Template:Short description Template:Infobox film Elmer's Candid Camera is a 1940 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon short directed by Chuck Jones.[1] The short was released on March 2, 1940, and features Elmer Fudd and an early Bugs Bunny prototype.[2]
Plot
Elmer is reading a book on how to photograph wildlife. He walks along whistling as he holds the camera. He finds a rabbit and wants to take a picture of him. The rabbit finds himself a convenient victim to harass as Elmer tries to photograph him. Elmer points to where the rabbit was sleeping and tells him that he wants to take a picture of him.
Throughout the rest of the picture, the rabbit continues to bother Elmer as he tries to photograph other animals in the forest. This all comes to ahead when Elmer has had enough of his shenanigans and attempts to catch the rabbit with a net, but is fooled again when the rabbit fakes his suffering. This tormenting eventually drives Elmer insane, causing him to jump into a lake and nearly drown. The rabbit saves him, ensures that Elmer is perfectly all right – and promptly kicks him straight back into the lake. Then, the rabbit throws Elmer's "How To Photograph Wildlife" book on his head, thus ending the cartoon as the screen irises out.
Analysis and Comments by Jones
This is the first appearance of a redesigned Elmer Fudd, a character previously known as "Elmer" on the Lobby cards for The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938) and Cinderella Meets Fella (1938), and even on screen in A Feud There Was (1938) and was also referred to as "Egghead's Brother" on the Vitaphone Publicity sheet for "Cinderella Meets Fella" (1938) which was shown on Michael Barrier's website (and now voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan).[3]
It is also the fourth appearance of the prototype rabbit that would later evolve into Bugs Bunny. Apart from making a fool of Elmer Fudd, the usual characteristics are absent; the voice used by Mel Blanc is a low-pitched generic voice, and his laugh is a precursor to the laugh Blanc used for Woody Woodpecker.
Chuck Jones directed this cartoon in a time when he was going for a more slow and methodical approach in vain to works by Disney and Harman and Ising. He would later go on to disavow this short later in his life. In his autobiography Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist, he stated:
Home media
- VHS – Cartoon Moviestars: Elmer!
- VHS – Looney Tunes Collectors Edition: Wabbit Tales
- Laserdisc – Bugs! and Elmer!
- Laserdisc – Golden Age of Looney Tunes Vol 2
- DVD – Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1
- DVD – Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 1
- DVD – The Essential Bugs Bunny
- Blu-ray – Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2[4]
- Blu-ray – Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection
References
External links
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Template:Chuck Jones Template:Elmer Fudd in animation Template:Bugs Bunny in animation