''The Windblown Hare'' is a Warner Bros. ''

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series '' Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation. ...

animated short Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

directed by

Robert McKimson Robert Porter McKimson Sr. (October 13, 1910 – September 29, 1977) was an American animator and illustrator, best known for his work on the ''Looney Tunes'' and '' Merrie Melodies'' series of cartoons from Warner Bros. Cartoons and later DeP ...

. The short was released on August 27, 1949, and stars

Bugs Bunny Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created in the late 1930s by Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring roles in the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merr ...

. The title, another pun on "hair", refers to Bugs being subjected to the Wolf's "blowing the

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air cond ...

s down".

Plot

The Three Little Pigs, reading their own story in a book of fairy tales, decide to circumvent the plot by selling both the straw house and the wooden house before the Wolf can blow them down. Bugs is easily conned into buying the straw house for ten dollars (a sawbuck). Along comes the Wolf, also reading the book. As per the plot, he blows down the straw house just as homeowner Bugs starts to greet him. Bugs then buys the wooden house from the second pig, and the three then hole up in the brick house – knowing from the book that the Wolf cannot blow it down. Along comes the Wolf again, book in hand, and blows down the wooden house over Bugs' objections. That prompts the Bunny to deliver payback to the Wolf. To get revenge on the Wolf, Bugs dresses up as

Little Red Riding Hood "Little Red Riding Hood" is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a sly wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th century European folk tales. The two best known versions were written by Charles Perrault and the Bro ...

and skips down the roadway. He meets the Wolf sitting under a tree, reading the end of the story. The Wolf asks the "girl" where she is going and Bugs flips the Wolf's book a few pages. The Wolf then speed-reads "Little Red Riding Hood" until he realizes that he is behind schedule for ''that'' story. The Wolf races over to Grandma's house but rather than eat her, he kicks her out of the house with barely enough time to get her nightclothes on. The Rabbit in Red arrives shortly thereafter. When Bugs Bunny says what big eyes, ears, teeth, and feet the wolf has when he is in Grandma's clothing, he pokes both of the wolf's eyes, pulls his ears up and down, and pulls out his teeth and shoves them back in his mouth. The Wolf retaliates by pulling on Bugs' ears, but Bugs counters that by stepping on the Wolf's foot. After both of them strip each other's disguises they argue, with Bugs exclaiming, "Why, Granny! You're just a wolf in cheap clothing!" Bugs then refuses to give the Wolf the "present" he brought him. After the Wolf begs Bugs to give him his present, Bugs relents and puts the present (a cake) right into the Wolf's face, telling the Wolf "you asked for it!". Pursued down the basement steps of Grandma's house, Bugs turns off the light switch downstairs, making the Wolf go back to the upstairs switch to restore the light rather than risk Bugs' counterattack. After this procedure is repeated once, Bugs tricks the Wolf by saying "click" instead of actually turning off the light, prompting the Wolf to go back upstairs, automatically turn the upstairs light ''off'' and continue down the stairs, allowing Bugs to hit him. Bugs tries to escape on a bicycle, but it turns out to be a triple-

tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

bike with the Wolf in the third seat. Bugs steers into a clothesline, yanking the Wolf out of the seat. When Bugs chides the Wolf for blowing his houses down, the Wolf explains those are the Pigs' houses and that he is doing what the story says. Bugs then sees what is going on. Arriving at the brick house, Bugs sees the pigs playing cards and gloating about them cheating him into buying their houses. Realizing he was swindled by them intentionally, Bugs directs the Wolf to blow it down. The Wolf says he cannot because the book says so. In his best Brooklynese, Bugs tells him "Book, schnook! Blow da house down!". The pigs laugh as the wolf blows, and then the house suddenly blows ''up''. The Wolf says, "I did it!" The pigs look at him in surprise and ask, "He did it?!" The scene pans to Bugs, who pats a TNT detonator, says "Eh, ''we'' did it!", and laughs smugly as the cartoon irises out.

Additional crew

*Film Edited by: Treg Brown *Uncredited Orchestration by: Milt Franklyn

Home media

''The Windblown Hare'' is available on '' Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3'' DVD.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Windblown Hare 1949 films 1949 short films 1949 animated films 1940s Warner Bros. animated short films Looney Tunes shorts American parody films Fairy tale parody films Films directed by Robert McKimson Animated films about rabbits and hares Films about pigs Animated films about wolves Films based on fairy tales Films based on Little Red Riding Hood Films based on The Three Little Pigs Films scored by Carl Stalling Bugs Bunny films Big Bad Wolf 1940s English-language films