Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too! is a 1969 Looney Tunes short planned by Alex Lovy and finished by Robert McKimson.
Plot[]
Quick Brown Fox sits alone in his cave looking up recipes in an old cooking book and finds a page on rabbit stew: "~How to make a rabbit stew. First you catch a rabbit..!"
And so Quick Brown leaves to capture a bunny for supper, when he encounters Rapid Rabbit, and tries his hardest to catch with several fiendish plots.
- He tries to hang him with a rope, which backfires when Rapid ties the rope around his tail.
- He attempts to get him using a old rabbit trap, a carrot underneath a box held up by a stick. Rapid seems to fall for it, however he hugs the walls of the box when Quick Brown lifts it, making it seem as if he had disappeared. Rapid runs back to his hole, and when Quick Brown arrives, Rapid uses a stick of dynamite with two rabbit ears to blow up Quick Brown's face.
- Quick Brown tries to shoot Rapid with a large cannon, but the weight of the cannon tips over to face Quick Brown before firing, Quick Brown tries to out run it but stops a bit too early thinking he got away, only to get hit by the cannon ball and sent flying into trees.
- Quick Brown tries setting up a contraption meant to whack anybody who touches a nearby carrot with a large hammer. Rapid once again falls for this trick, yet no matter how hard he tugs on the carrot he can't get it loose, and strangely the machine doesn't do anything, Quick Brown is annoyed to see Rapid not being able to something so simple, so he smacks the hare away and tries to take it himself, which results in the device finally operating, and clobbering the fox on the head.
- Quick Brown decides to use a more simple strategy by dropping a boulder off a cliff onto a napping Rapid, but when he drops it, it lands on a branch, which bounces it back up and onto Quick Brown. He tries it again but doesn't pay attention to how he's dropping it, causing it to fall on his head. Rapid lifts up the rock, and Quick Brown sighs in relief, only for him to drop the rock back down onto Quick Brown's head.
- Quick Brown tries once more to get that rabbit, this time by setting up a door with rocks on top, that will crush any one who opens it, Rapid walks through the door but only opens it half way, keeping the rocks from coming down, this angers Quick Brown who unthinkingly slams the door closed, leaving nothing to keep the rocks from falling on him. The door itself falls on the poor fox afterwards.
- Quick Brown goes back to the cannon, this time setting it up below a stool along with a sign reading "Free trip to the moon, please be seated". As he sits on it admiring his sign, Rapid tricks Quick Brown into lighting the cannon fuse by making it look like he needs a light for his "cigarette"; the ensuing blast sends Quick Brown flying into the air, and back down too.
- Pacing around thinking of more ideas, Quick Brown watches Rapid run down the road, which gives him a new plan. Quick Brown sets up a wall of glass for Rapid to crash into. However, when a oncoming car is about to hit him after he sets it all up, Quick Brown is the one who slams into the glass, is stuck to the front of the car, and is filled with gasoline at a service station.
- Quick Brown creates a complicated Rube Goldberg machine to lure in Rapid with a carrot, beat him, cook him, and slam him onto a plate resting atop a dinner table, however, as he gets everything ready, Rapid sneaks up behind him and startles him using his horn, resulting in Quick Brown going through the machine, being beaten, burnt, and slammed onto the table smashing it, before finally Rapid takes the tablecloth, ties it to a balloon, and waves goodbye as Quick Brown floats away.
Rapid honks his horn and enjoys the carrot which had been set up to lure him.
Availability[]
Streaming[]
HBO Max (2020 - 2022) (restored)
Notes[]
- When shown on television anthology programs like The Merrie Melodies Show, the title was changed to Rabbit Stew and Rabbits, Too.
- This is the only short to feature Rapid Rabbit and Quick Brown Fox.
- They were originally intended to have a series of shorts made after this, but due to the closure of the studio in 1969, this never came to be. A pitch reveals that Quick Brown was originally intended to indeed be colored brown, while Rapid Rabbit's original name was Jack Rabbit and was colored gray.[1] The original pitch also shows the "free trip to the moon" gag that would be used in the final cartoon. As the original pitch was done while Alex Lovy was the director for the cartoon studio, most modifications for the final cartoon were done by Robert McKimson, hence the cartoon was likely planned by Lovy and finished by McKimson.
- This cartoon is therefore the last one-shot Warner Bros. cartoon in the Golden Age of American Animation.
- Rapid's high speed is similar to the Road Runner's speed. Also similar to the Road Runner is the way Rapid goes "Beep Beep" by honking his horn, as well as jumping up and twitching his feet. Quick Brown's setups and traps are similar to those of Wile E. Coyote. However, Rapid Rabbit can harm Quick Brown in this cartoon without beeping.
- A remastered but unrestored copy of the short was shown on Boomerang in the UK; it has not been released on DVD, nor has it aired in the US. A proper restoration was done in 2020 for the HBO Max streaming service and later aired on MeTV.
- Quick Brown is not actually brown, but red. He was likely named after the phase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", which contains every letter of the alphabet.
- There is no voice actor credited, but Quick Brown Fox audibly gasps when he thinks his rabbit trap failed and sighs in relief right before he is smashed by the boulder. These may have been archived stock sounds from Warner's sound effects library.
- In the title card for The Merrie Melodies Show, Quick Brown Fox's hands and feet's colors are similar to his orange fur's in contrast to the actual cartoon, whereas his hands were white and feet were black.
- The sound effects used to introduce Rabbit Rabbit and the Quick Brown Fox uses trimmed versions of the a portion from the credits of "Now Hear This".
Gallery[]
TV Title Cards[]
References[]