Rabbit Fire
The short, also starring Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd, is notable for being the first film in Jones' "hunting trilogy"—the other two films being Rabbit Seasoning and Duck! Rabbit, Duck!. It is also the first film to feature a feud between Bugs and Daffy.
Cartoons, Inc., the short was released to theaters on May 19, 1951 by Warner Bros. Pictures and is widely considered among Jones' best and most important films.
The film marks a significant change in Daffy's style, away from the "screwball" and toward the "foil" for Bugs' jokes.
Plot
The short starts out like many Bugs Bunny cartoons do: Elmer Fudd follows a trail of "wabbit twacks" left by a rabbit he presumes to be Bugs Bunny. "Survival of the fittest," Daffy tells the audience as he runs to hide, "...and besides, it's fun!"
When Elmer appears, Bugs informs him that the hunter cannot legally shoot the rabbit, since it is Duck Season.
It's Wabbit Season." The argument then continues:
Bugs: "Duck season!"
Daffy: "Wabbit season!"
Bugs: "Duck season!"
Daffy: "Wabbit season!"
Bugs: "Duck season!!"
Daffy: "Wabbit season!!"
Bugs: (reversing the flow) "Wabbit season!"
Daffy: "Duck season!!!"
Bugs: "Wabbit season!!!"
Daffy: "I say it's duck season, and I say, FIRE!"
Elmer then obliges and shoots the duck's bill causing it to spin and then resting back where it was again. Uninjured, yet embarrassed, Daffy starts the argument back up again.
Daffy: "Let's try that again."
Bugs: "Okay."
Daffy: "I'll start it this time."
Bugs: "Right."
Daffy: (grabs Elmer's rifle and points it to Bugs) "Wabbit season!"
Bugs: (pushing Elmer's rifle towards Daffy) "Duck season."
Daffy: (puts the rifle in front of Bugs again) "Wabbit season!!"
Bugs: (spins the rifle clockwise and aims it at himself, again reversing the flow) "Wabbit season."
Daffy: (grabs the rifle and pulls it toward himself) "Duck season!! FIRE!!!"
Once again, Elmer obliges and shoots Daffy's bill 180 degrees out of position to the back of his head.
And once again uninjured, Daffy suggests Bugs start the argument again.
Daffy: "Okay, this time, you start it."
Bugs: "Whatever you say." (aims Elmer's rifle at himself) "Wabbit."
Daffy: (takes the rifle and points it at himself) "DUCK!! ''FIRE!!!'"
This time, the shot causes Daffy's entire head to flip upside-down. Daffy walks away, disoriented.
Daffy: "What's the matter? Everything's upside-down! That's strange.
I can't make heads or tails of things."
Elmer yells at Daffy to come back, and tries to shoot him with his rifle, only to hear it click.
Elmer: "Well, whaddya know! No more buwwets!"
Bugs: "No more buwwets? Hey, laughing boy!" (points to Elmer) "No more buwwets!"
Daffy: "No more buwwets?" (grabs the rifle) "Here, lemme see that thing." (holds the rifle up and looks into the barrel) "Hmmm..." (rifle goes off)
Elmer: "Well, whaddya know! One buwwet weft!"
Bugs: "One buwwet weft? Hey, laughing boy! There was..."
Daffy: (with bullet lodged in the feathers of the top of his head as they're barely still attached to his scalp) "I know! I KNOW!! (looks disgustedly into camera as picture fades to black before next scene)
Bugs nails a sign to a tree that reads "DUCK SEASON OPEN", then sneaks offscreen. Daffy happens by and notices.
Daffy: "Devilishly clever..." (notices Elmer approaching) "Uh, oh!" (runs off screen)
Elmer continues walking until he runs into Daffy (who is disguised as a rabbit).
Daffy: "What's up, Doc? Having any luck on those ducks? It's duck season, you know!
Bugs then approaches disguised as a duck.
Bugs: "Just a darn minute! Where do you get that "Duck Season" stuff?"
With a look of confidence, Daffy points offscreen.
Daffy: "Says so right over there on that sign, you're so smart."
The sign now reads "RABBIT SEASON OPEN".
Daffy: (still with a look of confidence) "You know what to do with that gun, doc..."
