Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare (1964)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Story by John Dunn
Animation by Ted Bonnicksen, Warren Batchelder, George Grandpré
Music by Bill Lava
The denizens of the forest are in a panic with the approach of the Tasmanian Devil, but Bugs Bunny is unaware of the peril because he is taking a soapy bath in a pond. Taz tastes the soap covering Bugs’ body, but dislikes it and washes it off with a bucket of water – and then the bucket gets dumped on Bugs’ head. When Taz pours ketchup on Bugs’ head in preparation of eating him, Bugs becomes melodramatic and insists he’s bleeding. He sends Taz off for medical assistance, not realizing that he is soon dealing with Bugs in multiple disguises as a general practitioner, a psychiatrist, a maternity ward nurse, and a surgeon.
The final Golden Age appearance of Taz and the final Merrie Melodies short starring Bugs, “Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare” is a vigorous exercise in slapstick mayhem. The short gets off to a great start when the forest creatures spread the news of Taz’s arrival – woodpeckers use their own telegraphic language of pecking into trees while beavers beat out a coded warning with their tails against a log.
The medically inspired gags come fast and funny. As a general practitioner, Bugs tests Taz’s reflexes by banging a huge mallet against his kneecap – the Mel Blanc-voiced scream of pain is sadistically hilarious – and later Bugs gives Tax a spoonful of nitroglycerin to swallow before attaching him to a tummy reducing electric belt that shakes him and his ingested explosive until he blows up.
As a German accented psychiatrist, Bugs tells his patient Taz to talk about “your id when you were a kid.” Just as Taz gets started, Bugs folds up the psychiatrist’s coach with Taz still laying on it and dumps it in a mailbox. A postal service truck picks it up and returns seconds later, with Taz bursting angrily from the mailbox with foreign location sticks all over his body.
When the action switches to a hospital, Bugs dons drag as the maternity ward nurse who presents Taz with his “bouncing baby boy” – at which point, Bugs throws the supposed infant in swaddling clothes on the ground and it bounces into Taz’s arms. Taz gives Bugs a celebratory cigar before unwrapping the swaddling garments to reveal a bomb that explodes in Taz’s face. But Bugs, smoking the cigar with smug satisfaction, discovers to his dismay that it is an exploding variety. Bugs realizes he’s been one-upped and declares, “I just wonder if he’s as dumb as he looks?”
Bugs’ last guise as a surgeon has Taz as his assistant. The patient is the Frankenstein monster (referred to by Bugs as “Frankie”) who pulverizes both of them, albeit off-screen. This is the rare cartoon where Bugs and Taz both lose at the end.
“Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare” is (pardon the lapse into Gene Shalit-talk) just what the doctor ordered, a prescription for fun and mischief.
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