Rabbit's Feat is a 1960 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones.
Title[]
The title is a play on "rabbit's feet."
Plot[]
Wile E. Coyote introduces himself, stating he is a genius and he is going after "rabbitus idioticus delicious". He heads over to Bugs' rabbit hole and tries to set up a meal for himself. However, Bugs is more than aware and thwarts the coyote's attempts:
- Bugs sneaks out of his hole and arrives at a picnic blanket, where the coyote wraps up the cloth and attempts to dip it in a cauldron. However, when Wile E. attempts to, he hears Bugs "groaning" in pain, although Bugs is outside of the picnic blanket behind a rock.
- Wile E. discovers Bugs behind the rock, and the rabbit tries to treat him as his "lost father," who was run over by an elevator, and this results in Wile E. getting smooched in the face. He slams Bugs into the ground and spits out the smooches from Bugs, who pretends to cry that he has been rejected by his "onliest father". The coyote tries to nab Bugs, but he misses and lands in the cauldron. Bugs walks up to the coyote and remarks, "Oh, Father. You're stewed again." and walks off while singing "I'm going to tell" and digs a hole.
- Thinking Bugs is no ordinary rabbit, Wile E. thinks of a plan to trap him. However, Bugs intervenes with Wile E.'s by pretending to be in his thoughts, until he imagines a plan to feed dynamite carrots into Bugs, which causes Bugs to finally yell "YAAHHH!" behind the coyote.
- The coyote tries to blast Bugs with a rifle, but Bugs messes with the barrel, causing it to fire randomly in other directions. He eventually pulls off a tab of the rifle, and as Wile E. tries to guess the end of the barrel, he rotates it to himself. Bugs places the tab back onto the end of the rifle, and Wile spins it again towards himself.
- Wile E. tries to throw a grenade into a rabbit hole. When it keeps getting thrown out, he covers it up. Bugs sneaks in behind again and yells "YAAHHH!" again, causing Wile E. to jump inside the rabbit hole and get blown up.
A dazed Coyote emerges from the rabbit hole, saying, "How do you do? I am a vegetarian. My name is Mud. Is there a doctor in the house?" before falling back into the hole. Bugs says, "Well, like the man says, don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive."
Availability[]
Streaming[]
Censorship[]
- On CBS, the part where Wile lunges for Bugs and falls into the cauldron of water intended for the rabbit is cut.[1]
- On The WB, the part where Wile's gun discharges its bullets and blasts him in the face after Bugs moves the gunsight to the other side of the barrel was removed.[1]
Goofs[]
- Wile E. packs out a brown jar onto his picnic basket onto a blanket. However, when the camera pans over to Bugs on the picnic blanket, the jar disappears.
- At the scene before the ending, Bugs is laying down on a patch of dirt. However, in the next scene, Bugs is laying down on the grass with no dirt present.
- As with several 2020 restorations of Bugs Bunny cartoons released after "Wideo Wabbit", there is reversed animation on Bugs eating his carrot from when the "Bugs Bunny In" title card fades in. This error is only present in the restored print that was on HBO Max and on the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection print.
Notes[]
- As Michael Maltese had left for Hanna-Barbera, his name was removed from the credits, although his name remained on the credits for "Trip for Tat" and "Ready, Woolen and Able" that year and "The Mouse on 57th Street" a year later.
- This cartoon reuses the plot from "Operation: Rabbit" (1952) and "To Hare Is Human" (1956).
- The title card music is an original music score by Milt Franklyn.
- This cartoon, unusual for its time period (1960), depicts a wackier and zanier characterization of Bugs from the 1940s cartoons, such as him suspending himself in mid-air before using his ears to corkscrew himself into his rabbit hole, planting huge smooches on Wile E. Coyote like he did in the early-1940s Elmer Fudd matchups (see 'Running Gags' for more details), making surreal statements ("Daddy, you're back from Peru!"), periodically screaming at the top of his lungs, causing Wile E. to shoot up into the air, and even uses a trademark Bob Clampett-styled Bugs line, "Agony! Aaa-go-neee!"
- Unlike other cartoons, Bugs sleeps in a baby crib instead of a regular bed.
- In the film Doctor Sleep, Danny and Wendy watch this cartoon.
- The Burmese tiger trap suggested by Wile E., only to be dismissed by Bugs as having "too much detail", is a nod to the 1954 Road Runner short, "Stop! Look! And Hasten!".
- This is the only Bugs/Wile E. cartoon to utilize the Latin Names gag which is commonly associated with Chuck Jones' Road Runner cartoons, though in this case, only Bugs receives a Latin Name of Rabbitus idioticus delicius, and said Latin Name is spoken instead of appearing as on-screen text.
Gallery[]
References[]
External links[]
- "Rabbit's Feat" at the SFX Resource Wiki