The very bizarre Hare Ribbin’ was one of the very first cartoons I posted a complete animator breakdown for (thanks to Mike Kazaleh), but it’s been a few years, so I’m rerunning it here.
3/16 – Yes, I know DailyMotion purged the video. I will put it up online again later this week when I have a steadier connection.
(Yes, I know I misspelled Will Hays’s name in the video, but I don’t think he or Joseph Breen are entitled to the honor (or respect) of having their names spelled correctly anyway.)
There are numerous changes between the released version and the ‘director’s cut’ that emerged in Mark Kausler’s collection (and others). I edited them in to the video for your enjoyment (not very well admittedly, as I haven’t gotten the hang of iMovie). The most notorious is the gun-down-the-throat ending being replaced with the dog being duped into committing suicide. (“Dog can’t be shot by rabbit, but dog can shoot self.” – J. Breen to L. Schlesinger, Jan. 1944). As to why the other pieces of animation were cut, we can only guess. Certainly not because of running time, as other shorts from the same season ran around 8.5 minutes. Perhaps the extended game of ‘tag’ between Bugs and the dog was considered “too gay”, even by Bugs-in-drag standards.
Excessive reuse from earlier Bugs cartoons is in the first half of this cartoon, to the point where it gets sloppy at times (Bugs’s hopping underwater, the omitted scene of the dog panting), though The Heckling Hare footage is at least facelifted well in Manny Gould’s drawing style. All of which is to say, you can’t say enough about the perfection of the original animation in this cartoon. (Jack Bradbury’s footage is the exception.)
Manny Gould is a mystery to me. He spent years at the helm on Columbia’s Krazy Kat, one of the worst theatrical series of all time, and yet his footage in the Clampett shorts rivals that of McKimson and Scribner. I pity that we don’t have any on-record insight from Gould, as he died literally the day (or two) before historian Milt Gray was supposed to interview him.
I often see this short scorned and I’ve never understood why. Personally, I think it’s one of the funniest of all the Bugs cartoons (and probably my favorite of Clampett’s). People say Clampett’s Bugs is an “arrogant bully”, but how? Buckaroo Bugs is taxing, true, but far more for the sloppy cycling of footage and the fact that Red Hot Ryder is not funny. But everything Bugs does in Hare Ribbin’ is in response to a dog that’s trying to bite his legs off – how is this “off the rails”? It’s certainly more sophomoric than any other Bugs cartoon ever made with the off-color body odor and sniffing of privates jokes, but if the jokes are funny, why should they be a mark against it?
I will guarantee though that if you see this short with an audience, you’ll always hear, “why are they still underwater?” Perhaps that’s where the hate comes from – Clampett challenges even cartoon physics.
I think that sloppy bit of original animation at the beginning is Gil Turner’s, not Bradbury’s style.
That aside, as a kid, I always thought it was the other way around with the two endings for some reason (since I always saw the dog getting shot in mouth ending whenever I saw the short back then, I thought the dog shooting himself was the “original” ending when I heard there was a director’s cut).
I have to agree, the game of tag is a little…Awkward, so to speak. ^^
Even with all the changes, it still looks like there was another pre-filmed gag edited out when the dog pulls off Bugs’ rubber mermaid costume and goes flying in the other direction.
(As for the dislike for the cartoon, I guess part may be the claustrophobic feeling 5 1/2 minutes underwater can bring, and the other is probably due to storyman Lou Lilly’s murder fixation (Mr. Breen’s revision notwithstanding). Lou was basically the Charles Whitman of Warner Bros. cartoon writers when it came to ending his cartoons with with his characters either dead or buried (as opposed to Warren Foster, who was the studio’s Suicide Gag expert, and probably would have done the revised ending originally if he hadn’t been part-timing it with Tashlin by the end of 1943). There’s a slightly-unsettling finality to what happens to characters in Lilly’s cartoons at iris out that tends to remind you that death would be the final result if those same gags happened in the real world.
I always appreciate your meaty editorials and your analysis.
I like this one too. Any fool to dismiss an extended and beautiful underwater sequence -(I jis’ love that mottled glass plate effect for the underwater sequences)- should be driven from the premises.
