Hare Remover is a 1945 Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, released in 1946. The film was the last cartoon to be directed by Frank Tashlin at Warner Bros. (Tashlin was left uncredited because he had left the studio before the cartoon was completed, as Robert McKimson supervised post-production). The title is another obvious play on "hair", and on patent medicines that had the opposite effect of a "hair tonic" (as with another Bugs title, Hare Tonic).
Synopsis[]
Elmer tries his best to make a "Jekyll and Hyde potion", but his experiments always end in failure, causing his test animals, this time it's a dog, to run out and eat grass. He decides to trap a rabbit (Bugs Bunny) as his next subject. After he traps him, Elmer gives Bugs the potion, again with no success. Elmer has a crying fit until Bugs gives him one of the potions, giving Elmer the same initial looney side effects the other animals had experienced. (Bugs comments to the audience, "I think Spencer Tracy did it much better. Don't you, folks?")
When a bear enters the lab from the nearby forest, both Bugs and Elmer mistake the bear for one another, until Elmer becomes angry at the bear (thinking that it's Bugs Bunny) after the bear refuses the potion that was going to cure him. Just as Elmer scolds the bear, only to discover that the bear isn't Bugs Bunny when the real Bugs is at the window. Elmer realizes his mistake, and the enraged bear chases Elmer and ends up on the warpath against him, while Elmer is sobbingly panickedly begging the bear not to literally kill him. Elmer plays dead to fool the bear, and is saved by his bad odor (just as with Wabbit Twouble). Elmer thinks he's safe until he thinks he hears the bear again, but it's Bugs this time, imitating the bear (again, lifted from Wabbit Twouble). Meanwhile the bear is standing on the side of the room watching them, convinced that both Elmer and Bugs are crazy, flashing rebus picture cards to the audience showing a screw with a ball, a cracked pot, a dripping faucet, bats in a belfry, etc.
Characters[]
- Bugs Bunny
- Elmer Fudd