Le Contrat

Elmer Fudd is the doing the normal thing for him: hunting for Bugs Bunny in the woods. Bugs cleverly uses a log and a cliff to repeat the same joke three times, but it's always funny. Finally, Elmer has had it. He tired of always losing "in these cartoons." He takes his Warner Brothers contract and rips it up!

"From now on, its nothing but fishing for me, and no more wabbits," announces Elmer to a stunned Bugs, who pleads with him to change his mind. "Doc, you can't do this to me. Look at all we've been through. We're like Rabbit & Costello," he says. (That's one of the things I love about these cartoons - great, inventive dialog.)

While Elmer's peacefully dreaming, Bugs invades his dream! This is one of the wildest, funniest Bug Bunny cartoons I have ever seen - just brilliant material.

'The Big Snooze (1946),' a Looney Tunes short directed by Robert Clampett, is basically seven minutes of cultural references: the title is derived from Howard Hawks' classic Bogart-Bacall film-noir, 'The Big Sleep (1946),' and there are throwaway mentions of Bette Davis, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Damon Runyon and Mr. Jack L. Warner himself. The film's premise, in some eerie twist of Einstein's space-time continuum, even appears to reference Freddy Krueger and 'A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984),' though greater minds than mine could undoubtedly arrive at a more sensible conclusion. The opening sequence was recycled from the 1941 Bugs Bunny cartoon, 'All This and Rabbit Stew (1941),' with Elmer Fudd substituted for the black hunter from that film. 'The Big Snooze' wanders quite aimlessly through its scenario, but the idea itself is clever enough to last the total running time. As usual, Mel Blanc voiced the wabbit, but Arthur Q. Bryan (uncredited) is responsible the characterisation of Fudd.

In a shrewdly self-referential twist on the usual formula, Elmer, after being outsmarted by the mischievous Bugs for the last time, angrily tears up his Warner Bros. contract and decides to spend the rest of his days fishing. Fearing for his own career, Bugs attempts to frighten Elmer back into acting, and does so by entering into his dreams and systematically turning them into a string of terrifying nightmares, plagued by horrific armies of annoying "wabbits." With the realisation that retirement isn't quite as peaceful as he'd anticipated, Elmer promptly returns to the film set and accepts that it is simply his duty to be consistently suckered by a rascally rabbit. Just as the classic 'Duck Amuck (1954)' derived humour from its self-referential nature, Clampett's film {ironically enough, the last that he made for Warner Bros.} has some fun with the conjecture that Elmer Fudd is a contracted actor on the studio's payroll. The dream sequence is colourful, chaotic and suitably threatening, and Bugs appears to get a lot of enjoyment from tormenting the hapless little hunter.

I don't know any of the details surrounding Bob Clampett's departure from Warner Bros., but in this, his last cartoon for them, was one of the weirdest from a long list of strange entries from him. I don't think he got along well with the new studio imposed producer, Edward Selzer. Leon Schlesinger, the previous one, and the creator of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, let him have all the freedom he needed with zany, wild cartoons as the result. Some, like "Porky in Wackyland" and "The Daffy Doc" are considered by many cartoon historians to be important for the bold liberties he took with art and the use of space. He did things that had never been done before, but Warner Bros. bought out Schlesinger for $1,000,000 and Clampett's star never quite shone as brightly as it did in those heady days.

At the beginning of this cartoon, then, it is significant that we see that Elmer Fudd is becoming disenchanted with his cartoon contract with "Mr. Warner" and tears it up in frustration after once again being the fall guy for Bugs Bunny. What follows is a surreal sequence after Elmer falls asleep. Bugs uses "nightmare paint" to make him dream so Bugs can manipulate him in his slumber to save both of their careers. We have the usual assortment of corny Clampett gags mixed in with some stunning scenes that must have had everyone back in 1946 scratching their heads a little, wondering if Clampett had finally lost his mind. The price that innovative people sometimes have to pay is that not everyone will get it, and I don't think Selzer was anywhere near "getting it", so Clampett got the door.

If you thought that Bob Clampett had gone as far out of normalcy as possible with "Porky in Wackyland" and "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery", then check out "The Big Snooze". When Elmer Fudd - tired of always Bugs Bunny always embarrassing him - tears up his Warner Bros. contract, Bugs does something that I wouldn't even imagine him (of all people) doing: he invades Elmer's dreams, creating one of the most surreal sequences that I've ever witnessed. Who would have ever guessed that Bugs Bunny was Freddy Krueger's forebear?!

Above all, it's a good thing that I first saw this cartoon now, when I'm old enough to fully understand what it portrays (not to mention that I know who Bette Davis was). Had I watched this when I was six or somewhere thereabouts, I would have naively laughed at it without realizing what the gist was; or it might have scared me. As Looney Tunes screenwriter Michael Maltese said in an interview: "We wrote cartoons for grownups, that was the secret."

But overall, this is a really cool cartoon. Bob Clampett, during the approximately one decade that he worked with the Termite Terrace crowd, created a body of work beyond what I could have ever conceived of. I recommend it.

As usual, Elmer Fudd is hunting Bugs Bunny. Bugs puts another one over him. He has had enough and quits on the spot. He rips up his WB contract and goes fishing. Bugs finds him napping while fishing. It is a trip into his dreamland and Bugs turns it into a nightmare.

I like the turn and going meta. I am less convinced of the dreamland sequence. I can think of many ideas for dreams including Elmer Fudd turning into a rabbit being chased by Bugs Bunny dressed as a hunter. Most of all, I don't buy the ending. If he gets hounded by Bugs in his nightmare, he would never go back to his job. This is adventurous although I have questions.