Release Date:

December 12, 1953

Main Character(s):

Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd

Summary:

Fed up with Bugs Bunny raiding his carrots, farmer Elmer Fudd buys a robot to get rid of him, only for the robot to prove no better than Elmer at catching Bugs.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1281 and was released as a Looney Tune.

The cartoon features a robotic-sounding rendition of “What’s Up Doc” over the opening credits.

The title card features a robot rabbit eating a metal carrot, but the robot in this cartoon is a normal-looking one.

Bugs reuses a brief snippet of his “Carrots Are Divine” song (sung to the tune of “It’s Magic”) from “Rabbit Every Monday”. The gag of Bugs’ hole being emptied out in a sieve is also reused from that cartoon.

The cartoon was originally planned to be on the Looney Tunes Super Stars Bugs Bunny Hare Extraordinaire DVD set in 2010, before being reconsidered. It was later restored for HBO Max in 2020, with this same restored print being made available on the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection Blu-ray set later that year.

This is the last cartoon to use the original Bugs Bunny headshot. Due to the rings becoming smaller in 1954, a new Bugs headshot would be made.

The cartoon uses the 1954 orange rings with the blue background.

When Bugs realizes, “I can see this cigarette machine is gonna cause me no end of trouble!”, his mouth doesn’t move, implying the line was likely added into the script after the scene was animated.

Freleng would use a similar-looking robot in 1964’s “Nuts and Volts”, which uses a similar plot of Sylvester using automation to try and catch Speedy.

“Huckleberry Duck” plays during the scene where the robot starts working up to the point where it shoots a long-eared mule, the scene where Bugs gets the robot to move directly under the water from the rotating sprinkler so it rusts, and when Bugs creates his female robot disguise.

Favorite Scene:

The first thing the robot does once started up is go up to a long-eared mule, assume this is a rabbit, and shoot him. The mule is utterly confused at this (“What’d I do? What’d I do?”). Elmer then demonstrates what a rabbit is supposed to look like by putting leaves on his hat to resemble ears and then hopping around on all fours, only for the robot to shoot him as well.

The “rabbit kicked the bucket” scene is also hilarious.

What Happens in This One:

Elmer is walking with a hoe while singing, “In a Little Red Barn On a Farm Down in Indiana” when he is soon joined by Bugs. Elmer stops singing upon realizing this, leaving Bugs to sing solo before he ducks back down into his hole upon noticing Elmer. Realizing Bugs has been stealing his carrots again, Elmer rages, “Oooooooh! That wascal wabbit is in my cawwots again!”, before going back into his house to change into his hunting clothes and get his rifle (animated by Virgil Ross).

Elmer stops at Bugs’ hole with his rifle and vows, “I’ll fix that wabbit for good this time!” He calls down the hole, “Yoo-hoo! Mr. Wabbit! I got something for you!” Bugs appears out of another hole and walks up to Elmer from behind. Playing along, Bugs asks, “For me? Well, let me have it!” Elmer complies, “I’ll wet ya have it! Here it is!” and shoots into the hole. Bugs goes into a faux-dramatic death act that ends with him saying, “I’m gonna kick the bucket!” before literally doing so. Elmer cheers, “Hooway! The wabbit kicked the bucket!” and then obliviously joins Bugs in a celebratory dance where they both sing, “The rabbit kicked the bucket!” over and over again. By the time Elmer gets wise and stops singing, Bugs continues it briefly, “The rabbit kicked the bucket! The bucket! The bucket kick-! The rabbit kicked the rabbit! The bucket kicked the rabbit!” Bugs then switches to an elegant voice while shaking Elmer’s hand, “Thank you so very much for the dance! You dance divinely!” He gives Elmer a wacky kiss and exclaims, “And away we go!” in his normal voice before diving back down into his hole (animated by Ross, with Manuel Perez animating the shot of Bugs coming out from the other hole)

Again raging, “Oooooooh!”, Elmer has had enough, “That wabbit twicked me again! This is the wast stwaw, wabbit!” (animated by Ross) He runs back into his house and gets on the phone. “Hewwo? ACME Pest Contwol? Well, I’ve got a pest I want contwolled. What’s that? A wobot pest contwoller with an ewectwonic bwain? Well, send one wight over!” Elmer then hangs up while looking to his left with an evil smile (animated by Arthur Davis)

