Tuesday, 22 September 2026

Re-Used Gag Time

Warner Bros. cartoons occasionally re-used animation footage and, sometime, gags.

Here’s an example of the latter. First, from Friz Freleng’s The Wabbit Who Came to Supper (1942), written by Mike Maltese. Bugs is in Elmer Fudd’s house taking a bath or shower and singing “Angel in Disguise.” He’s off-key. He comes out to a convenient piano, gets in tune with the correct note, and goes back into the bathroom.



Ten years later, in Bob McKimson’s Upswept Hare, written by Tedd Pierce, Bugs is in Elmer Fudd’s house taking a bath and singing new lyrics to “There’s No Place Like Home.” He’s off-key. He comes out to a convenient piano, gets in tune with the correct note, and goes back into the bathroom.



Bob Givens laid out the McKimson cartoon. I prefer the layout of the earlier short because you can see Bugs' face, though the head position may have come from Pierce's storyboard.

McKimson and Pierce have a switch on an even earlier gag, Porky's Duck Hunt, from 1937; Pierce was on the writing staff then. Twice in the cartoon, Porky shoots a hole in the ceiling. The upstairs neighbour doesn't take kindly to it.

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In Upswept Hare, Elmer Fudd is conned by Bugs Bunny into shooting into the swimming pool. We see the resulting damage. This time, the downstairs neighbour gets his revenge, and with a little more than a punch.



There's also a shoot-the-apple-off-my-head scenario found in Avery's Daffy Duck and Egghead (1938, Bugs Hardaway credited with the story), and a take-a-shot-at-Bugs gag in A Wild Hare (1940, Rich Hogan credited with the story), though they're really not the same Bugs/apple gag as the one in Upswept Hare.

McKimson didn’t believe in Avery-style outlandish takes. In Upswept Hare, Elmer realises he’s floating in mid-air then goes into various poses before dropping (his face is brown from being shot by Bugs earlier in the cartoon).



McKimson's animators are his brother Chuck, Phil De Lara, Herman Cohen and Rod "I calmed him down" Scribner.

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