This is one of the more famous Bugs Bunny cartoons by Bob Clampett for two reasons: 1) it’s on basically every public domain tape ever made (the source of my childhood love/hate for this one), and 2) almost all of the drawings and poses from it became the basis for all future modelsheets and licensing guides. This is not the greatest Bugs cartoon (it’s up there), but the animation is probably the best it ever would look.
The ‘loser’ Bugs is easier to take in Falling Hare than it is in others, because he’s not really the loser; at the start and finish, he’s in control of things, and all is well. This makes it actually unique among all the Bugs Bunny cartoons: he’s over-confident and keeps screwing up, but an unseen power rectifies all.
We get the standard near-minute of static footage (no new animation) typical of a Clampett cartoon at the beginning. Some speculate that he did this (and reused footage) so he could spend more time making the new animation better than anyone else’s (ass-kissing sycophants); others say it’s because he was too busy scoring with girls in the Termite Terrace crapper and playing ‘pwanks’ on the Jones unit to have time (too caustic, but more likely); it’s probably somewhere in the middle.
Bob McKimson tends to get all of the glory for this one for doing the mammoth amount of footage at the beginning, and he deserves all the praise he gets. There’s nothing more to say: the drawing, movement, action, lipsync, and acting is perfect. If you notice, Bugs has a [slight] potbelly in these scenes, so the look even predates McKimson’s own films.
Rod Scribner did very little on this cartoon, though he gets the sole animation credit, a typical tradition at Schlesinger’s. Being the most recognizable and funniest of all the Warner animators, his footage is distinct in its ability to capture Bugs’s horror and anger like no other Golden Age artist. [Before anyone comments, no, Bill Melendez did not animate the “these blockbusters…” scene as he says in his audio commentary with John K. While likely Scribner’s assistant at the time, he did not become a full-fledged animator until Wagon Heels.]
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Virgil Ross, who never really could draw Bugs with such ‘spirit’, only ‘wascally’, which is part of the reason he left the Clampett unit. There’s nothing wrong with his animation here though: the drawing and movement (lots of smears, a Virgil earmark) looks just as good as anyone else’s, and the scenes don’t call for a particularly nasty Bugs. It’s also actually very stylized in its approach, in an almost Tashlin-like fashion (there’s even the scene by Ross of Bugs deflating that would be reused by Art Davis in Tashlin’s Plane Daffy). Clampett was never one to follow the ‘less is more’ rule; occasionally an action in his cartoons could be too full, to the gag’s own detriment. So it’s surprising to see Bugs machine gun from one pose to another, when he attempts to dart off but only fall teeth-first into the ground.
I wish animators like Ross were still around. His work for all the directors is so human and sincere, unlike so much self-concious Disney animation. That’s a quality that he’d probably have lost if he was actually aware of how great he was and didn’t have Clampett and Freleng chastising him and lauding others (only Avery ever gave him compliments and even offered him a job at MGM).
Two other lesser known Warner stalwarts are thrown into the mix of Falling Hare. Phil Monroe flopped around the studio for years: from Freleng to Tashlin to Jones to Freleng to Tashlin to Clampett… before finally settling in with the Jones unit in 1946. I have no explanation for why. Some of Monroe’s drawing and posing looks a bit like Jones’s Bugs here, particularly the pursed lips. The excellent subtlety of Bugs looking under the bolt for the Gremlin is often lost because of crappy transfers, but thankfully those days are long over. There’s a bit of Goofy-influence in the way he tries to smash down the door, settling into a ridiculously cute/stupid pose after each hit.
Tom McKimson did character layout on most of the best Clampett films, but he animated beforehand. It was Larry Tremblay who originally pointed out some of his work in this film to me, and it’s completely identical to his drawing style in the Bugs Bunny stories of the Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies comic book. There’s more than a few poses in this cartoon that I’m certain showed up in one of the stories he drew. (Coincidentally, the Bugs in the comics matches Clampett’s interpretation of the character more than any other director’s.)
An interesting way to tell the difference between his and his brother Bob’s work is how they draw Bugs’s ears. Bob was always the perfectionist, and one ear almost always matches the other. Tom wasn’t as much of a stickler for that sort of thing and would often draw one ear bent or crooked.
We’ve all seen, read, and heard about this cartoon a hundred times, but I hope this animator breakdown sheds some light on more of its many fine aspects.
It’s great to finally see one of my all-time favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons with proper animator identifications. In fact, I had no idea Tom McKimson did so much animation for this cartoon until now, even though I knew about his layout and comic book work. He drew just as well as his brother amazingly. Who gave you the animator’s draft by the way? Just curious.
No draft. Just detective work. Some of it I’m willing to admit could be wrong, but the Scribner, Ross, and B. McK. IDs I’m sure are correct.
“Before anyone comments, no, Bill Melendez did not animate the “these blockbusters…” scene as he says in his audio commentary with John K. While likely Scribner’s assistant at the time, he did not become a full-fledged animator until Wagon Heels.”
That’s because, for whatever reason, Clampett told fans that the scene was animated by Melendez.
Bob, it could very well be a monkey-wrench scene thrown to Melendez by Scribner, but then, there are tons of other scenes we attribute to Scribner that could very well really be Melendez. (And Ross scenes really Batchelder, and Harris scenes really Levitow.) I remember you telling me that Clampett said Art Babbitt animated on Wagon Heels, which is complete bullshit though.
It was common for the better assistants (being groomed to become animators) to be given scenes to animate under the supervision of a senior animator (who may even have helped them by posing out the scene). It was a good system for training people to transition naturally into the job.
