Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt is a 1941 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. Mel Blanc voiced all characters. This film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (cartoons), but lost to Walt Disney's Lend a Paw (a plot point which would figure into What's Cookin' Doc?). This was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short makes several direct references to The Song of Hiawatha, an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Plot Bugs is reading The Song of Hiawatha out loud to himself and the saga turns real as a pint-sized, Elmer Fudd-like Hiawatha (minus the speech impediment) turns up, paddling his canoe. Hiawatha is looking for a rabbit for his dinner. Hiawatha manages to trick Bugs into thinking he is preparing a hot bath for him. It is actually a cooking pot, which Bugs quickly vacates once Hiawatha casually mentions that he is having rabbit stew for supper.
Reception The Film Daily called the short a "very funny cartoon", saying, "the result is a howl from start to finish. The serious-minded Indian's efforts to catch the screwball rabbit for stewing purposes makes a lively and comical race. Bugs Bunny gets better and funnier with every screen appearance."
Home media VHS - Bugs Bunny Cartoon Festival Featuring "Little Red Riding Rabbit" LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 2, Side 2 DVD - Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection DVD - The Maltese Falcon 3-Disc Special Edition Blu-ray - Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3
Notes Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt was one of the 12 Bugs Bunny cartoons that were pulled out of Cartoon Network's June Bugs 2001 marathon by order of AOL Time Warner due to having a negative caricature of a Native American.
A well known gag is used in Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt, the "sucker" lollipop gag. It is an example of "metaphoric metamorphosis" where a character transforms into a literal visual pun. Earlier "one off" cartoons used the gag as well, like the 1940 Tex Avery Merrie Melodies short The Early Worm Gets the Bird. It was also used in the 1939 Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton Merrie Melodies short Gold Rush Daze, where the visual pun is applied from an outside perspective when a shady grifter/con artist looks at an easily duped character and his eyes literally register or transform to see them as a total "sucker" lollipop. However, Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt is the first time the gag is used in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, or in a cartoon with any character of note at all. The gag would go on to become a staple of Golden Age animation and appear in further cartoons like the Chuck Jones Looney Tunes short Tom Turk and Daffy (1944) and the Looney Tunes cartoon The Big Snooze (1946) among others.
References
External links
Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt on the Internet Archive