"What's Up Doc?" is a 1950 Looney Tunes cartoon short directed by Robert McKimson and starring (whom else?) Bugs Bunny.
While relaxing by the poolside of his Modernist house in the Hollywood hills, Bugs gets a phone call from the Disassociated Press, asking for his biography... which he happily relays over the phone. From birth (“a rabbit in a human world”) to dance training to paying his dues in the system and finally to what he thinks is his first big role (but really a Brick Joke), he does as well as he possibly can within a six-minute time span.
Produced to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the rabbit's first appearance (in A Wild Hare). Not to be confused with the 1972 live-action film of the same name (though a clip of this short does play at the end of the film).
"We hope you like our tropes..."
- Bowdlerization:
- In the sequence where Bugs is in the traveling vaudeville show with Elmer and decides to come up with a new act so he won't be made a fool like he was in the previous scenes, the version that aired on ABC cut a slightly risqué joke between Elmer and Bugs and the part where Elmer holds a rifle to Bugs' mouth after Bugs upstages him. On ABC, after Bugs decides to change the act, it cuts to Bugs saying "Eh, what's up, doc?" while Elmer aims the gun at Bugs, with no explanation as to what caused it. This part was also cut when it aired on The WB.
- The CBS version left in the "antifreeze" joke, but cut the part after that where Bugs slams a pie in Elmer's face, sprays him with seltzer, and whomps him with a mallet before jumping out of his clown suit and shuffling offstage and the part where Elmer holds a rifle to Bugs's mouth.
- Brick Joke: The big role Bugs is playing at the end turns out to be a reprise of "Boys of the Chorus", to his great annoyance.
- Child Prodigy: No specific age is given, but one look at the toy piano his parents gave him, "and I took to it right away."
- Chirping Crickets: His first starring performance (where he was actually the understudy), consists of hoofing while juggling, backflipping, and doing a split. He was answered much like what Daffy Duck dealt with in Show Biz Bugs.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: In Universe, Bugs starts out as the stooge to Elmer in his vaudeville act, until he turns the tables on him. But it's not until he responds to Elmer pulling a gun on him with "Eh, what's up, Doc?" that he becomes a big hit with the audience. This is poetically similar to how their out-universe career started, with Bugs as an underdeveloped foil for Elmer.
- Epic Fail: Bugs' debut act consists of hoofing while juggling, backflipping, and doing a splits, this results in Chirping Crickets and the Vaudeville Hook in the page image.
- It Will Never Catch On: Two examples.
- Bugs rejects a script for the play Life with Father, saying it will never be a hit. Not only was it a hit on Broadway (more than 3,000 shows, in fact), it was made into a hit movie not long after the cartoon was released.
- In the park bench segment, caricatures of Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, and Bing Crosby are shown lined-up and slumping, indicating an out-of-work phase. As they try to impress Elmer with their signature acts ("Mammy" for Jolson, Kreutzer's Etude No.2 for violin for Benny, a dance to "Ain't We Got Fun" for Cantor, and "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" for Crosby), he passes on all of them, claiming to Bugs "they'll never amount to anything!" Doubles as Hypocritical Humor in the case of Cantor, since he co-wrote and originated "Merrily We Roll Along", the Merrie Melodies
Real Song Theme Tune.
- Pie in the Face: Bugs gets one during his vaudeville stage act with Elmer. He returns the favor in a later show.
- Production Foreshadowing: One of the shows that Bugs "starred" in is called "Wearing of the Grin". A year after this cartoon was released, a Porky Pig cartoon was released with this very title.
- Running Gag: The scene with Bugs as part of a quartet announcing the stage show. The fourth and final such scene, which closes out the cartoon, has Bugs being angry about the “part written especially for me.”Oh, we're the boys of the chorus / We hope you like our show
We know you're rootin' for us / But now we have to go - Slapstick: Bugs uses a mallet (and a Pie in the Face and seltzer sprayed from a bottle) to deliver the punchline in his third performance with Elmer Fudd:Elmer: Say, pinhead, do you know how to make anti-fweeze?
Bugs: Yeah! Hide her nightgown! - Standard Snippet: Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2 on the toy piano.
- Title Theme Tune: The song Bugs performs during his screen test with Elmer (which would be used instrumentally in many other Bugs-related Looney Tunes productions and even the 1990s Merrie Melodies show).What's up, Doc? What's cookin'?
What's up, Doc? Are you lookin'
For Bugs Bunny bunting?
Doc is gone a-hunting
Just to get a rabbit skin
But now the rabbit's gone again
What's up, Doc? What's cookin'?
Hey, look out! Stop!
You're gonna hurt someone
With that old shotgun
Eh, what's up, Doc? - Vaudeville Hook: How Bugs is taken off the stage in the wake of his understudy performance. Slow to come in, yanks him away in a flash.
- Whole Episode Flashback: This short is bookended by Bugs sharing his life story to the "Disassociated Press" (a parody of the Associated Press) over the phone in his Beverly Hills home.
"We know you're rooting for us. But now we have to gooooo..!"
