Rabbit’s Kin (1952)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Story by Tedd Pierce
Animation by Charles McKimson, Herman Cohen, Rod Scribner, Phil DeLara, Keith Darling
Music by Carl Stalling
Of all the predators who pursued Bugs Bunny, Pete Puma was arguably the stupidest of the bunch. But at the same time, he might have been the most endearing – if only because his cheerful imbecility made him oblivious to the fact that he was his own worst enemy rather than Bugs’ greatest foe.
Unlike Bugs’ other predators, Pete Puma offers no physical, intellectual or gunmanship skills to challenge his long-eared target. Indeed, his chronic inability to successfully overwhelm creatures smaller and weaker than himself, coupled with his blissful ignorance at his shortcomings, opens him to being viewed with contempt. But Pete Puma is such a jolly character – a large, scraggly, orange feline with a big grin and a wonderfully silly voice – that it is impossible to hate him or scorn him. He is the ultimate feel-good villain.
And that voice is what sells Pete Puma’s appeal. It was modeled after the happily befuddled John L.C. Sivoney character voiced by Frank Fontaine on Jack Benny’s radio show – Fontaine would later take that character to Jackie Gleason’s television variety show and rename him Crazy Guggenheim. With a plodding speech pattern suffixed by a goofball screech of a laugh, it is one of the funniest voices from the era’s comedy orbit. An uncredited Stan Freberg provided the vocals of Pete Puma and this may have been the one time that Mel Blanc was significantly one-upped in the voice performance department.
The set-up for “Rabbit’s Kin” involves a tiny juvenile rabbit named Shorty who seeks refuge in Bugs’ underground residence from a “ferocious beast.” Shorty is given a high-pitched, sped-up voice that eventually becomes a bit irritating. Bugs quickly realizes Pete Puma is the culprit and, sure enough, the feline’s arm comes reaching down into Bugs’ domicile feeling about for Shorty. Bugs quickly makes a decoy with leaves for long rabbit ears and a body made from a lit dynamite stick. Pete feels this, grabs it, brings it above ground and has it explode on him – resulting in his placing the remains of the booby trap back where he found it.
Pete’s dimwittedness is exploited above ground by Bugs with the seemingly pleasant offer of sharing a cup of tea. When Pete is seated and holding his tea cup, Bugs lifts the sugar bowl and asks Pete how many lumps he wants – this was back in the day when sugar was offered in cubes (also known as “lumps”) rather than packets. Pete’s innocent reply of “Oh, three or four” is quickly met with Bugs slamming a mallet on Pete’s head, raising lumps. This gag is repeated twice in the cartoon and, amazingly, it never loses its hilarity.
But the real gem is Pete’s attempt to grab Shorty by pretending to be the little rabbit’s mother. Unlike Bugs’ highly convincing drag disguises, Pete is the world’s worst crossdresser – with long leaves for rabbit ears, his puma tail sticking out from a skirt, a rough brush of lipstick across his mouth and a slightly higher pitched voice that still carries that goofball laugh. The incompetence of the disguise is a grand sight gag that is hard to top – and the cartoon’s latter stage with Bugs’ disguising himself as a puma is nowhere near as funny.
“Rabbit’s Kin” was the only Golden Age cartoon with Pete Puma, but his one-shot appearance resonated with cartoon lovers for generations. When The WB television network was being launched in the mid-90s, a poll of Looney Tunes fans to pick the network’s mascot overwhelmingly came out with Pete Puma as the winner. Sadly, the network opted for another one-shot character – the musical frog from “One Froggy Evening.” Who knows, maybe The WB would have lasted longer with Pete Puma back in the spotlight?