A Witch’s Tangled Hare (1959)
Directed by Abe Levitow
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Keith Darling, Ken Harris, Ben Washam, Richard Thompson
Music by Milt Franklyn
“A Witch’s Tangled Hare” incorporates bits and pieces of William Shakespeare’s plays – along with a character who resembles Shakespeare – into a Bugs Bunny romp that brings back the zany Witch Hazel as the predator. It’s a cute idea for a cartoon, but the execution is off and it quickly becomes a bore.
The cartoon opens with the Shakespeare-inspired character arriving at a castle with a mailbox featuring the name “Macbeth.” As this character begins scratching his feathered quill on paper, we see Witch Hazel stirring a cauldron while reciting a few words from the Scottish play’s “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble” chant. The cauldron is meant for Bugs, who is sleeping under a covered platter – he thinks it is a hot bath and gingerly positions himself into the hot cauldron (repeating the gag from “Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt”). But when he spies an open cookbook and realizes he is the main course, he angrily confronts Witch Hazel – and she pulls out a meat cleaver to give chase.
From there, “A Witch’s Tangled Hare” devolves into several lame slapstick gags (including Bugs foisting an anvil on Witch Hazel while she is levitating on her broom) and an unfunny riff on “Romeo and Juliet” that ends with Juliet/Witch Hazel jumping from the balcony and Romeo/Bugs neglecting to catch her. As for the Shakespeare character watching these shenanigans, he turns out to be Sam Crubish – and, as luck would have it, he dated Witch Hazel years earlier and she wanted him to meet her parents. But there was confusion regarding whether he was to arrive at Apartment 2B, which leads to the most obvious Shakespeare-flavored joke imaginable.
“A Witch’s Tangled Hare” is the second and final Bugs Bunny cartoon directed by Abe Levitow (after “Baton Bunny”) and the last with Witch Hazel as a central character – she made a very brief non-speaking appearance later on in “Transylvania 6-5000.” An uncredited June Foray voiced Witch Hazel, and her madcap line readings were the saving grace of the cartoon.