Scalp Trouble will not be seen today, as the dandruff flakes have escalated to a full-on blizzard. While we shovel our way out, please enjoy part two of Drawn and Quartered's Valentine's Day special, guaranteed to give you heartburn.
Hey, guys. C.L. Young is back. I hope P.W. did a good job in my place. I just needed a few days to get my head on straight. It’s still a long process, but I was told I was okay to function.
Today, we’re moving on to the other romantic cartoons that have had parts cut. First, it’s the Bugs Bunny shorts “Hare Splitter,” “Hare Trimmed,” and “Rabbit Romeo.” The Daffy Duck cartoon “The Stupid Cupid” will be a special bonus episode released between this and the MGM shorts.
Hare Splitter (1948)
Director(s): Friz Freleng (credited as “I. Freleng”)
Summary: Bugs is preparing for a date with a rabbit named Daisy (who strangely looks like she could be his sister, not his girlfriend, and lives in a house while Bugs lives in a hole in the ground), but so is a dopey, brown rabbit named Casbah (who kind of looks like the depressed Easter Bunny from “Easter Yeggs”) and, while Daisy is conveniently out, the two fight each other over who will have her.
Fun Facts:
- This is the first Friz Freleng-directed short to be included in the post-1948 syndication package (which is the syndicated package that I remember seeing a lot of when it comes to WB cartoons on Saturday morning and weekday afternoon TV, both on cable and antenna TV).
- Bugs asking the women in the audience if they’ve had to put up with pushy men who don’t take “No” for an answer is not only progressive for a time when there was no such thing as “#TimesUp” and “#MeToo,” but it was also used in Bob Clampett’s “The Big Snooze” when Bugs dresses Elmer up as a woman and lets a bunch of Hollywood wolves go after him (in that case, Elmer said that line).
Letterboxd Says The Darndest Things: Yay, I’m bringing this back (P.W. didn’t want to do this for the Pepe Le Pew cartoons, as she feels the people reviewing them miss the point. Don’t worry; this will be discussed either as a blog post or podcast) and...there’s only one that makes a lot of good points about why this short was mid (by a reviewer named Miguel, who still gave the short three stars):
Standard set of gags combined with a premise that REALLY feels like it was meant for a character other than Bugs Bunny. Casbah is among the weakest antagonists for the rabbit, and the slapstick (while featuring Freleng's trademark impeccable creative timing) isn’t quite creative enough to get the laugh a lot of the time. Not bad, but very underwhelming.
Despite that, I do like some of the jokes, like Bugs and Casbah trying to one-up each other on gifts, which ends with Bugs using an anvil on Casbah’s head or Bugs giving Daisy a vase to bash Casbah with after Casbah beats Daisy, thinking that she’s Bugs in drag. So it's not all bad.
The Channel(s): ABC, Cartoon Network and Boomerang (temporarily)
Part(s) Edited:
- On ABC, the part where Casbah angrily confronts Bugs after Bugs (as Cupid) shoots him in the butt and sends him flying into the awning was cut to remove Bugs defending himself by pulling the “You wouldn’t hit a guy with glasses, would ya?” bit, but Casbah punches Bugs anyway, leaving Bugs with two black eyes and a pair of broken glasses dangling off his face.
- Cartoon Network and Boomerang temporarily aired a version on the infamous June Bugs 2001 marathon that cut from Daisy and Bugs’ kiss after eating the novelty exploding carrots to them happily jumping around the room before the iris-out, cutting Daisy’s “What a man!” and Bugs’ “What a woman!” lines. Since I do remember seeing this edit as it happened (even had it on videotape), I’m so sure this was a cut for time, as the cartoon was running long in the hour it was on and the network wanted to get to the next Bugs short as quickly as possible. A viewer can also cite the edit as a means to tone down any sexual innuendo, but this is 1990s to early 2000s Cartoon Network we’re talking about. It was more of a land mine of demographically questionable content than Nickelodeon was in its glory days (and, hopefully, with no executive producers or show creators that shouldn’t be around children for legal reasons).