Elmer shoots Daffy in the bill, blowing his disguise off from the neck up.
Daffy quietly stares at the triumphant Bugs with a look of embarrassed fury.
Daffy: (approaches Bugs angrily) "You're despicable..." Bugs and Daffy then begin reading cookbooks on how Elmer can prepare rabbit or duck delicacies.
Elmer: "I'm sowwy fewwers, but I'm a vegetawian. I just hunt for the sport of it."
Bugs and Daffy suddenly become angry.
Daffy comes into shot wearing a tennis outfit and wielding a racquet, calling "Anyone for tennis?" Elmer answers by shooting Daffy again, then goes after Bugs who scolds Elmer for trying to shoot rabbits with an elephant gun. When Bugs suggests that he go after an elephant, a huge pachyderm suddenly appears out of nowhere and warns Elmer (imitating Joe Besser): "You do and I'll give you such a pinch!" He pounds Fudd into the ground and walks off.
A visibly irate Elmer starts the hunt again for both "that scwewy wabbit and that scwewball duck".
They appear with Bugs dressed as a pretty female hunter with Daffy as her dog, but are exposed after Daffy bites Elmer's leg ("Gypsy, you naughty bow-wow! Stop that!") and Bugs' ear pokes out of the blonde wig he is wearing. Bugs and Daffy keep pulling sign after sign (with "RABBIT SEASON" in orange and "DUCK SEASON" in lighter yellow) until, in a notable and comical twist, it turns out to be "ELMER SEASON" (the sign featuring Elmer's face above said text, also resembling a Wanted poster), prompting the hunter to run and Bugs and Daffy to don hunting gear and inform the audiences to be "vewwy, vewwy quiet...we're hunting Elmers!" Then Daffy laughs like Elmer, which ends the short.
Reaction
Bugs and Daffy fight over which one of them is in season at the moment, in this scene from Rabbit Fire.
Rabbit Fire is generally considered among Chuck Jones' and Michael Maltese's best works, and is noted for its use of dialogue gags in lieu of the physical gags more typical in animation.
Besides the two sequels to this film, a number of other notable Jones shorts, including Beanstalk Bunny and Ali Baba Bunny, paired quick-witted Bugs and self-serving Daffy with (or rather against) each other.
The "duck season/rabbit season" argument from this short became one of the most notable references of the Looney Tunes franchise, and has been analyzed both by scholars and by Jones himself (though it should be noted that this gag was actually used by Daffy against Porky 6 years earlier in the cartoon Duck Soup to Nuts). According to an essay by Darragh O'Donoghue, Rabbit Fire "stands in close relation to human experience, striving and generally failing to grasp an elusive quarry or goal.".
Richard Thompson said that in the film, there is "the clearest definition of character roles: Elmer never knows what's going on; Bugs always knows what's going on and is in control of things; Daffy is bright enough to understand how to be in control, but never quite makes it." Jones himself refers to Rabbit Fire as a "corner" picture, among his works that, "as in turning a corner in a strange city, reveal new and enchanting vistas."
The short earned an honorable mention for animation historian Jerry Beck's list of The Fifty Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1000 Animation Professionals. However, in the finished film, only the words from the original dialogue script actually appear.
Historians believe that Blanc did indeed improvise, as Jones remembered, but that Chuck Jones decided to use what was originally written instead. Rabbit Fire and its two sequels often have two characters in the same frame for some length of time — an atypical aspect of the "Hunting" trilogy.
cartoons would cut back and forth between characters, rather than put two or more in the same shot. Interestingly, while the film is introduced by the Looney Tunes music The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down, the opening card indicates a Merrie Melodies "Blue Ribbon" release, and the end card is Merrie Melodies, replacing the original orange-red Looney Tunes title sequences.
This marked the first cartoon where Bugs and Daffy starred and appeared together.
While Bugs had made a cameo in Porky Pig's Feat (which co-starred Daffy and Porky Pig), this was the first where both were stars.
Censorship
Network television channels (particularly ABC, CBS, WB, and the syndicated "Merrie Melodies Show") have edited this cartoon (and the other two cartoons in the "hunting trilogy"—Rabbit Seasoning and Duck! Rabbit, Duck!) to remove the many times Daffy is shot in the face by Elmer.