"Banned" Bugs Bunny 1: "Herr Meets Hare"

Like many people, I grew up watching Looney Toons. Saturday mornings were spent in front of the TV as Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, and Bugs Bunny did their shtick. While I noticed the differences between the earlier cartoons from the 1940s and 50s and those of a more recent vintage, I didn't know then that several of the cartoons were out of circulation. At the time, there were 11 Bugs Bunny episodes which had been resigned to the vaults. Uncle Cecil tells the story:

The reason for this dates back to 1968 when most Warner shorts were owned by United Artists, which created the "Censored 11" list of shorts it refused to air or, later, put on videotape or laserdisc. For the most part these shorts dealt in insulting racial stereotypes, mostly directed against blacks. The list includes:

"Hittin' the Trail to Hallelujah Land" (1931)
"Sunday Go to Meetin' Time" (1936)
"Clean Pastures" (1937)
"Uncle Tom's Bungalow" (1937)
"Jungle Jitters" (1938)
"The Isle Of Pingo Pongo" (1938)
"All This and Rabbit Stew" (1941)
"Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs" (1943)
"Tin Pan Alley Cats" (1943)
"Angel Puss" (1944)
"Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears" (1944)

And more would be added to the list:

In 2001 the people at Cartoon Network announced a "June Bugs" marathon in which they stated that every single Bugs Bunny short would be shown. They were wrong--they were asked to remove some shorts by Warner Bros. (AOL Time Warner is Cartoon Network's parent company.) The list of shorts you may never see again has been augmented by another 11 that the current owners refuse to show. They are:

"Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt" (1941)
"All This & Rabbit Stew" (1941)
"Any Bonds Today" (1942)
"What's Cookin' Doc" (1944)
"Herr Meets Hare" (1945)
"A Feather in his Hare" (1948)
"Mississippi Hare" (1949)
"Frigid Hare" (1949)
"Which is Witch?" (1949)
"Bushy Hare" (1950)
"Horse Hare" (1960)

These cartoons are often referred to as being the "banned" Bugs Bunny episodes but that's not strictly true. It is the owners of the cartoons that have voluntarily taken them out of circulation and not some government fiat. Still, these shorts, to the best of my knowledge, have never been released on DVD, laserdisc, or videotape and most are not broadcast on television, at least not American TV. (It seems like some of the less-offensive shorts, i.e. – those that don't traffic in racial stereotypes, do get an occasional airing.) I don't know anything about the creators of Looney Toons to say whether or not they were racists. While Tex Avery and Friz Freling may not have been card-carrying members of the KKK, their cartoons are, at the very least, products of their time. Jim Crow was still part of the fabric of American life at the time. In addition to the horrid stereotypes of black Americans, some of these cartoons also trade in offensive stereotypes of other racial groups such as the Eskimo and aboriginal Australians, for example. While I can understand their removal from general broadcast and being excluded from the ongoing issuance of Looney Toons on DVD, I do wish they'd be collected and released as cultural artefacts instead of just being swept under the carpet.

I've been trying to collect these "banned" Bugs Bunny shorts for the past couple months. Many of these cartoons were made during World War II and so there are offensive portrayals of Japanese people as well as fun being poked at the Nazis. And it is the latter that I want to look at today.

"Herr Meets Hare" was released on 13 January 1945, according to my sources. It opens with a shot of a radio antenna and a Walter Winchell-like voice pondering the fate of Germany at this late stage of the war and, in particular, that of Hermann Göring, commander of the German Luftwaffe and second in command of the Third Reich behind only Hitler himself. We then cut to the Black Forest and find that Göring is out hunting clad in his best lederhosen.



Bugs is furrowing beneath the ground and pops up to find himself not at his Las Vegas destination. (Another wrong turn at Albuquerque.) He is confronted by Göring and the usual chase ensues. In attempt to elude the hunter, Bugs does his best Hitler imitation.



He also dresses up as the heroine of a Wagnerian opera at one point which is quite humorous and also foreshadows the classic "What's Opera Doc?" episode which was 12 years down the line. Eventually Bugs is captured and Göring brings him to Hitler.



Hitler promises him rewards but, upon looking into the sack, he is scared scheisseless. Both he and Göring flee as Bugs Bunny emerges from the sack looking like Josef Stalin.

I'm not completely certain why this episode was "banned". Presumably this is because Göring and Hitler are not portrayed in the only way that is acceptable today – as monsters. (Remember some of the criticism which befell Der Untergang (Downfall) for daring to portray Hitler and the Nazi brass as (gasp!) people instead of mere icons of hate.) It is odd to me that this episode is almost verboten while South Park gets away with much worse stuff on a weekly basis. It is also interesting to note that the bits I've read about this short always refer to the presence of Nazis as the motivation for it being consigned to the vaults. But it is also considered to be one of the less offensive of the "banned" films and seems to get an occasional airing when there's a Looney Toons retrospective that places it in context. This despite the ethnic stereotyping. Ethnic caricatures of whites are more acceptable than those of non-whites in today's ethos, I guess.

"Herr Meets Hare" is quite funny. The scene where Bugs does Brunnhilde is great. (There's just something inherently humorous about Bugs in drag.) Plus his mangled German is good for a few laughs. When he dresses down Göring, you catch "sauerkraut" and "apple" in there. Plus Göring refers to Bugs as "Bugsenheimer Bunny" when presenting the sack to Hitler. You can watch "Herr Meets Hare" below.