{"id":28855,"date":"2018-08-31T08:51:13","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T12:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=28855"},"modified":"2018-08-31T08:57:03","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T12:57:03","slug":"the-bootleg-files-rabbit-every-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/31\/the-bootleg-files-rabbit-every-monday\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Rabbit Every Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 651: <\/strong>\u201cRabbit Every Monday\u201d (1951 animated short with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On DailyMotion.com.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> On VHS and LaserDisc only.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> It was never released on DVD or Blu-ray.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> It could happen.<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, a surprisingly substantial number of classic Bugs Bunny cartoons were never released on DVD or Blu-ray. We\u2019re not talking about the politically incorrect shorts that have been kept of circulation for very obvious reasons, but the knockabout cartoons that were a staple of kiddie television for decades and were part of the initial VHS and LaserDisc release of the old-time Warner Bros. output.<\/p>\n

One of Bugs Bunny works not on DVD or Blu-ray is the 1951 \u201cRabbit Every Monday.\u201d It may not be a classic of the genre, but it has enough goofy charm to generate smiles and light chuckles.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cRabbit Every Monday\u201d \u2013 the title is a riff on the then-popular film \u201cChicken Every Sunday\u201d \u2013 opens in a forest clearing where Bugs Bunny is spinning three carrots on a rotisserie. We don\u2019t see Bugs at first because the rotisserie is above ground and he is in his residential hole, with an outstretched arm reaching from below ground to turn the carrots over a flame. Bugs sings a parody of the tune \u201cIt\u2019s Magic\u201d from the Warner Bros. feature \u201cRomance on the High Seas,\u201d focusing his lyrical fervor on his meal by crooning \u201cOh carrots are divine, you get a dozen for a dime, it\u2019s magic!\u201d When Bugs finally emerges, he embraces a cooked carrot with romantic passion and takes it below ground while cradling it in his arms.<\/p>\n

Into this world comes Yosemite Sam, stalking ominously while holding a hunting rifle. Sam is taking on the role that Elmer Fudd usually holds \u2013 but while Elmer is a benign nitwit who stupidly imagines himself to be a great sportsman, Sam is a sociopath who is only interested in killing. Indeed, his fury is so pronounced that he is willing to murder a member of the cinema audience watching the cartoon \u2013 depicted as a silhouette in the lower right corner of the screen, a gag stolen from Olsen and Johnson\u2019s \u201cHellzapoppin\u2019\u201d \u2013 because Sam fears the viewer is on his way out of the auditorium to warn Bugs Bunny of his approach. Sam then faces the camera and directly threatens the viewer to stay seated and quiet, or else he will use his rifle for homicidal purposes. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll do it, too!\u201d he warns ominously.<\/p>\n

With no great problem, Sam locates Bugs\u2019 hole and sticks his rifle into the ground. But Bugs is oblivious to this intrusion \u2013 still singing, his hands come up through the rifle and begin to cook Sam\u2019s nose as if it was a carrot. He then pulls Sam through the rifle into the ground. An off-key note is hit and Sam yells, quickly jumping above ground to complain that Bug bit his nose. Sam sticks the rifle into the ground and orders Bugs to come up. Bugs emerges through the gun, pausing to chew his carrot and ask, \u201cEh, what\u2019s up, doc?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam orders Bugs out of the gun, but the wise-guy rabbit refuses. Sam releases a gun shell with Bugs packed inside of it, and then Sam bellows, “Now start prayin’, cuz I’m a-blowin’ ya to smithereenies at the count of ten!” As Sam counts to ten, Bugs pulls out a wad of bubble gum, chews it rapidly and plugs it into the opening of the rifle. Sam shoots his weapon, but it backfires and he finds himself encased in a large bubble of gum. As the soundtrack plays \u201cI\u2019m Forever Blowing Bubbles,\u201d Bugs casually blows the oversized bubble away and Sam finds himself going over a cliff. Sam frantically blows from inside the bubble to elevate his gummy prison into the air, but Bugs pulls out a pin and deflates the bubble, causing Sam to fall to the ground and bounce repeatedly due to the sticky gummy residue on his body. Sam chases Bugs back to his hole and throws a rock at him, but the gum on Sam\u2019s hands causes the rock to ricochet back into his face.<\/p>\n

Sam furiously grabs a shovel and digs up the opening of the hole, finally capturing Bugs. Sam takes Bugs to his cabin and hangs the rabbit upside down by his ankles while preparing a wood-burning stove. Bugs throws Sam\u2019s hat into the stove, but he retrieves a burning wood log and wears it by mistake. After correcting his error, Sam orders Bugs into the stove. But to Sam\u2019s dismay, Bugs keeps emerging to gather party necessities such as a bottle opener, cracked ice, chairs, and he even empties full ashtrays into Sam\u2019s hat. Every time Bugs emerges from the stove, old-time party music is heard. When Bugs emerges with lipstick kisses on his face and invites Sam to join him because \u201cthe girls are asking\u201d for him, Sam straightens himself out and rushes into the stove. Bugs laughs at being able to easily trick Sam and throws more wood into the stove\u2019s fire \u2013 but when he gets a pang of conscience and asks Sam to come out, Bugs is shocked to see a real party is going on (a scene from the live-action \u201cRomance on the High Seas\u201d). Bugs rejoins the stove party, peeking out briefly wearing a hat and waving a party favor while declaring, “I don’t ask questions, I just have fun!”<\/p>\n

By contemporary touchy-touchy standards, the cartoon\u2019s indiscriminate use of guns and the incendiary humor of forcing someone to go into a burning stove does not fit into the too-safe confines of today\u2019s E\/I children\u2019s programming. And, truth be told, the interactions between Bugs and Sam were never as viscerally appealing as the Bugs-Elmer battles \u2013 for all of his violent tendencies, Sam\u2019s basic stupidity rendered him incapable of enacting genuine wreckage and ruin. Whereas Bugs turned the predator-prey continuum upside down by forcing comeuppance on the hunter Elmer, Bugs was merely disposing of a loudmouth annoyance when Sam was his foe.<\/p>\n

\u201cRabbit Every Monday\u201d had the unique distinction of being the first cartoon to be broadcast on the inaugural episode of television\u2019s \u201cThe Bugs Bunny Show\u201d in 1960. It was available on VHS and LaserDisc in the early 1990s, but today it can be found on DailyMotion.com<\/a> \u2013 Warner Bros. swept YouTube of its copyright-protected work, but the studio seems to be oblivious of DailyMotion.com.<\/p>\n

Whether \u201cRabbit Every Monday\u201d gets the DVD and Blu-ray treatment remains to be seen. While not a gem, it doesn\u2019t deserve to be left on the grey fringes of digital entertainment.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall<\/a>\u201d on SoundCloud, with new episodes beginning on September 24.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 651: \u201cRabbit Every Monday\u201d (1951 animated short with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam). LAST SEEN: On DailyMotion.com. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On VHS and LaserDisc only. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It was never released on DVD or Blu-ray. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It could happen. Believe it or not, a surprisingly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":28856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[1811,167,2078,219,2076,1175,2077],"class_list":["post-28855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-animated-short","tag-bugs-bunny","tag-cartoon","tag-comedy","tag-rabbit-every-monday","tag-warner-bros","tag-yosemite-sam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28855"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28858,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28855\/revisions\/28858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}