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Art et designTranscription
00:00When Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese started on what's known as the Hunter Trilogy, which
00:24is Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck, Rabbit, Duck, where Elmer, Bugs, and Daffy
00:30all appear in the same cartoon.
00:38I think it came for a number of reasons.
00:40First of all, Daffy's character was evolving.
00:43Daffy Duck would be a silly thing being hunted by hunters, and he would go woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo,
00:51splashing across a pond or something.
00:56The transition came that the writers tend to say, well, we can't just have him bouncing
00:59around all the time being crazy.
01:02So they came up with the idea of making Daffy Duck a greedy duck.
01:06There had been some earlier cartoons, like You Were Never Duckier and A Pest in the House,
01:13where Daffy was still obnoxious, you know, and still boisterous, but he was starting
01:19to have a greedy edge.
01:21It's a different Daffy.
01:23This was like the birth of a totally new character.
01:26He's a funny character, but he's not Daffy.
01:29The word Daffy does not literally describe him anymore.
01:31But the 40s cartoons, he's Daffy, that's what he is, he's nuts.
01:36I am a duck bent on self-preservation.
01:40Bugs Bunny then became a straight man.
01:42He was the cool, relaxed guy, nothing fazed him.
01:45In Chuck's hands, he became less like Daffy, and a little more assured, a little more confident,
01:53a little more, I'm the guy who's in control of the situation.
01:56Look, Doc, are you looking for trouble?
02:00I'm not a stewing rabbit.
02:02I'm a flickazian rabbit.
02:05And so, as those two characters were evolving that way with Chuck and Michael's collaboration,
02:11it probably seemed natural to put them together and see what happened.
02:15Survival of the fittest.
02:18And besides, it's fun!
02:21There's just so much potential when you have a fall guy like Daffy,
02:24just Mr. In Control, Bugs,
02:27and Elmer, who's just there stirring the cauldron.
02:30He doesn't seem like the type that would be a hunter.
02:33He's got his gun and he's going after rabbits,
02:36but he isn't sure which is a rabbit and which is a, you know, he gets confused.
02:39Rabbits is nasty. Have any luck?
02:43Well, no, as a matter of fact, I haven't even seen a rabbit yet.
02:47He's thick-witted, yet he is malicious in a lot of ways.
02:50He doesn't really care who he shoots as long as he shoots something.
02:53It's clear that he is malleable enough to be influenced by both Bugs and Daffy,
02:59except Bugs knows how to manipulate him to his advantage,
03:04and Daffy knows that Elmer is stupid enough to be manipulated,
03:08but he says the wrong thing, and I think that's really the dynamic.
03:12I guess I'm the coach.
03:18What?
03:19Well, the hunting concept had been established,
03:22and Chuck and Michael Maltese just took it to this extraordinary level
03:27in the verbal sparring.
03:29You're a dirty dog.
03:32And you are a dirty skunk.
03:35There are so many verbal intricacies in those cartoons.
03:39The classic example is the one in Rabbit Seasoning about pronoun trouble.
03:43Let's run through that again.
03:45Okay.
03:47Would you like to shoot me now or wait till you get home?
03:49Shoot him now. Shoot him now.
03:51You keep on at this. He doesn't have to shoot you now.
03:53Ha! That's it! Hold it right there!
03:56Pronoun trouble.
03:58You didn't expect to hear that phrase in a cartoon, you know?
04:01That's certainly not sort of the dialogue that would go on
04:04in a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon.
04:06The dialogue is just extraordinary, impeccable.
04:10Preston Sturgess or Billy Wilder couldn't have done these better.
04:13Michael Maltese really was at his zenith when he wrote these cartoons.
04:18Chuck Jones was rightly praised as the director.
04:21What people forget, it was a partnership.
04:24A lot of the ideas that Chuck brought to life so skillfully
04:28were Mike Maltese's ideas.
04:30Mike Maltese was an amazingly skilled and diverse writer,
04:33and he was always looking for new influences and new ways to get a joke.
04:37Sometimes it would be a very physical bit of business,
04:40such as in the Roadrunner cartoons.
