Robot Rabbit (1953)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Warren Foster
Animation by Ken Champin, Manuel Perez, Arthur Davis, Virgil Ross
Music by Carl Stalling
Carrot farmer Elmer Fudd is frustrated at having Bugs Bunny pilfering his harvest, but his attempts to fatally shoot the long-eared miscreant amounts to naught. Elmer places a call to Acme Pest Control and quickly receives a robot designed to obliterate irritating varmints. The robot initially gets the best of Bugs with a solid punch to the face and by digging him out of his hole, the rascally rabbit uses a mix of old and new tricks to speed the demise of his metallic foe.
“Robot Rabbit” has several imaginative gags, most notably when the robot mistakes a mule for Bugs and fires a ray gun at it – the baffled mule looks to the viewer and pleads in a Noo Yawk accent, “What I do? What I do?” Bugs’ insults aimed at the robot are also hilarious – “Watch where you’re going, you hot water heater!” and “Why you fugitive from a Stanley Steamer! I’ve got a notion to take you apart with a screwdriver!” And Bugs’ drag masquerade takes on a hilarious robotic style here – dressed in an old stove with a bucket-head featuring a crudely designed female face, Bugs woos the mechanical man and then literally throws a monkey wrench into the robot’s works, causing him to experience to robotic equivalent of losing his pants.
On the downside, “Robot Rabbit” downgrades Elmer to near-impotence as Bugs’ predator. Outside of his initial failed attempt to shoot Bugs to death his hole – a scene that was frequently cut from TV broadcasts – and his premature victory dance that causes yet another Bugs-inspired humiliation, Elmer is mostly a passive observer while the battle against Bugs is outsourced to the robot – he only intervenes when the robot becomes rusted after Bugs tricks it into a chase amid a lawn sprinkler. Also, the robot’s demise in a construction site occurs off-screen, with Bugs crassly depositing the fatally crushed remains of ill-fated foe from a bucket onto Elmer’s floor. While it is not unusual for Bugs to emerge unvanquished, it is somewhat uncomfortable for him to unapologetically brag about killing his enemy, even if it is a robot.