Having received his robot, Elmer reads the instructions and finds that he must insert an illustration of the pest he wants controlled into “slot marked B”. He finds the one he’s looking for in the illustrations provided in the box, “a wong-eared wabbit” and after inserting this illustration into the slot, turns the robot on, and is delighted that “it works!” Elmer tells the robot, “Go get that wong-eared wascal, Mr. Wobot!” The robot goes out but instead goes up to a long-eared mule in the barn. He takes out the illustration of the rabbit and looks at it before replacing his hand with a gun and shooting the mule. Now missing the hair on his head, the mule has no idea what he did to deserve that, “What’d I do? What’d I do?” (animated by Davis)

Elmer runs up to the robot to correct him, “No, no, no, you stupid wobot! A wabbit has wong ears wike this. And he hops awound on all four’s wike this”. He puts leaves on both ends of his hat to resemble ears and then proceeds to hop around like a rabbit, only to get shot by the robot. After the shot, a darkened Elmer briefly continues hopping around with a hilarious dazed expression. Elmer gets up and angrily tells him off, “You idiot! I’m not a wabbit!” Upon hearing Bugs again sing, “In a Little Red Barn On a Farm Down in Indiana”, Elmer points him in the right direction, “There he goes, Wobot!” (animated by Davis)

The robot rolls up to a carefree Bugs, who’s still singing, and purposefully bumps into him. Bugs becomes incensed at this and tells the robot off, “Watch where you’re going, ya hot water heater!”, only for the robot to give him another roll-bump. “Why, you fugitive from a Stanley Steamer! I’ve got a notion to take you apart with a screwdriver!” The robot replaces his hand with a mechanical boxing glove that he initially fails to punch Bugs with. Irritated that the robot tried to punch him, Bugs begins to put up his dukes, “Why, you big nincom-”, only for the robot to then punch him (animated by Ken Champin). “-poop”, Bugs finishes slightly dazed. Bugs dives into his hole but the robot digs it up by replacing his other hand with a claw-like device and then pouring it out in a sieve (animated by Perez).

Bugs runs off and realizes, “I can see this cigarette machine is gonna cause me no end of trouble!” The robot follows Bugs to a rotating sprinkler spraying water as it rotates. Bugs gets the robot to directly stand under the spraying water, so that it ends up rusting and then stopping altogether. Elmer comes out of the house and is irritated at seeing the robot rusty. “Ooh, that darn old wabbit!” He has the robot’s rust disappear by squirting it all over with oil before threatening, “Now get that wabbit or I’ll sell you for old scwap iron!” (animated by Perez)

The robot looks all around the exterior of a shed for Bugs, unaware that Bugs is actually inside the shed painting a female face on a bucket. The robot then sees Bugs disguised as a female robot- using the bucket he painted for the head and a pot-bellied stove for the body- and calling to him in a feminine voice, “Yoo-hoo! Mr. Robot!”, causing him to make robotic noises of excitement. The robot gives Bugs a candy box of “Assorted Nuts”, which are all nuts and bolts. “Ooh, for me? Oh, thank you!”, Bugs asks before the robot picks him up in his arms. Bugs chuckles, “Oh, my. Now stop it. You’re too fast. We’ve only just met” and opens the oblivious robot’s back compartment to throw a wrench in there, causing the robot to move around jerkily several times before its lower cylinder falls off its mechanical body. The upper cylinder’s base, suspended by springs, also falls off in the manner of fallen pants, much to the robot’s embarrassment (animated by Champin).

Bugs, in his normal voice and lying in a carrot field, sings, “Oh, carrots are divine. You get a dozen for a dime. It’s magic” before seeing the robot put himself back together. Realizing, “Uh oh. Here comes Old Tin Pants again”, Bugs runs to a nearby construction site, “ACME Construction Co.” with the robot chasing him. Bugs has the robot chase him back and forth across a platform where a pile driver at work is in the same path, although the robot always manages to avoid getting crushed by said pile driver (animated by Perez). The last scene fades to Elmer in his house pacing back and forth and wondering aloud, “I wonder how my wobot is making out”. Bugs opens the door while holding a bucket and asks, “Does this answer your question?” before dumping out a collection of nuts and bolts and disassembled metal, revealing that the robot DID eventually get crushed by the pile driver, much to Elmer’s shock. Bugs walks away and says to himself, “You know, someday these scientists are gonna invent something that will outsmart a rabbit” (animated by Champin).

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