Pre-Hysterical Hare (Looney Tunes)
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| Pre-Hysterical Hare (episode 829) | ||||||||||||
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 There's nothing pre-hysterical about this short.
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Pre-Hysterical Hare is a Looney Tunes short released in 1958 directed by Robert McKimson.
Plot
In this short, Bugs Bunny shows a film about a caveman Elmer Fudd attempting to hunt a primitive saber-toothed rabbit.
Why It’s Not Pre-Hysterical
- Due to a musicians' strike, this was one of the few shorts that use stock music from Capitol Records rather than music by Carl W. Stalling or Milt Franklyn. The Capitol music isn't as good as Stalling or Franklyn's music, and can rival those of William Lava's music from late 1962 to 1969.
- It's made worse by poor choices of music, as other cartoons from the musicians' strike period (including Foghorn Leghorn's short, "Weasel While You Work", the Tweety and Sylvester short, "A Bird in a Bonnet", the Goofy Gophers short, "Gopher Broke", and especially the two Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons "Hook, Line and Stinker" and "Hip Hip- Hurry!") still worked reasonably well with the Capitol music due to better music choices. Here, they seem to have chosen the weakest, blandest, and most forgettable tracks in Capitol's entire library, and a lot of the music choices are ill-fitting.
- The short reuses animation from "Caveman Inki" in one scene, which doesn't blend in well with the rest of the original animation.
- Bugs and Elmer's prehistoric designs look very ugly and unappealing.
- Unfunny gags written by Tedd Pierce.
- Some of the gags are reused, most notably the one where Bugs had the gun on the wrong end, which was in "Hillbilly Hare".
- It goes at at a very slow and lazy pace, which completely kills the comedic timing.
- Elmer's voice sounds very rough and mediocre (even when comparing to Hal Smith's voice on Elmer in 1960-1961 and Mel Blanc's voice on Elmer in the 1970s-1980s), due to Arthur Q. Bryan not being able to voice him due to illness at the time. Fudd is voiced by Dave Barry in this cartoon instead.
- Dave Barry, despite having done decent celebrity voice impersonations in previous Looney Tunes cartoons in the 1930s and 1940s such as "Slick Hare" and "Catch as Cats Can" for example, actually does a poor job voicing Elmer Fudd, lacking the genuine charm that Bryan brings to the character.
- It has the same concept as an earlier Looney Tunes cartoon "Prehistoric Porky", but was poorly executed and has weaker jokes unlike "Prehistoric Porky", which had much funnier jokes and was more fast-paced and charming.
Redeeming Qualities
- Decent animation for its time.
- A few moments are worth a laugh or two, like the scene in which Bugs imitates Elmer's laugh at the end after Elmer gets blasted in the face by his own gun.
- Mel Blanc does an amazing job at doing the rest of the voice work, as always.
- The whole concept of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in prehistoric times to figure them out as ancestors seemed like a promising concept, but was ruined by the weak gags, slow pacing, cheap soundtrack, and poor voice acting for Elmer Fudd.
Reception
- "Pre-Hysterical Hare" was popular when it was first released. It has since become widely considered as one of the worst Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd shorts.
Trivia
- The prehistoric setting was later used for the PlayStation 1999 game Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time.
- Carl Stalling was originally intended to permanently be replaced by John Seely (who composed most of the stock music), but due to complaints from Robert McKimson, the strike came to a close and Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn were given a new contract. Seely's music wouldn't be seen in the Looney Tunes franchise outside of clip shows until Tiny Toon Adventures, which recycles some of the older music.
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