The Unmentionables
| The Unmentionables | |
|---|---|
| Merrie Melodies (Bugs Bunny/Rocky and Mugsy) series | |
 |
|
| Directed by | Friz Freleng |
| Produced by | David H. DePatie (uncredited) |
| Story by | John Dunn |
| Voices by |
Mel Blanc Ralph James |
| Music by | Bill Lava |
| Animation by |
Gerry Chiniquy Virgil Ross Bob Matz Art Leonardi Lee Halpern |
| Layouts by | Hawley Pratt |
| Backgrounds by | Tom O'Loughlin |
| Studio | Warner Bros. Cartoons |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | September 7, 1963 |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 6' |
| Language | English |
The Unmentionables is a 1963 animated short film in the Merrie Melodies series produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. It features Bugs Bunny with Rocky and Mugsy (in their final appearance), and spoofs The Untouchables, a popular television crime drama (complete with an impression of Walter Winchell's frantic narration, by a credited Ralph James; this was one of the few instances where someone other than Mel Blanc was credited with a voice role on a Warner Bros. cartoon). The title is also a synonym for "underwear". Bugs takes on the role of crime fighter Elegant Mess (a reference to Eliot Ness). To design this cartoon, director Friz Freleng and his team studied the works of John Held Jr. This was the last Bugs Bunny cartoon that Freleng directed in the original classic era of Looney Tunes.
The cartoon later appeared (combined with two other Rocky and Mugsy cartoons) in The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie in 1981.
The cartoon opens with a pair of eyes looking through a peep door followed by the credits. The narrator explains how the Roaring 20's was a time of jazz, new fashion trends (such as oversized fur coats on men and short-skirted dresses, bell hats, knee socks, and long pearl necklaces on women), dance parties, and mobster violence. The scene then cuts to a pair of gangster cars shooting guns at each other (ceasing at a traffic light). One man, witnessing the gangster battles, hurries over to the nearest telephone booth and orders the operator to connect him to the police, but the dim witted operator takes so long to make the connection that the gangsters' gunfire shoots the telephone booth and man in half, to which the operator says "Sorry! You've been disconnected."
Over in Washington D.C., Bugs Bunny (addressed as Agent Elegant Mess in this cartoon) is assigned by his chief to infiltrate the gangster underworld in Chicago. As Bugs takes a taxi out to Chicago, he discovers that it's been compromised by Rocky and Mugsy.
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