NOTE: I have indeed restarted this as a Cartoon Discussion of the Month, which would give me more time to prepare each entry. So in the coming months, get ready for some healthy discussion!
A Hare Grows in Manhattan One of a number of cartoons explaining Bugs Bunny's origins—here, Bugs discusses his youthful encounters with a gang of tough dogs in New York—this is also one of my favorite Bugs cartoons from the mid-late-40s. Mike Maltese and Tedd Pierce fill the cartoon with several fairly brilliant gags, some inspired by New York in the first half of the 20th century and others reused from earlier cartoons—more on them later—and Freleng's timing and direction bring them to funny life.
Virgil Ross animates the wraparounds featuring Bugs in the present day. He illustrates succinctly the contrast between "private" Bugs and "public" Bugs; even then, of course, the two are the same character, as evidenced by "public" Bugs acting out his dire situation towards the end of the film. Gerry Chiniquy gets the two big musical sequences: Bugs tap-dancing and singing "The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady", and Bugs making Egyptian poses to "Ahí viene la conga". Both are excellently timed, even if the drawing is rather off-model; in the latter sequence, take note of how Bugs at first inbetweens between each pose, but in the next shot he begins outright "popping" from pose to pose! In the last shot, he returns to inbetweening, clearly enjoying himself, only to be interrupted by the bulldog gang leader. I am not sure of what Ken Champin and Manny Perez animated; I would greatly appreciate the help!
Hawley Pratt drew the layouts as usual; they convincingly depict old-time New York with its high-rise buildings, automats, alleys, etc. Philip DeGuard was the background artist for a change; he was mostly working in Art Davis's unit at the time.
Some notes on the gags:
Take note of the variation on Bugs's famous catchphrase: "What's up, dogs?"
The scene with Bugs describing the situation to the bulldog, inflicting further humiliation on him in the process, is a typically Bugs-esque routine (still funny, though) that must've had several different variations over the years. I can't quite put my finger on which exact cartoon it originated in, though.
The Stork Club was, of course, a famous real-life club in New York, frequented by all sorts of celebrities and rich folk. (It died out in 1965 amidst union disputes.) Naturally, Maltese and/or Pierce couldn't resist the obvious pun, which had been used by Bob Clampett and Warren Foster in "Baby Bottleneck" (1946). (Ever noticed how the storks used their legs as their arms?)
The automats were basically the predecessors of modern fast-food chains, with food served by large vending machines. Of Prussian origin, they were once widespread throughout New York, but have all but died since then. They do live on in the Netherlands in the form of automatiek, particularly in the FEBO chain of stores; this Dutch survival inspired one last attempt to revive the automat in 2006 (read more
here ), only for it to close in 2009.
The sequence involving the Egyptian cigarettes billboard synchronized to conga music was originally the final gag in Freleng's "Lights Fantastic" (1942), written by Dave Monahan, down to even featuring a brief hotfoot gag and the billboard turning back after something unusual is noticed. In that cartoon, it was a random beautiful lady, and that was the end of the sequence; here, however, it's Bugs Bunny, and the sequence goes on with the aforementioned hilarious "Bugs-posing"!
When the bulldog interrupts, Bugs manages to distract him off the building by making him fetch a stick from out of nowhere—this routine, interrupting the tension with a sudden canine game, goes at least as far back as Tex Avery's "The Crackpot Quail" (1941), though in that cartoon the stick was quite visible beforehand. Once the bulldog realizes he is off, he begins trying to grab onto the bricks, all of which come off—in the end, gravity does its work, and there's a nice touch as the dog, realizing its fate, actually throws out the two bricks he is holding. (I'm surprised they didn't land on his head later.)
He manages to catch a hanging wire, which leads to another gag with earlier origins: the "piddies" gag from Bob Clampett's "A Tale of Two Kitties" (1942), this time carried out by Bugs, of course! Maltese and/or Pierce use it to throw in another Bugs catchphrase: "Ain't I a stinker?"
Then follows a sequence in which the dog takes on various amusing outfits before landing as a baby; another nice animated touch when the dog, dressed as an old lady, gets self-conscious and covers up his panties! Bugs's line, "That's thirty for today!", refers to how journalists once ended articles with —30—.
The book Bugs uses to inadvertently send the dogs running off to Brooklyn in another neat Maltese/Pierce pun, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", was a famous novel that focused on an Irish-American family's desires to rise above their awful conditions in Brooklyn...marginally related to this cartoon, I guess!
Any other thoughts on this cartoon? Feel free to speak up!
Edited by moderator
2016-01-04T22:50:42Z
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Reason: Not specified