, though the nice little Bugs tap dance is either by Virgil Ross or Gerry Chiniquy, depending on which animation ID expert one wishes to accept. Mike Maltese wrote the story, though several years later, Tedd Pierce put Bugs back on stage (this time, with Yosemite Sam instead of Elmer Fudd) and reworked the high-diving scene into a full cartoon, “High Diving Hare.”

The cartoon was released just before Christmas 1944, according to one newspaper ad I’ve found, and was still playing at theatres into 1946.