I gotta question, in Slap Happy Lion, who animated the scene where the mouse, situated in the beginning of the short, beneath a wagon, gives the history of the king of beasts? (Blair?-or no) “Too bad about dat lion…” etc. The drawing of the mouse in this sequence is so superb, the voice, the layout of the shot, it is one of those momentous moments that justifies an entire cartoon for me, even if the rest is tripe, (and Slap Happy… certainly has alot going for it, besides.)
Jack Bradbury’s work may not be perfect, but I wouldn’t say it’s bad by any means- just not up to the levels of McKimson, Gould, and Scribner. But I did like Bugs flopping the dog around at the beginning.
This isn’t my favorite Bugs cartoon but I do like how it flaunts conventions by spending a lot of time underwater for no apparent reason.
K, I think that’s Walt Clinton’s work (Avery’s best animator during this period).
I noticed that McKimson was the only one who animated the dog talking out of the side of his mouth. (Some really interesting mouth shapes there.) It really fits with the accent the Russian dog has. I wonder why the other animators didn’t follow suit?
Bradbury’s drawings do look weak compared to those from Scribner, Gould, and McKimson. Didn’t he come from Disney? If so, I wonder if he left his assistants to fix the models in his animation while there? In an interview Clampett once said that many animators from Disney couldn’t handle the tight deadlines at Schlesinger’s, or weren’t as good as his own animators — Art Babbitt being the exception. I wonder if he meant Bradbury?
Finally, I always wondered how the characters could talk and breathe so effortlessly underwater when I first saw this cartoon as a child.
I also liked Jack Bradbury’s animation here. Thanks for the credits though. Manny Gould was an amazingly good animator, fitting right in between McKimson and Scribner. I don’t mind the animation re-use here. It doesn’t look out of place in this cartoon.
There’s some nice animation in this cartoon, particularly by McKimson and Manny Gould. Scribner’s good, but his work in this cartoon seems to lack solidity that is usually prevalent in his cartoons with Clampett.
All in all, a weak cartoon from a fantastic director. I prefer “Buckaroo Bugs”. Thanks for sharing with us.
Funny thing, you mention “why are they still underwater?” as a reason for the “hate” for this cartoon.
When I was a kid, watching this in the ‘60s, I hated it for exactly that reason. Later, as a teen in the ‘70s and to the present day, I loved it for the absurdity of it all! Anyone else would have “surfaced” them, once the mermaid disguise was dispensed with… but not Clampett!
Another possible reason it may not be loved is that, according to my vague recollection of some ‘70s-era conversations with my mother, the Dog’s unusual voice was based on some radio personality of the day! I’m certain a number of your readers may “get this”, but I’m sure it’s lost on the general public – and ends up diminishing the cartoon overall.
Speaking of things that might have been lost on the general public, what percentage of the movie-going audience at that time “got” the reference to Elmer Fudd by both Bugs and the Dog? It’s not as if they had decades of weekday afternoon and Sat AM repeats to have burned it into their memories. I’ve always wondered about that…
The hate for this cartoon would have to be the underwater part, more than anything. Bugs got away with being the heckling jerk many times before.
Plus, it’s just me, but having Bugs kill the dog himself(!) seems a lot less awkward than his handing the fooled dog a gun.
The whole cartoon almost feels like a parody of Avery’s Heckling Hare. The dog is even dumber, they not only go underwater for a gag, but stay there for the bulk of the cartoon, and really push the envelope with the ending (although this time Leon and J.L. didn’t seem to be the ones with a problem with it).
The dog is just enough of a threat to Bugs to be fair game, since he thinks nothing of amputating Bugs from the waist down (even if he regrets it afterwards). It’s not like Buckaroo Bugs where Red Hot Ryder is harmless and ineffectual even by the standards of other Bugs antagonists.
I’m surprised that people would have a problem with the underwater thing, since I thought that once people watch enough cartoons, they’d be conditioned to accept anything. I would guess its because doesn’t really fit even the skewed logic of the cartoon (what does being underwater for six minutes have to do with Bugs evading a hunting dog?), but I prefer it to the rigidly logical Jones and Freleng Bugs shorts of the ’50’s.
