"The Unruly Hare" is a 1945 Merrie Melodies cartoon, directed by Frank Tashlin and starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. This is only one of two Bugs shorts directed by Tashlin (the other being Hare Remover.)
Elmer is a surveyor for the railroad, which is laying down tracks through Bugs' burrow. As Elmer sets up his equipment, Bugs decides to have some fun with him. As usual, Hilarity Ensues.
"The Unruly Hare" provides examples of:
- Backwards-Firing Gun: While Elmer is not looking, Bugs bends the barrels of his shotgun backwards. When Elmer fires, the bullets go backwards, hitting two targets that Bugs was conveniently holding up.
- Bowdlerization:
- The version shown on the former WB network cut the part where Elmer has his rifle pointed at Bugs and Bugs tricks him into shooting him with, "Only a rat should shoot a guy in the back".
- Some local stations (and televised prints from the early 1960s) edit out the part where Elmer is looking through his telescope and Bugs puts a pin-up magazine in front of the telescope.
- Depth Deception: Bugs makes Elmer thinks the forest is on fire by holding a lit match in front of his transit.
- Exploding Cigar: After Elmer fires his gun, which had its barrels bent backwards by Bugs, and hits two targets behind him, Bugs rewards him by putting a large amount of cigars into his mouth and lighting them. They explode, leaving Elmer with major Ash Face.
- "I Can't Look!" Gesture: Bugs Bunny does this in jest when Elmer tells him that "he just put a cwazy wabbit out of his misewy!"Bugs: [looking in the tree stump Elmer shot in, then whispering to Elmer] Don't look now, Doc, but you missed me!
- In the Back: As Elmer aims his gun at Bugs' heart, Bugs turns around, saying that "Only a big, fat rat would shoot a guy in the back." Elmer fires anyway, and Bugs is seemingly obliterated in a cloud of smoke.Elmer: So I'm a big, fat wat!
Bugs: [emerges unscathed from smoke] Ah, have some cheese, rat! [shoves wedge of cheese into Elmer's mouth] - Ridiculously Fast Construction: When the dynamite shed explodes, all the track materials fall neatly into place, just in time for a train to come running through moments afterward.
- Shout-Out:
- Bugs is singing "As Time Goes By" in the opening.
- When he hears Elmer singing, Bugs says "That sounds like Frankie Sinatra, or an unreasonable facsimile."
- Bugs imitates comedian Joe Besser when he tells Elmer, "Oh, you and your old gun, you craaazy!"
- Talking with Signs: Bugs holds up a "P.U." sign as a comment on Elmer's singing.
- Wartime Cartoon: At the end, Bugs jumps off of a moving train (with a surprisingly painful-looking landing) because he just remembered that the government doesn't want civilians to do any unnecessary traveling.
