Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips
| "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" | |
|---|---|
| Merrie Melodies (Bugs Bunny) series | |
 |
|
| Directed by | I. Freleng |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
| Story by | Tedd Pierce |
| Voices by |
Mel Blanc Bea Benaderet (uncredited) |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
| Animation by |
Gerry Chiniquy Virgil Ross (uncredited) |
| Distributed by |
Warner Bros. The Vitaphone Corporation |
| Release date(s) | April 22, 1944 (USA premiere) |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 8:11 (one reel) |
| Language | English |
Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips is a Merrie Melodies animated cartoon directed by Friz Freleng, produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions, and released to theaters on April 22, 1944 by Warner Bros. and The Vitaphone Corporation.
The cartoon was made during World War II, and reflects the United States' attitude towards one of its main enemies at the time, the Empire of Japan. In the cartoon, Bugs Bunny lands on an island in the Pacific and is pitted against a group of highly racially stereotyped Japanese soldiers. Bugs shows no mercy against the Japanese soldiers, greeting them with several racial slurs such as "monkey face" and "slant eyes", making short work of a large sumo wrestler, and bombing most of the Japanese army using various explosives, including grenades hidden in ice cream bars. The cartoon's title is a play on the verb "nip" as in "bite" and "Nips", which at the time was a widely used slur for Japanese people, as the Japanese word for "Japan" is "Nippon" (or "Nihon").
The Film Daily called the seven-minute short "good fun", and gave the following synopsis:
"Bugs Bunny, castaway on a Pacific isle, thinks the setting is ideal until he finds his paradise infested with Japanese soldiers. How he single-handedly exterminates the enemy makes for a laugh-filled few minutes of typical Bugs antics, off-screen remarks and action in this Technicolor cartoon produced by Leon Schlesinger."
Somewhere in the Pacific, Bugs is floating in a box, singing to himself, when 'the island that inevitably turns up in this kind of picture' turns up. Bugs swims towards it, and admires the peace and quiet, when bombs start going off (The Storm from the William Tell Overture is also heard in the Background). Bugs ducks into a haystack, and soon comes face to face with a Japanese soldier; a short, bucked tooth, bare-footed Japanese man who says his 'Ls' as 'Rs' and who might be rapidly stating the names of Japanese cities whenever he moves. The soldier chases Bugs to a rabbit hole, where the soldier dumps a bomb inside. However, Bugs manages to blow the soldier up with the bomb. When the soldier tries to swing a sword at Bugs, Bugs appears as a Japanese general (presumably Hideki Tojo), but is soon recognized by his trademark carrot eating, prompting the soldier (who says he saw Bugs in the "Warner Bros. Leon Schlesinger Merrie Melodies cartoon pictures", referring to the fact that Bugs was originally exclusive to that series) to ask him "What's up, Honorable Doc?"
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