Thank you, Kasey.
there seems to be some universal about underwater scenes… whatever, this sober gallery of comments puzzles me.
Lloyd Bridges made a career out of extended underwater scenes, or is that apples an’ oranges? Pray tell, professors.
“why still underwater” is one those classic examples of controversial factors that determine if the viewer could apperciate the film. Another equivalent would be killing Lila Crane in Psycho.
Sorry I meant Marion.
How do you know what’s in a viewer’s mind unless you were to open up his head? (I think that’s Wittgenstein.)
Well I point is if one were to question the logic of the whole underwater sequence then you could never understand what a cartoon is. Cartoons are exaggeration.
‘Sea Hunt’ is a fruit comparison. By its very title, it’s quite logically set in the sea. In this cartoon, the gags reach a point where there’s really no logic for it to be set underwater.
Still, I don’t know why the setting would be a problem for anyone. The lake is introduced logically and the gags just carry on from there. Clampett may have looked at the original storyboard, realised he had some standard-issue jokes with the only gimmick being the Bert Gordon impression and felt something else different had to be added. (That’s not Pierce doing the dog, is it? It’s in his vocal range but doesn’t sound quite like him).
I found it interesting almost all the close-ups were entrusted to McKimson.
As for Gould, I can’t help but think Clampett told him to go nuts if he wanted so he did. It must have been a welcome relief after thankless years at the tame Columbia studio.
Thanks to Thad for the breakdown; I always try to learn something from them.
I couldn’t agree more.
That the cartoon stays underwater without explanation is one of my favorite things about the cartoon. Clampett is telling the audience that this is a cartoon, not reality. You should have fun with this. Not every cartoon needs to be logical.
Previous agreement was with good old Ricardo, as for Yowp…
My Lloyd Bridges crack was a joke, and all this deliberation of underwater scenes is fast becoming a bore.
“That’s not Pierce doing the dog, is it? It’s in his vocal range but doesn’t sound quite like him”
I don’t think it is. Ted’s voice is always really raspy.
It’s Sammy Wolfe as the dog.
Got to meet Bob Clampett and chat with him a few times, and his eyes lit up on the mere mention of Manny Gould and Rod Scribner. He thought those guys were fantastic and it was apparent that he liked them a great deal. Bob was also in awe of Bob McKimson, but I got the distinct impression that he had a lot of fun working with Manny and Rod.
There are jokes almost as extreme as that ending in several of the Fables and Phantasies that Lou Lilly worked on at Screen Gems, but neither the directorial nor animation panache is there to make ’em work. I find the same thing true of many Famous Studios cartoons, in which the pacing and comic timing is off, way off. Although often sick jokes are just sick and not funny at all, Clampett somehow pulls this stuff off.
Speaking of “underwater cartoons” does anybody remember one (Famous?) where two kids befriend two anthropomorphic wristwatches and an operation must be performed on one of them at the climax? I could have this all wrong, but that’s how I remember it 45 years later. (Sorry to go OT)
Chrisbo,
it’s “Land of Lost Watches” [1951].
Thank you Matt!
I’ve been like a LT fan since like 1998 or something and I know by a fact that Clampett made a few outstanding cartoons like Porky’s Party, Great Big Piggy Bank Robbery, Daffy Doc and my personal all-time favorite: Wabbit Twouble. This is probably one of the worst Clampett cartoons I ever watched (Baby bottleneck and Coal Black are trash imo). McKimson is probably the best animator of Clampett’s work! And about this cartoon, the part when Bugs Bunny describes himself to the dog, I thought it was animated by Manuel Perez. I don’t think it’s Bradbury
Zartok posted a breakdown of “The Hare-Brained Hypnotist” on “Blabbing On Arts And Culture” where he identifies the same style as Gil Turner’s work, although I don’t know where he got the info from.
Since the video has been removed, would it be possible to have a text-based breakdown describing which scenes were by which animator? I have a hard time identifying Clampett’s animators beyond “Scribner”, “McKimson”, “Uh, I think that’s McKimson” and “Some Other Guy”. Btw, wouldn’t Tom McKimson have been one of Clampett’s animators at this point as well?