What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The ABC version makes it painfully obvious that something’s missing, as after Casbah angrily approaches Bugs, the scene cuts to Bugs with two black eyes looking scared and running off. The black eyes could be the same ones used for shock like Chuck Jones did for his cartoon, but Friz Freleng didn’t do that with his characters. The Cartoon Network/Boomerang/June Bugs 2001 version was, yes, irritating to me (since I’ve seen this cartoon so much on ABC that I know the lines), but the edit was for time and other Cartoon Network and Boomerang installment shows like The Looney Tunes Show, Bugs and Daffy, and The Acme Hour aired the short uncut and uncensored.
Video Comparison:
Availability Uncut: This was on four Stars of Space Jam collections spanning three physical media releases (VHS, laser disc, and DVD), was the special feature for two movies (the DVD version of the Errol Flynn flick, The Adventures of Don Juan and the musical Romance on the High Seas, starring Jack Carson, Jamie Paige, Don DeFore, and Doris Day), and is now uncut, uncensored, and restored with its original titles as part of the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Blu-ray set.
Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Was on HBO Max (both when it went by its original name and when it went by “Max”), but now is on Tubi. Isn’t available on digital download, sadly.
Hare Trimmed (1953)
Director(s): Friz Freleng (credited as “I. Freleng”)
Summary: Yosemite Sam is after the hand (and wallet) of a local widow (who is Granny without Tweety and/or Sylvester the Cat as her pet[s], but is named Emma) who just inherited $50 million (which is $609,086,142.32 in today’s money. Either way, she’s loaded) so he can start his campaign of terror involving kicking old ladies out of the old ladies’ home, tearing down orphanages, and getting rid of the police department (which, these days in some circles, is more a heroic act than anything. I’m not getting into all of that; just wanted to point it out). Bugs decides to step in and save Emma from being taken for a ride by a male gold digger (nice twist there), but then it all devolves into Yosemite Sam almost marrying an in-drag Bugs and ditching him at the altar thanks to a wardrobe malfunction.
Fun Facts:
- This is the first cartoon to have Granny as her own character and not as the woman who has Tweety as her pet and is trying to keep Sylvester from eating him (or has both Sylvester and Tweety as her pets and tries to keep Sylvester from eating Tweety, with and without the help of an angry bulldog named Spike or Hector). 1955’s “This is a Life?” and 1965’s “Corn on the Cop” would be the only other cartoons to do this.
- The “Donut Center: What a Hole” joke was previously used on the 1939 Bob Clampett short, “Porky’s Hotel.”
- “Honey’s Money” (the only Yosemite Sam short where Sam isn’t paired with Bugs Bunny and is his own character) from 1962 would later have Sam trying to marry a woman for her money and use the money to make old people homeless, tear down orphanages, and defund the police, only that cartoon ended up being like “His Bitter Half” with “Wild Over You”’s climax (uh...so to speak) of Pepe asking the audience if getting beaten by a wildcat is worth it, and ecstatically answers yes. This one...didn’t.
- They never did resolve how Granny/Emma got out of her bedroom, did they?
Letterboxd Says The Darndest Things: Mostly positive, but some are kinda weird.
Nebnero says:
no way looney tunes cartoons are on here this is awesome. this was one of my favorites growing up. its just funny thats all muahaha
I am not loving the blatant disregard for proper grammar and punctuation. Moving on, we have Ray’s three-and-a-half-star review:
Sam promises to close the orphanage and defund the police. Might be worth it.
Granny also reminisces about getting frisky post-Gettysburg. I suppose it was the Age of Rail, after all.
Again, I’m not touching any anti-police stuff with a ten-foot baton because we’re not here to be political; we’re here to have fun and see what’s been censored. I do approve of the “Age of Rail” innuendo. Just when I thought I’ve heard them all...
Finally (I’m keeping it short. You can look up all the reviews online on your own time), we have Tim Brayton’s review, which does highlight the good aspects as well as the bad (I’m guessing the earlier reviews he did were for the pre-1948 shorts that aren’t considered as revered as the ones between 1949 and 1964):
Overstuffed, in a good way. Having Granny show up, sans Tweety, to be the target of Yosemite Sam's treacherous affection is arguably a step too far, but Bea Benaderet gets some delightful line readings out of the deal, and there's a fantastic “trotting” cycle as she playfully runs away from him. Meanwhile, we get a pair of A+ Bugs disguises, one that seems designed primarily to let Mel Blanc show off by doing Bugs doing a fake French accent, and one that casts his standard drag routine into beautiful new relief. It’s not as unrelentingly fast as the best of the Bugs/Sam shorts, but there are still some terrific gags, including a wonderful bit where Sam, having been pulverized by a falling piano, flows down the stairs like a sickly little puddle.
