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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Foxy by Proxy (1952)

Foxy by Proxy (1952)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Warren Foster
Animation by Virgil Ross, Arthur Davis, Manuel Perez, Ken Champin
Music by Carl Stalling

This minor, mild cartoon is a rough remake of the 1940 Tex Avery-directed “Of Fox and Hounds,” with a dimwitted dog participating in a fox hunt. In that film, the poor dumb dog has trouble comprehending that his sly new friend is a fox. In this 1952 go-round, Bugs Bunny plays tricks on the dense canine by dressing up as a fox and leading him into frustration.

The dog is a slow-moving and overweight character whose simplemindedness is a riff on Lon Chaney Jr.’s Lennie from “Of Mice and Men” (an unbilled Stan Freberg voiced the character). The problem here is that the dog is a likeable bumbler, which makes Bugs’ devious tricks seem obnoxious rather than funny. Still, Bugs’ denouement comeuppance when the dog snips off his tail feels like an appropriate kick in the rear for his nasty trickery.

The best part of “Foxy by Proxy” is the dog pack, which moves as a single force with the happy hounds jumping all over each in mindless pursuit of their prey. However, the film recycles the rolling log-over-the-cliff gag from “All This and Rabbit Stew” and “The Big Snooze” and the very brief moment when the dogs defy gravity and race out of the log into the abyss, only to cling to each while whimpering in terror before their inevitable descent, is unfunny. The sense of crying canine fear for their painful plummet, even though it is exaggerated within an impossible scenario, points to a fate that is too harsh (after all, Bugs provoked them into chasing him while he was dressed like a fox) and it spoils whatever little fun popped out of this cartoon.