Loads of Christmas Cheer

Three directors at Warner Bros. had a crack at making a cartoon with Cecil Turtle outsmarting Bugs Bunny. They all have a different tone, but they’re all good.

The final one was Rabbit Transit, directed by Friz Freleng. Mike Maltese and/or Tedd Pierce fit in an incongruous Christmas reference. Bugs is racing along when a postman (with Mel Blanc’s Happy Postman voice from the Burns and Allen radio show) pulls up and hands him a letter.



Yes, the turtle has beat him to Chicago. A few emotional drawings of Bugs.

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Then the Christmas gag.



As Carl Stalling plays “Jingle Bells,” Bugs realises what he can give Cecil as a return present.



Of course, it’s not Christmas at all. Cecil’s just heckling Bugs. Cut to the next scene where Cecil is in Chicago in very un-December-like weather. Because Cecil and Bugs are still supposedly racing, Stalling puts “Time Waits For No One” in the background.



And the present?



Freleng’s 1947 animation crew of Virgil Ross, Ken Champin, Gerry Chiniquy and Manny Perez are credited. The backgrounds don’t look like Paul Julian’s. It’s because they’re not. Phil De Guard was bouncing between the Davis and Freleng units around this time and he painted the settings in this cartoon.