It’s a bit more delicate than I’m used to in Friz Freleng shorts; the gags are more clever than wacky, maybe. There are a few specific layouts that get repeated multiple times not for the sake of building up to a repeating punchline, but because they do interesting things to the rhythm of the conflict. At times it feels like Freleng and Warren Foster are trying to do a Chuck Jones/Michael Maltese short, more interesting in timing and rhythm than running at the next gag; they do it pretty well, too.
And somehow, all of this culminates in a completely lifeless, tossed-aside shrugs of a non-joke to end things. I get that Looney Tunes with tinny final gags aren't new, but this one feels particularly galling.
I wouldn’t call the ending where Bugs and Sam almost get married “lifeless” and “tossed aside,” though the fact that Granny/Emma may still be locked in her room and had all her stuff taken by the two guys (well, one man and one anthropomorphic rabbit) who tried to court her and there’s no mention of this even as an afterthought is odd, but seven-minute cartoons don’t catch everything. And yes, this does feel more Jones/Maltese than Freleng/Foster, but Jones used Freleng’s Sylvester and Tweety (Sylvester was in “The Scarlet Pumpernickel” and those three cartoons where it’s him and Porky Pig traveling to haunted places and Sylvester getting scared of the unexplained phenomena while Porky cruelly dismisses him while Tweety was in “No Barking”) while Freleng would later use Pepe Le Pew for the end of “Dog Pounded” in 1954. What I’m saying is “Freleng recycles a lot from his own work and others. It would probably get him branded a plagiarist today, but back then, it was mostly all good.”
The Channel(s): ABC
Part(s) Edited: Strap in, this one is going to be a bumpy ride. This, despite being the most frequently-aired short I’ve seen when I was a kid, has a lot taken out of it due to content (back when I ran a blog called “Saturday Morning Hangover” and did a list of the fifteen most egregious cuts made to classic cartoon shorts [it was an early version of what this blog would be], this was in at number one. I believe “For Scent-imental Reasons” was in the top five and “The Cats Bah” was somewhere in the bottom five or maybe the top ten. It’s been a while and the blog post is long gone, unless archive.org saved it)...and it all starts with the part after Yosemite Sam gets plowed by a piano that Bugs (in drag as Granny/Emma) pushes down the stairs, which I will demonstrate in this game of “Green Light, Red Light”:
Original Version: Granny/Emma finds Sam staggering around after getting run down by the piano, thinks he’s “looped” (drunk), then helps him into the parlor for some coffee to sober up (that actually doesn’t work).
ABC: Cut that entire part.
Original Version: Granny/Emma sits Sam down and tells him she’ll be right back with the coffee. Once she’s gone, Bugs as Granny/Emma comes in with a cart of drinks and asks Sam for one or two lumps (of sugar). Sam says, “Two” like an idiot and gets hit on the head with a mallet twice. When the real Granny comes back with an actual cup of coffee and asks Sam how many lumps (of sugar) he wants, an angry Sam kicks the cup out of her hands and shouts, “That’s how many!”, driving Granny to run upstairs in fear, shouting, “Oh! He’s flipped his lid!”
ABC: Cut that entire part, too. Edited version goes from Sam getting run down by the piano, with his flattened hat sliding down on his equally flattened head to Granny running upstairs shouting, “Oh! He’s flipped his lid.”
Original Version: Sam realizes his mistake (“Great horny toads!”), rushes upstairs to Granny/Emma’s room begging Emma to open the locked door.
ABC: Cut the “Great horny toads!” part, but the version I remember seeing a lot as a kid actually left that part in (and that goes for the version on The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, which was also shown edited like the popular ABC version).
Original Version: In a failed attempt at being flirty(? Yeah, your guess is as good as mine on this part), Sam cajoles Granney/Emma out of her room by saying, “I can see you through the keyhol-l-le!” and getting shot through said keyhole.
