HARE RIBBIN’ (1944)
Cartoon
Article 4132 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-16-2013
Directed by Robert Clampett
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc and Sam Wolfe
Country: USA
What it is: Bugs Bunny cartoon

Bugs Bunny has to contend with a red Russian poodle who is stalking him.

Since Bugs Bunny is a talking rabbit, he falls under the classification of “fantasy” and is fair game for this series. This isn’t the best of the Bugs Bunny cartoons, but it is pretty typical of the period; Bugs runs into a fairly dim character who is hunting him, and humiliates him through various means. In this one, Bugs dresses up as a mermaid and plays a game of tag with the dog; he also pretends to be a French waiter trying to make him a rabbit sandwich (which leads him to put on an Elmer Fudd accent, who does not appear in the short), and finally, tricks the dog into committing suicide; I think the latter gag is the reason the cartoon also appears on a set of banned cartoons I have. The user comments on IMDB seem mystified by the dog and his Russian accent, but I suspect he’s a parody of Bert Gordon, the Mad Russian, a comic actor of the era; he does use Gordon’s “How do you do!” catchphrase at one point.