Actually, he made twice as many as the Art Davis unit. Two. The first was The Unruly Hare, released in 1945 (the last with Tashlin’s name on it) and Hare Remover, which came out the following year.
This cartoon is one of several from the mid-‘40s that has a garish edit in it. Elmer Fudd is yelling “Hurray! Hurray! I twapped him” with Bugs looking like he’s about the knock on Elmer’s derby. This is a pretty butt-ugly in-between.
There’s a quick cut to Elmer and Bugs in completely different positions. Not only that, it sounds like the soundtrack has been sliced. There’s a quick chopping of Elmer’s dialogue and the next scene sounds like it begins in mid-cue. Maybe someone has researched what happened. (There are similar obvious edits in Bob Clampett’s The Big Snooze.
And what’s with the gap-toothed Elmer and Bugs?
Tashlin had left Warners in August 1944 to work for Morey and Sutherland, two months after it bought Leon Schlesinger's cartoon studio.
The credited animators are Dick Bickenbach, Izzy Ellis, Cal Dalton and Art Davis.
The official release date of the cartoon is March 23, 1946. As usual, several theatres screened it earlier.
Both Elmer and Bugs are off model in this one, presumably going for laughs rather than style.
ReplyDeleteThe unexplained cut, like the abrupt fade-out, is a source of frustration for career cartoon watchers because there's no real way of knowing the reason. At least with cut-for-TV prints, back when the film was physically cut for time or content so the splice was visible, you had a chance of seeing the unedited cartoon on another channel or later on home video. But with cuts as in "Unruly Hare" (and "Popeye and the Pirates" to throw in another one), anyone who would have known the backstory was gone before Beck and Maltin were in the business of finding out these things. Presumably something was deemed objectionable at the last minute before the cartoon was released.
It happens with live-action musicals as well. Often lines from a song will be cut, throwing it off balance.
And Bugs makes a guest appearance in Tashlin's PORKY PIG'S FEAT
ReplyDeleteMan, the mid 40’s were an interesting time for cartoon production. You had Tashlin and Clampett’s outputs dry up while McKimson and Art Davis took over their units, so effectively you get to see half an entire studio in transition. Ironically enough, the era gave us great cartoons like this, The Big Snooze and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery to name a few - it makes sense though why errors like this showed up.
ReplyDeleteBugs also has missing choppers in Tortoise Beats Hare (Dat Brooklyn was one tuff boig, Doc).
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely the kind of cut that happens when the "Hayes Office" or upper Warners brass see something they don't like. I'll take a leap here. Based on the production date vs. the release date, there might've been a wartime gag there that, by 1946, was outdated. Just a guess, but it would explain a thing or two.
ReplyDeletehttps://comics.ha.com/itm/animation-art/production-drawing/hare-remover-elmer-fudd-and-bugs-bunny-production-drawing-group-warner-brothers-1946-total-8-original-art-/a/7103-94463.s
ReplyDeleteI found this site thanks to the LT wiki that sold a few production drawings of this cartoon. Some of these are actually unused. Maybe they were used for the lost scene?
Most in-betweens at Warners were butt-ugly. Don't try the "step" button on the remote.
ReplyDelete