ABC: Cut from Granny/Emma inside her bedroom, aiming her rifle at the door and yelling, “Now, don’t you come near me!” to Sam putting his bullet-riddled hat back on his head, grabbing a ladder from off-screen left, and climbing to the transom window, begging, “Aw, come on, Emmy!”
Original Version: Sam gets shot again when he climbs the ladder, stops at the transom window, and begs, “Aw, come on, Emmy!”
ABC: Cut from “Aw, come on, Emmy!” to Bugs (in drag as Granny/Emma/Emmy) whistling and Sam running down the ladder.
Original Version: Sam begs Emmy (Bugs in drag) for more lumps. Bugs (as Emmy) obliges, and Sam shouts, “I like it! I like it!” before Bugs (as Emmy) suggests that they elope.
ABC: Bugs (in drag as Granny/Emma/Emmy) whistles and Sam running down the ladder. Older version kept in Sam begging for more lumps, followed by Bugs (as Emmy) suggesting that they elope; newer version went from Bugs (in drag as Granny/Emma/Emmy) whistling and Sam running down the ladder to the “Bugs (as Emmy) suggesting that they elope” line.
What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Which do you prefer: the fact that a large chunk of the cartoon is missing and most of the middle and near the end is reduced to nothing or the fact that this hatchet job edited version has been shown on television for so long and so frequently that I’m just now getting used to the uncut version? Both piss me off in equal measure.
Video Comparison:
Availability Uncut: Fortunately, the uncut version has been available on physical media for longer than the cartoon has aired on television edited (though the edited version is shown on The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie if you are curious as to how ABC edited it):
1984: The Looney Tunes Video Show, volume 12 (VHS)
1993: Bugs Bunny: Winner by a Hare: 14 of Bugs Bunny's Best (laser disc)
1993: Yosemite Sam's Yeller Fever (VHS)
1996: Looney Tunes Collection - Yosemite Sam (VHS)
2000: Mil-Looney-Um 2000 - Bumper Collection (VHS)
2010: Looney Tunes Super Stars' Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire (DVD)
2013: Looney Tunes Super Stars 3-Pack [compiled with Foghorn Leghorn and Friends: Barnyard Bigmouth and Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote: Supergenius Hijinks] (DVD, disc 1)
2014: Looney Tunes Super Stars Family Multi-Feature [same version as the 3-Pack] (DVD, disc 1)
2025: Looney Tunes Collector's Vault, volume 1 (Blu-ray, disc 2)
Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Was on HBO Max from 2020-2022, then came back when HBO Max went by “Max” from 2024-2025, and is now on Tubi’s Looney Tunes channel.
Rabbit Romeo (1957)
Director(s): Robert McKimson
Summary: Elmer Fudd’s Uncle Judd sends him an ugly, tempermental Slobovian rabbit named Millicent (voiced by June Foray, using an early version of the voice she would later use for Natasha on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show) to babysit until he arrives...and the only thing that’ll keep her calm is a mate, which Elmer finds when he goes carrot-fishing for Bugs Bunny.
Fun Facts:
- This is the only Robert McKimson cartoon written by Michael Maltese (who normally writes for Chuck Jones).
- This is one of the few times Elmer doesn’t hunt Bugs throughout the cartoon, though he does use a carrot on a fishing line to capture him and threaten Bugs with a hunting rifle to stay with Millicent.
- The Slobovia mentioned here is probably the same Slobovia from “Mouse Mazurka” (1949, Freleng).
- The $500 Uncle Judd promised Elmer for babysitting Millicent is, in 2025/2026 dollars is $5,787.40. Not bad, but is it really worth it with her attitude?
Letterboxd Says The Darndest Things: I don’t think Letterboxd liked this one...or they read too much into what was going on. It got okay reviews, but they trashed it almost as bad as simpsonsarchives.com trashed one of the classic (seasons one to around eight or nine, depending on your tolerance) episodes of The Simpsons. Tim Brayton’s one this go-around is a doozy:
A bit broken both as a story and as a work of animation (the McKimson unit animators had already lost their handle on Elmer Fudd and I am dismayed to see that they’re losing their handle on Bugs, too; the new character, the zaftig lady rabbit Millicent, is extremely well-designed at the level of the single drawing and pretty janky and messily-done at the level of animation). But so broken that something kind of captivating in its belligerent weirdness emerges. This is some kind of strange screed against buying wives from Eastern Europe since they turn out to be off-puttingly sexually demanding, which feels too specific for Michael Maltese (burning off one of his most meanspirited scripts away from his home base with Chuck Jones) and Robert McKimson not to have something in mind, but I am goddamned if I know what that something might have been. The grim sexual paranoia of the script and the stiff animation combine to feel like something that has escaped, like the McKimson unit accidentally hired R. Crumb for a month, a decade before R. Crumb even existed, and was horrified but also kind of excited by what he turned out.
