All This and Rabbit Stew

All This and Rabbit Stew is a 1941 Merrie Melodies series cartoon directed by an uncredited Tex Avery.[1] The cartoon was released on September 13, 1941 and features Bugs Bunny.[2]

All This and Rabbit Stew
Title card
Directed byFred Avery (uncredited)
Produced byLeon Schlesinger
Story byDave Monahan
StarringMel Blanc
Danny Webb (both uncredited)
Music byMusical Direction:
Carl W. Stalling
Orchestration:
Milt Franklyn (uncredited)
Edited byTreg Brown (uncredited)
Animation byVirgil Ross
Uncredited animation:
Robert McKimson
Charles McKimson
Rod Scribner
Sid Sutherland
Effects animation:
A.C. Gamer (uncredited)
Backgrounds byJohn Didrik Johnsen (uncredited)
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
Vitaphone
Release date
  • September 13, 1941 (1941-09-13)
Running time
6:39
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Because of the racial stereotypes of black people throughout the short, United Artists decided to withhold it from television syndication within the United States in 1968. As such, the short was placed into the so-called Censored Eleven, a group of eleven Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts withheld from television distribution in the United States since 1968 due to heavy stereotyping of black people.[3] It was one of the 12 cartoons to be pulled from Cartoon Network's "June Bugs" 2001 marathon by order of AOL Time Warner, on grounds of the subject material's offensiveness toward African-Americans. Apparently in 1996, Cartoon Network prepared a television safe edit for the short by playing the clips containing Bugs only, or scenery (including Bugs Bunny's hole) from the short without the hunter. The edited test, which never aired, only lasted for 1 minute 33 seconds with both opening and closing credits included.

Plot

An unnamed African American hunter (who is very similar in speech pattern and mannerism to Stepin Fetchit) walks over to a rabbit hole where Bugs is eating his carrots. Bugs is led to a trunk where he tricks the hunter into destroying the tree. Bugs distracts the hunter after introducing himself, and digs underground and when the hunter realizes that Bugs has his gun. Bugs has the hunter run far enough so he can go down the rabbit hole. Realizing that he has been fooled, the hunter uses a toilet plunger to catch Bugs. However, Bugs tickles the hunter and flees into another rabbit hole. The hunter grabs the plunger, only to find a skunk under him. Next, Bugs lures the hunter into a cave, where they encounter a black bear. All three of them run into the rabbit hole and when Bugs and the hunter realize the bear is in the hole, they run off in fright.

Realizing that Bugs is on the hunter while walking, the hunter fires off a swarm of anthropomorphic birdshot bullets. In a madcap chase, the bullets chase Bugs into a series of holes, including a "fake" golf hole and the cave where the skunk is at. Bugs then lures the hunter into a log sitting on the edge of a cliff, through which the hunter runs numerous times (each time running to the other side as Bugs spins the log around so that the hunter keeps running off the cliff) until he falls to the ground. Bugs is confronted by the angered hunter and, in a desperate plea for his life, baits the hunter into playing what turns out to be a "strip" dice game. Bugs wins the game and walks off mocking the hunter's speech and wearing the hunter's clothes, leaving the man with a leaf covering his crotch to quip "Well, call me Adam." Adding further insult to injury, Bugs grabs the leaf during the "iris out".

Analysis
The unnamed hunter is depicted as a buffoon, as racial stereotypes did during that time, with him easily falling for Bugs's antics.

The film contains a reference to World War II, when the hunter threatens to Blitzkrieg Bugs.[4]

The hunter is identified in his model sheet as "Tex's Coon".[5] The hunter fills the role usually associated with Elmer Fudd; this was one of four Bugs Bunny short films of 1941 which have him facing a different hunter each time (the others were Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt, in which Bugs faced an Indian; The Heckling Hare, in which Bugs faces Willoughby the Dog; and Wabbit Twouble, which pits Bugs against Fudd).[4] A later scholar, John Stausbauch, described the hunter in terms of racial stereotype: as a "shufflin', big lipped, sleepy-eyed country coon," who cannot resist a game of craps.[6] The Stepin Fetchit-like character has his shuffling and mumbling exaggerated for comic effect.

There are perhaps limits to the film's offense; Bugs treats the hunter with contempt, but no more than other hunters with whom Bugs battled at the time. Rabbit Stew was clearly not a criticism of Fetchit and his stereotypical mannerisms;[5] at the time, Warner Bros. had satirized numerous celebrities of the era, regardless of race. As Fetchit's own performances were later subject to criticism from civil rights activists for portraying negative stereotypes, so too did this cartoon, eventually prompting its effective suppression.

The hunter is dressed in a hat, a short-sleeved shirt, overalls and oversized shoes. A character with the same attire and demeanor would later be used in Angel Puss (1944). He essentially plays a stereotypical Sambo role in the film, and was named Sambo in its publicity material,[7] as he had been in Rabbit Stew.