04:42Other times it would be just brilliant wordplay.
04:44That, sir, is an insignificant fabrication!
04:48The playful banter between them, it was like listening to
04:51a very skilled comedy team trying to one-up each other.
04:55It's like a vaudeville joke where it goes back and forth and back and forth
04:58and then Bugs says, rabbit season!
05:01And he goes, duck season!
05:03And then, this time you'll start it.
05:06Whatever you say.
05:09Rabbit, duck, fire!
05:13And I love it how his bill would go
05:16around his head circularly.
05:21How many times can his bill be blown off his head
05:24and in how many different directions?
05:31For me, it's not a joke that gets old.
05:34When Elmer shoots Daffy and he does this placid take,
05:39it has to be just so long.
05:41If it lingered too long, it wouldn't be funny anymore.
05:45If it went by too fast, it wouldn't seep in
05:50and you wouldn't have the enjoyment of the gag.
05:53Chuck Jones knew that. He knew how to make the most of that.
05:56So it's a wonderful collaboration between writer and director.
06:00When I was laying out the picture and timing it and breaking it down into scenes,
06:04I'd just write the dialogue over the character.
06:07What was he doing at the time? He was saying the lines.
06:09So I'd write that.
06:10Then when I finished the entire picture,
06:12then I would call in a secretary and ask her just to write it down
06:15and say what Bugs was saying.
06:18So the final thing was just a dialogue script, really.
06:21Mel never saw the pictures or any other actor ever saw the pictures
06:25until about an hour before we recorded them.
06:28We'd call them over and then I'd take my drawings
06:30and go through the entire picture.
06:32I'd do Bugs Bunny and he'd do Daffy Duck.
06:35Then I'd do Daffy Duck and he'd do Bugs Bunny.
06:38I laugh at those cartoons and they're brilliantly animated.
06:41There's some acting in those cartoons that just floors me.
06:44He does so have to shoot me now.
06:46I command that you shoot me now.
06:50But those wordplay things that go back and forth,
06:53no way would Daffy Duck fall for that.
06:56All Bugs does in those cartoons is go like this.
07:00And that's it. That dooms Daffy Duck.
07:03Daffy Duck loses every time Bugs Bunny makes a wry expression.
07:10You buy it because you've already seen a million Bugs Bunny cartoons.
07:14You've seen the 40s Bugs Bunny cartoons
07:16where they firmly established his character
07:18would generally win.
07:20The time they made those, there was no thought of a trilogy.
07:24It just happened that Mike Maltese came up with a funny gag
07:28with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and it was successful.
07:32And then maybe another cartoon later,
07:34Mike Maltese resurrected it and said,
07:36hey, why don't we go back and do something similar?
07:40And so they did that maybe two or three times.
07:43Maybe they had a lot of gags left over from one
07:45and they said, gee, let's do another one
07:47and use those gags in the other one.
07:49It just made a good conflict.
07:51It just made a good story point and made good avenue for gags.
07:57There was a lot of mileage to be gained
08:00from the characters not being crazy all the time.
08:03And I think that's one reason that these particular ideas
08:06of their personalities stuck.
08:08So you have cartoons like Fritz Freeling's showbiz Bugs
08:12or A Star is Bored.
08:14Where Daffy basically wants to be the star and Bugs is.
08:18Boy, listen to that! They love me!
08:29They used it on the Bugs Bunny TV show.
08:31They used it as a framework for several shows
08:34and got a lot of mileage out of it because it worked.
08:37It was just a great device.
08:39There is a moment in, I think, all three of cartoons
08:42where there's a little temporary truce between them
08:44where they're hiding out from Elmer
08:46or they team up to pull a gag on him or something.
08:51It's fun seeing them team up,
08:53but the truce is invariably shattered
08:55when it looks like they're both going to get it
08:57in which Daffy will immediately turn on Bugs.
08:59That's what comedy is.
09:01It's the misfortune, maybe, of characters
09:05who are out to get each other.
09:08I guess it was Vaudeville that started all of that
09:11so it carries on today.
09:17You're despicable!