I get that the above is strictly in my “I like the ones that are real fucked up in the head” wheelhouse that I don’t expect anybody else to respond to, so here's the user guide: the best thing is that June Foray is demoing her “hoarse Eastern European ball-buster” voice that will, with a few tweaks, give us the all-timer Natasha Fatale not very far down the road, and the worst thing is that this 7-minute cartoon somehow feels a half-hour long.
Yeah, Robert McKimson post-1955 may not have been perfect, but I did not get whatever feeling he had about this short. And Michael Maltese writing a screed against buying foreign brides from Eastern Europe? Guess that means the Pepe Le Pew cartoons are a screed against sleazy, “romantic” Frenchmen (to be fair, that is true. I know about it and P.W. agrees). That’s just the 1950s and their xenophobia.
EddieTheOkay actually makes a good point on what the short needed to do to be funnier:
Maybe Elmer should have offered to split the money with Bugs earlier. Then at the end have Bugs pretend to be Elmer to take all the money and let the lady rabbit take Elmer in the bunny suit with her. While lying to Elmer’s aunt that he got her a husband.
Feels like a missed opportunity of an ending.
And to close, feyd has this to say:
Bugs is sexually harassed by a lady rabbit from Eastern Europe (June Foray doing the Natasha accent). I keep feeling by this time - 1957 - the writers really didn’t know who Bugs was. He does make the female rabbit kiss a fan.
I think the writers did know who Bugs Bunny was; they were just trying to change him. You know, like what happened with Daffy Duck. Also, feyd forgot to mention Elmer using violence to coerce Bugs into being Millicent's groom. That’s considered dubious when it comes to sexual consent.
The Channel(s): CBS, ABC, Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends (syndicated and FOX versions), Nickelodeon, and The WB
Part(s) Edited:
- The CBS, ABC, Merrie Melodies..., and Nickelodeon versions cut the part where, after Bugs uses a goldfish to deflect Millicent’s kiss, the goldfish is returned to his fishbowl and the fish pulls a gun and goes to his castle to kill himself (depicted as water bubbles surfacing, with one sounding like a gunshot when popped). While CBS, ABC, and both Merrie Melodies... versions cut off after the fish is returned to the bowl, Nickelodeon had Bugs put the fish back in the bowl, followed by a jump cut to the bubbles coming to the surface with the one sounding like a gunshot when popped.
- The WB (for all I know) surprisingly left in the goldfish suicide, but cut Bugs using an electric fan to deflect Millicent’s kiss (which wrecks the fan) and Millicent’s comment, “Hmm, not bad for a beginner!”
What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The Nickelodeon cut to the goldfish suicide makes it look like the fish exploded (or did commit suicide, but we don’t see him pull out the gun first). That actually makes it worse. The fan edit...it’s rare that The WB cuts for dangerous, imitable behavior (figured that Nickelodeon, ABC, or one of the versions of Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends would have done it. Maybe CBS, but I think they would only cut for that if there was actual electricity that shocked Millicent and she came out of it singed, but okay and more aroused than ever), but hey, at least we know that it was done.
Video Comparison:
Availability Uncut: Yeah, this one pretty much debuted on DVD (no VHS, no Beta, no laser disc, not even a VCD or a Super 8). First, it appeared on the fourth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set 20 years ago (2006) and has appeared in repackaged compilations of it ever since (Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, volume 4; Looney Tunes Collection Best of Bugs Bunny, volume 4; Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection repack, volumes 4 and 5; and The Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny Golden Carrot Collection).
Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Was on HBO Max from 2020 to 2022, didn’t come back when the service was known as “Max,” but is now included in the Tubi 786.
'Til next time, Stay Looney and Be Merrie!
