Hot Cross Bunny (1948)
Directed by Bob McKimson
Written by Warren Foster
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Manny Gould
Robert McKimson is one of my all time favorite directors for the Looney Tunes and Bugs Bunny, if only because his shorts always end up being so off the cuff and bizarre. But not bizarre in the Bob Clampett sense, but bizarre in original and outside the box. There’s just something so out of bounds about “Hot Cross Bunny” that even when I was a kid, I couldn’t get over the unusual energy of the short. When I was a kid, “Hot Cross Bunny” was one of the many shorts on constant rotation every Saturday morning on “The Bugs and Daffy Show” and I always got a kick out of it whenever it came on.
It’s darkly comic, but also sticks primarily to the antics that Bugs is famed for. Plus, he commits to some of his best comedy bits here, including the famed Danny Kaye scatting that is just genius. Mel Blanc really knew how to pull out all of the stops and Bugs’ whole routine here is fun. It’s so influential that it became the basis for one of the shorts for “Tiny Toon Adventures.” Bugs here is known as “Experimental Rabbit #46” staying in the Eureka Hospital Experimental Laboratory (a Paul Revere Foundation) which oddly garners the unlikely slogan ‘Hardly a man is now alive’.
Bugs is living the high life but is unaware that he’s being pampered in preparation for an experiment involving his brain where it will be switched by an unaware chicken. Bugs, though, is convinced that he’s performing for the audience, prompting him to deliver a series of hilarious bits including magic, soft shoe, a pretty funny Lionel Barrymore impersonation. I also found the bit with the laughing gas and Bugs’ irresistible uncontrollable laughter, even in the face of danger, is still hysterical. Especially as Bugs is carried away by the scientist and smacks his backside violently while giggling.
As for the villain, sure, Bugs has come across evil scientists before, but there’s that lingering plot element that this scientist doesn’t just want to kill Bugs, but he also wants to commit heinous experiments on him. This realization hits Bugs way too late, especially when confronted with an audience of scientists, all of whom are watching to examine the experiment. The animation is what helps the premise and comedy breathe and the work by Manny Gould and co. is just marvelous. From the double takes, and weird physical prat falls, to even Bugs’ scat routine, the visual art is dynamic and hilarious. The key here is that the short is creative and funny.
And poor Bugs can never really seem to catch a break.
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