Operation: Rabbit
| Operation: Rabbit | |
|---|---|
| Looney Tunes (Bugs Bunny/Wile E. Coyote) series | |
The title card of Operation: Rabbit.
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| Directed by | Charles M. Jones |
| Produced by |
Edward Selzer (uncredited) |
| Story by | Michael Maltese |
| Voices by | Mel Blanc |
| Music by | Carl Stalling |
| Animation by | Lloyd Vaughan Ben Washam Ken Harris Phil Monroe |
| Layouts by | Robert Gribbroek |
| Backgrounds by | Philip DeGuard |
| Studio | Warner Bros. Cartoons |
| Distributed by |
Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
| Release date(s) |
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| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 7:19 |
| Preceded by | Big Top Bunny |
| Followed by | Foxy by Proxy |
Operation: Rabbit is a Looney Tunes animated cartoon first released theatrically in 1952. Directed by Chuck Jones, the cartoon features Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote in the latter character's first attempt to capture and eat the former.
This was the second cartoon to feature Wile E. Coyote (following 1949's Fast and Furry-ous), and the first in which he is identified by his full name. It is also the first in which the Coyote speaks; his voice, like Bugs, was provided by Mel Blanc. The two characters would reappear together in the cartoons To Hare Is Human (1956), Rabbit's Feat (1960), Compressed Hare (1961), and Hare-Breadth Hurry (1963).
Set in the desert, Operation: Rabbit opens with Wile E. Coyote running up to Bugs Bunny's rabbit hole and constructing a door. He knocks on the door and Bugs, slightly bemused by the addition to his property, opens it. The Coyote proclaims, in his very first spoken line of dialogue ever, that he is a genius, as well as being faster, taller, and stronger than Bugs, and that he intends to eat the rabbit. He goes on to advise Bugs that it is futile to try and escape, since Bugs "could hardly pass the entrance examinations to kindergarten", an insult that seems to bore Bugs. (Wile E. displays an enlarged self-confidence throughout not only this film but in his other appearances with Bugs aside from Hare-Breadth Hurry.) An unimpressed Bugs replies, "I'm sorry, Mac, the lady of the house ain't home. And besides, we mailed you people a check last week," then slams the door in Wile E.'s face. The Coyote goes back to his cave hideout (taking the door with him), asking himself: "Why do they always want to do it the hard way?"
The Coyote's first plan to trap Bugs is to build a pressure cooker on top of the rabbit hole and cook Bugs alive. He chops up vegetables, throws them down the hole, adds an egg, a drop of cooking oil, some seasoning, tosses it into a salad, then places the pressure cooker on top. Bugs watches Wile E.'s work from another hole (suggesting his burrow has a back door), then walks up to him and asks "What's cookin', Doc?" When informed that Wile E. is cooking "rabbit stew" ("Gad, I'm SUCH a genius!"), Bugs casually observes, "there's only one little thing wrong with it", that there is no rabbit (because Bugs came up the alternate hole). As Wile E. frantically looks under the cooker, Bugs gives him a big kick down the hole and sticks the cooker on top of Wile E. He then picks up a bat, goes back down the second hole, singing, and clobbers the Coyote (off-screen) at the other hole, prompting the Coyote to remark: "Well, back to the old drawing board."
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