The hunter's and Bugs' reaction from the bear's unexpected appearance from the rabbit hole (horn sound included) was somewhat reused in Wabbit Twouble (1941).

The giant hollow log gag was reused in The Big Snooze (1946), Foxy by Proxy (1952), and Person to Bunny (1960).

Reception

Motion Picture Herald (Sept 13, 1941): "The little colored Sambo decides to try his hand at capturing Bugs Bunny, but meets with the same success as his predecessors. Just as he has the screwy rabbit cornered, Bugs Bunny entices him into a craps game, and little Sambo winds up a sadder and wiser hunter."[8]

Boxoffice (Sept 14, 1941): "One big, long hand. That's what this Technicolor cartoon is. It shows unmistakable signs of extra effort, preparation and ingenuity in all departments. The central character, a little bitty colored Sambo, is a cinch to capture fun-loving audiences. Here he decides to go gunning for some rabbits. He meets up with a nimble-witted adversary that has little Sambo in a constant dither."[8]

Motion Picture Exhibitor (Sept 17, 1941): "Sambo, a little negro boy, goes rabbit hunting, meets cynical Bugs Bunny, the screwy rabbit... This is a very funny reel in every respect — characters, situations, and story. If the feature is heavy or not so good, this will make the customers feel good anyhow."[8]

The Film Daily (Sept 12, 1941): "A Bugs Bunny Howl: Having eluded Hiawatha and other Leon Schlesinger characters, Bugs Bunny this time is pursued by Sambo in a riotous short that will make anyone laugh, and laugh hard. Trying to describe the action would be like trying to explain a maise but the Technicolor cartoon is about as mirth provoking as anything has any right to be."[9]

Availability
  • VHS/DVD – The Censored Eleven
  • VHS – 50 of the Greatest Cartoons (released by Starmaker Entertainment Inc.)[10][11]
  • VHS – Bugs Bunny And Friends
  • DVD – Cartoon Craze Presents: Bugs Bunny: Falling Hare (released by Digiview Productions)
  • VHS(Swe) - Snurre och hans vänner - Ayamonte AB

Notes
  • This cartoon is the final Avery-directed Bugs Bunny short to be released. Although it was produced before The Heckling Hare (after the production of which Avery was suspended from the Schlesinger studio and defected to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), it was released afterwards. The title is a parody of that of All This, and Heaven Too (1940), a Bette Davis film from the same studio. Because the cartoon was released after Avery left Warner Bros, Avery's name does not appear in the credits.[12][13][14][15][16]
  • This cartoon fell into the public domain in 1969 in the United States when United Artists, the copyright owners to the Associated Artists Productions package, failed to renew the copyright in time.
  • Along with Notes to You, the film was completed and shipped on September 2, 1941.[17]

See also

Further reading
  • Barrier, Michael (2003). "Warner Bros., 1941–1945". Hollywood Cartoons : American Animation in Its Golden Age: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198020790.
  • Lehman, Christopher P. (2007). "Black Characterizations". The Colored Cartoon: Black Representation in American Animated Short Films, 1907-1954. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 9781558497795.
  • Shull, Michael S.; Wilt, David E. (2004), "Filmography 1941", Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films, 1939-1945, McFarland & Company, ISBN 978-0786481699
  • Stausbauch, John (2007), "Black & White Film", Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture, Penguin Group, ISBN 978-1101216057

References
  1. Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company. p. 121. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
  2. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 60–61. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  3. The Straight Dope.
  4. Shull, Wilt (2004), p. 100
  5. Barrier (2003), p. 439
  6. Stausbauch (2007), unnumbered pages
  7. Lehman (2007), p. 58-59
  8. Sampson, Henry T. (1998). That's Enough, Folks: Black Images in Animated Cartoons, 1900-1960. Scarecrow Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0810832503.
  9. "Reviews of the New Films: Shorts". The Film Daily. 80 (52): 7. September 12, 1941. Retrieved November 7, 2020.
  10. https://www.worldcat.org/title/50-of-the-greatest-cartoons/oclc/24626765
  11. https://www.amazon.com/50-Greatest-Cartoons-Vol-VHS/dp/6302550416
  12. "All This and Rabbit Stew". youtube.com. Retrieved October 30, 2013.
  13. "All This and Rabbit Stew". imdb.com. Retrieved October 30, 2013.
  14. "Bugs Bunny: All This and Rabbit Stew". Retrieved October 30, 2013.
  15. "All This and Rabbit Stew (1941)". rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved October 30, 2013.
  16. "All This and Rabbit Stew". mubi.com. Retrieved October 30, 2013.
  17. "The Film Daily (Jul-Sep 1941)". Wid's Films and Film Folk, inc. July 1941. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
Preceded by
The Heckling Hare		 Bugs Bunny Cartoons
1941		 Succeeded by
Wabbit Twouble
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