"Rabbit Stew and Rabbits, Too!" is a 1969 Looney Tunes short directed by Robert McKimson.
It's a Mime and Music-Only Cartoon about a Karmic Trickster rabbit named Rapid Rabbit and a fox named Quick Brown Fox trying to cook and eat him with all sorts of wacky schemes. Where have I seen this before...?
This short was intended to be a series, but the studio closed down, so it never came to be.
"Rabbit Stew and Rabbits, Too!" provides examples of:
- Booby Trap: Several, from a machine that whacks you with a hammer if you take a carrot from it, to a door rigged with a pile of rocks, to a "Free Trip to the Moon".
- Composite Character: Rapid Rabbit has Bugs Bunny's quick wit and Karmic Trickster traits and the Road Runner's honking, this time via a Harpo Marx-esque horn rather than natural beeping sounds.
- Expy: Quick Brown Fox, like Wile E. Coyote, is a predator trying fruitlessly to catch a fast prey animal while his contraptions constantly fail.
- Facepalm: Quick Brown Fox does this while watching Rapid Rabbit try to take a carrot from a machine meant to whack him with a large hammer.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Considering the cartoons this came off the heels of, it's a requirement for Quick Brown Fox's contraptions to fail on him.
- Jump Scare: Rapid Rabbit largely uses his horn for this.
- Limited Sound Effects: As per standard of the Seven Arts era of Warner Bros. Animation, this trope gets used...
- Disney and Hanna-Barbera's "Big Head Bonk" sound effect is heard numerous times throughout the cartoon, often when something hits Quick Brown Fox on the head.
- When Quick Brown Fox tiptoes over towards Rapid Rabbit with a snare, the sound of running feet is used, rather than an appropriate sound effect for tiptoeing (such as a tinkling xylophone).
- When Rapid Rabbit opens the door that Quick Brown Fox set up as part of a rock trap, it makes a "stretching" sound effect instead of sounding like an actual door hinge.
- Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: This was the only one to be made during the Warner Bros. - Seven Arts era of Looney Tunes.
- One-Shot Character: It was intended to be a series, but the studio shut down, causing only one short with these two characters to be made.
- Rube Goldberg Device: Quick Brown Fox's final scheme is this.
- Sheet of Glass: Quick Brown Fox's penultimate scheme is this, meaning for Rapid Rabbit to crash into it while running along the road. Then a car crashes into it, sending Quick Brown Fox down the road instead.
- Stock Sound Effects: Like the other Seven Arts cartoons, this one uses Hanna-Barbera sound effects, with a handful of Treg Brown's Looney Tunes sounds (mostly lesser-used ones).
