Wet Hare (1962)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Story by David Detiege
Animation by Keith Darling, Ted Bonnicksen, Warren Batchelder, George Grandpre’
Music by Milt Franklyn
Bugs Bunny lives at the base of a waterfall that he uses as a shower. When the French-Canadian roughneck Blacque Jacque Shellacque dams the river and declares ownership of the water source, Bugs engages in an ongoing effort to destroy Jacque’s dams and let the water flow.
“Wet Hare” is one of the stronger Bugs Bunny cartoons from the early 1960s and one of the best directed by Robert McKimson. David Detiege’s script is packed with fast and inventive situations, most notably when Jacque assumes Bugs is underwater pretending to be a shark to scare him away – it is a real shark, but Bugs saves Jacque (sort of) by paddling furiously downstream on a log that he rams through the illegal dam.
The cartoon also enables Mel Blanc to have too much fun with Jacque’s Quebec-inspired accent and to have Bugs imitating Al Jolson singing “April Showers.” And kudos to Milt Franklyn for including “April Showers” and “Singing in the Bathtub” (as an instrumental in the opening credits) on the soundtrack – the use of the old-school tunes was a standard in the Carl Stalling-scored cartoons but fell out of favor when Franklyn took over.
This was also the second and final appearance of Blacque Jacque Shellacque, who debuted two years earlier in “Bonanza Bunny.” The character appeared too late in the series to make a lasting impact, but in both of his appearances he was given delightfully funny dialogue that enlivened the action.