The Story: "Madness!"
Yeah, I was going to do another "baseball" themed scene, but I'll save that one for next year...like I wait for my team to win the Pennant. So, I needed something quick and related and soon.
Then, it struck me like Al Capone's bat from last week's "Don't Make a Scene..." Go to Chuck Jones! He's always reliable. So he is, and while I was pulling screen-caps it cemented the deal. This one is violent like last week's, and it pulls in the weirdness I've been feeling that baseball season is starting two weeks after it snowed here. It just ain't natural.
It's madness. Just like denying that it's happening.
The Set-Up: It's Daffy Duck's annual denial of the coming of Duck Hunting Season by deflecting onto the personage of Bugs Bunny. And so he employs the "fake news" of "Rabbit Season" on the most gullible of people, irresponsible gun owner and future NRA president, Elmer Fudd. It does not go well. This is the cartoons, not reality.
Ac-thion!
(a change in lighting indicates ‘later’)
Daffy: Now, you’ve got it straight? You’re not going to pay no more attention to no more signs!
Daffy: You’re just gonna listen to me. Right?
Elmer: Wight!
Elsewhere…
Bugs comes out of his hole with a swimming cap and a fake duck beak. He hides his ears with the swimming cap and ties on the duck beak.
Bugs, wriggling his eyebrows: Quack, quack.
Daffy spies what Bugs is up to from behind a rock.
Daffy: Ho-ho – That's his little game, is it?
Daffy runs out from behind the rock. Elmer follows him.
Daffy, jumping up and down: Shoot the duck! Shoot the duck!
Elmer shoots Daffy. (Honestly I don’t know why this surprises Daffy)
When the smoke clears, Daffy’s beak is mis-arranged around his head in yet another position, and Daffy’s expression shows he’s had a really long hard day…
He snaps his beak back into position.
Daffy, to Elmer: Shoot me again, I enjoy it –
Daffy: I love the smell of burnt feathers. And gun powder.
Daffy: And cordite.
Daffy puts his hands above his head to simulate antlers
Daffy: I’m an elk – shoot me! Go on! Its elk season!
Daffy gets down on the ground
Daffy: I’m a fiddler crab. Why don’t you shoot me?
Daffy: Its Fiddler Crab season!
Bugs pops out of his hole in a Game Warden uniform (you can tell, because he has ‘Game Warden’ written on his hat)
Bugs walks over towards Elmer while Daffy walks away. The camera follows Daffy.
Daffy, soliloquy : Where did I go wrong?
Daffy: Where did I take the wrong turning?
Bugs has reached Elmer. Elmer looks very confused and upset.
Elmer: Oh, Mr Game Warden! I hope you can help me. I’ve been told I can shoot rabbits and goats and pigeons and mongooses and dirty skunks and ducks.
Elmer: Could you tell me what season it weally (really) is?
Bugs: Why certainly, my boy!
Bugs holds up a baseball
Bugs: Its baseball season!
Its too much for Elmer, he’s gone mad.
He laughs hysterically.
Bugs: Here, boy! Here boy! Go get it! Go get it!
Bugs throws the baseball and Elmer chases it and shoots at it.
Duck! Rabbit, Duck!
Words by Michael Maltese
Pictures by Charles M. Jones and the workers of Termite Terrace (IATSE Local 839)
Duck! Rabbit, Duck! is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video.
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