This is one my favourite cartoons ever, but every time I see it I get distracted by how sloppy/mushy Bugs’ head is animated in the close-up at 2:15. If it is Scribner, well, keeping the forms solid during close-ups obviously wasn’t his strong suit, as seen to a lesser extent in his close-ups later in the cartoon. It’s less extreme elsewhere though, since Bugs is mostly moving around more and gesturing instead of just slowly melting from pose to pose as he is at 2:15. It’s not really that surprising that Scribner wasn’t as good at close-ups, given his style of animating, but it’s nice to know that even the greatest animator of all time wasn’t perfect.
On the other hand, if it’s Melendez, that would make a bit more sense given that he was less experienced.
Also, I’ve never quite understood what was happening at 3:05 when Bugs is yelling at the floating carrot. As a kid watching this on crappy PD videos I attributed my confusion to both the print and the video being damaged (at certain points the video was completely unwatchable, but the audio remained intact). I assumed the gremlin was still there or something, until the carrot fell down. Now that I’ve seen clear restored prints, it still doesn’t make any sense to me. Why is the carrot still in the air, and then why does it suddenly plop down? Am I missing something?
Any other Tom McKimson scenes you know about in Clampett’s cartoons?
This is very informative, thank you.
I didn’t know that Tom McKimson worked on this cartoon at all, neever mind contributing as much as he did.
I also thought that Scribner had a bigger role in animating it, but the parts he did do are still my favourites.
Now that I’ve seen clear restored prints, it still doesn’t make any sense to me. Why is the carrot still in the air, and then why does it suddenly plop down? Am I missing something?
It kind of goes to the song in “Russian Rhapsody” (or more directly to Roald Dahl’s original description) that say Gremlins are “…the little men who were not there.” The floating carrot is supposed to be Bugs’ tipoff of who was banging on the bomb.
The cartoon also is pretty much the crystallization of what Barrier and others said was Warren Foster’s love of putting Bugs into situations where it’s funny that Bugs can’t lose, even if it takes divine intervention (or U.S. government wartime gasoline rationing laws) to make it happen.
Thanks Thad for the geat and very insightful posts. I actually learned something new about the animators at Clampett’s unit now that you posted some of thier signature styles/moves.
It really is a shame about Virgil Ross, though. If Clampett and Freling kept daunting him on his animation, then why did he stay at Warner’s when Avery, the only one who really respected him, offered him a job at MGM like you said?
I never knew Tom McKimson worked on this either. Judging by his animation and what you said about him, I can tell he was a lot looser than his brother was. And Rod Scribner, loosest one of all, had some of my favorite moments on this cartoon. No one really could capture emotion and make the movements so loose and cartoony like he did.
Again, thank you for the wonderful post.
Phil Monroe flopped around the studio for years: from Freleng to Tashlin to Jones…
Well, the reason for this change of “allegiance” in the late 30s was because he was in Freleng’s unit, then inherited by Tashlin when Friz left, then inherited by Jones when Tashlin left.
That was a excellent post.
I like that kind of analysis.
Do more when you can.
“(only Avery ever gave him compliments and even offered him a job at MGM).”
Sorry for the off topic post, but speaking of whom, are there any good websites or books for a biography on Tex Avery? Seems like there’s a decent amount of info on his cartoons, but not so much on the man himself.
Joe Adamson’s Avery book is a good start, and John Canemaker did one that really delves into the man’s personality.
I love these type of posts. I hope to see more like them in the future.
Wonderful stuff, man. A good eye is hard to find.
Phil Monroe is easy to spot. I think whe you identifide as the first Tom scene is Phil.
Virgil Ross gets in one of his trademark spin scenes around the 3:30 mark.
Much appreciated Thad. Will have to look into both books!
Off-topic question, but anyone know at which point in the DVD commentary did Bill Melendez start mentioning the bad stuff about Clampett, which got edited out. I recently re-listened to the commentary, and couldn’t identify any “gaps” in the commentary. John K. almost never clams up.
I remember this short appeared at a very old rare-VHS copy that my Dad owned the copy in Hong Kong many years ago!! However I do not remember the short!
One of my favourite early Bugs Bunny stuff was ‘Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid’ or ‘Hold the Lion Please!’
“(…)and it’s completely identical to his drawing style in the Bugs Bunny stories of the Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies comic book.”
Y’know, I’ve no real familiarity with the animators who moonlighted on the funny animal books, but I always found the latter vastly inferior and true derivatives of the animated cartoons they were accessory to. This doesn’t hold true only for very few of that genre, …to me. I always figured those that did embrace them were just a few degrees further toward the fetish than I had sense to go.
Save anything Disney and The Fox & Crow, I agree completely.
What’s the deal with all the financial shit on your site, man? You some kind of hustler?
Wonderful breakdown. Tom McKimson was just as talented as his brother. Incredible animation. It has a Scribner-like looseness with McKimson’s knowledge of construction and anatomy. Very appealing to my eyes. Nice to know Virgil Ross did a lot of great work for Clampett. Just beautiful character animation.
I will have to study this cartoon a lot more.
Thanks for posting this Thad! Frankly I find Ross’ earliest work the most interesting.
It’s no question he has magnificent style, especially noticeable starting in about 1946 in Freleng’s unit- but seeing how the artwork he was doing up to that point develop into what we recognized today is fascinating. Personally I never knew he worked in Clampett’s unit at all… and it’s almost as if working for Clampett gave him a sense of unabashed wild creativity especially seen in this cartoon, which got ‘cleaned up’ significantly when he worked for Freleng.
Tom McKimson is widely known for that final “Tweety” model sheet used for “Gruesome Twosome”. (see Kevin Langley’s blog here:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6884/1394/1600/Tweety%20copy.jpg) It’s signed by him too.
Look at the poses and wonderful facial expressions on that sheet… Tom has a lot of animation in that cartoon, as well as “Birdy And The Beast”.
Thanks for posting this Thad!