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What's Cookin' Doc? is a 1944 Merrie Melodies short directed by Robert Clampett.

Title[]

The title is a variant of Bugs' catchphrase, "What's up, Doc?" It also hints at one of the scenes in the picture.

Plot[]

At the Academy Awards presentation, color film footage of various Hollywood scenes (edited from A Star Is Born) lead up to the Big Question of the evening: Who will win "the" Oscar? The film shows the stereotypical red carpet arrivals of stars, as well as a human emcee starting to introduce the Oscar show.

With the shadow of a now-animated emcee continuing to introduce the Oscar, Bugs assures the the viewer that "it's in da bag; I'm a cinch to win." Bugs is stunned when the award goes instead to James Cagney (who had actually won in the previous year's ceremony for Warner Bros.' Yankee Doodle Dandy). Shock turns to anger as Bugs declares the results to be "sa-bo-TAH-gee" and demands a recount, this time relying on the audience's feedback on whether Bugs deserves the Oscar or not.

Bugs then tries to make his case by showing clips from "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt", which includes a clip of Hiawatha attempting to "cook" the rabbit as proof of his allegedly superior acting (an inside joke, as the cartoon had actually been nominated for an Oscar and lost). He hurls a set of film cans off-screen and tells someone named "Smokey" to "roll 'em!" Bugs tells the audience that these are some of his "best scenes." Immediately, a "stag reel" with a title card literally depicting a grinning stag starts to roll, and the startled Bugs quickly stops it and switches to the right film.

After the film is shown, Bugs beats a bass drum and parades across the stage with signs such as "Let Bugs Have It" and "Give It To Bugs," and then quickly passes out cigars en masse to the audience. Finally, he pleads with the audience, "What do you say, folks? Do I get it? Or do I get it?" (echoing Fredric March's drunken appeal to the Academy Award banquet audience in A Star Is Born). The emcee asks the audience (in an effected nasal voice), "Shall we give it to him, folks?" and they yell, "Yeh, let's give it to him!" whereupon they shower Bugs with fruits and vegetables, enabling him to briefly do a Carmen Miranda impression, and an ersatz Oscar labeled "booby prize," which is actually a gold-plated rabbit statue. Bugs, pleased at winning it, remarks, "I'll even take youse to bed wit' me every night!" The statue suddenly comes alive and asks in a voice like that of a radio character, The Mad Russian, "Do you mean it?" and smooches the startled bunny and takes on an effeminate, hip-swiveling pose.

Caricatures[]

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Censorship[]

This cartoon was part of the "Twelve Missing Hares" that were barred from airing on Cartoon Network's June 2001 Bugs marathon since it included a clip from Friz Freleng's "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt", which was also a member of the "Twelve Missing Hares" for featuring a Native American stereotype.[4] As with the other members of the "Twelve Missing Hares" as described in the unreleased ToonHeads episode, it was originally intended to air in the marathon, but was pulled due to executive backlash from AOL Time Warner.

However, despite being seldom aired on American television, this cartoon has been shown on the Turner-owned networks TBS and TNT in the early 1990s and on Cartoon Network USA in The Bob Clampett Show, The Bugs and Daffy Show, and The Looney Tunes Show compilation show. International Turner-based feeds airs this short on a rather regular basis.

Notes[]

  • The cartoon's premise satirizes Warner Bros. Cartoons' then-failure at the Academy Awards, as at the time the cartoon was produced, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series had previously received seven Academy Award nominations but had yet to win an Academy Award. This is heavily alluded to in the clips from the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt", which was nominated for the Academy Award but lost to the Mickey Mouse cartoon "Lend a Paw" (1941) from rival studio Disney.[5] It was not until the release of Friz Freleng's Tweety and Sylvester cartoon "Tweetie Pie" (1947) that the Warner Bros. cartoon studio would later win its first Academy Award after ten nominations.
  • By the end of the cartoon, Bugs wins a Booby Prize Oscar, which is a parody of the miniature second-class Oscars awarded to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).[5]
    • Bugs' possessive nature towards his Booby Prize Oscar displayed at the ending would later be re-enacted in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" right after Babs Bunny uses his Shloscar to rejuvenate Bugs out of his insanity brought in as the result of Sappy Stanley forcing Bugs to watch a marathon of the former's cartoons against the latter's will.
  • While the USA Turner 1995 dubbed print retains the original Merrie Melodies ending music cue, the EU Turner 1995 dubbed print replaces the original Merrie Melodies ending music cue with the 1938–41 Merrie Melodies ending music cue.[7]
  • This cartoon was the first time two Bugs Bunny cartoons were released in theaters after the other. This cartoon was the 2nd of said cartoons, with the first one being the previous cartoon, "Little Red Riding Rabbit".
  • This cartoon was used in the documentary Bugs Bunny: Superstar.
  • This is the final cartoon to use the 1942–44 red Color Rings.
  • The person that Bugs refers to as "Smokey" is Henry Garner who was a cameraman and projectionist for the Leon Schlesinger studio.[8]
  • The newspaper which predicted the suicide of Adolf Hitler is the same one from "Tortoise Wins by a Hare" and in the Private Snafu short "Fighting Tools". Coincidentally, Hitler would commit suicide in April 1945.[9]
  • A "stag reel" is an old fashioned term for a film of pornographic nature, which was to be watched by single men, or "stags."
  • The awards speech that Bugs mocks reveals is for James Cagney, whom in the prior year of 1943 had won the Best Actor Oscar for the film Yankee Doodle Dandy (a film released by Warner Bros. in 1942), and thus was an incumbent Oscar winner at the time of the short's release.
  • Vitaphone release number: 1193[10]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. https://archive.org/details/catalogofc19713251213libr/page/67/mode/1up?view=theater
  2. https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/animator-breakdown-whats-cookin-doc-1944/
  3. https://www.amazon.com/Captains-Clouds-James-Cagney/dp/B000MTEFWI
  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHNTv3oQoE8
  5. 5.0 5.1 Crafton, Donald (1998). "The View from Termite Terrace: Caricature and Parody in Warner Bros. Animation", in Sandler, Kevin S.: Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros. Animation (in en). Rutgers University Press, page 116. ISBN 978-0813525389. 
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6AipTOMpd0
  7. http://chomikuj.pl/izebel/Filmy/Animowane/Seriale/Z/Zwariowane+Melodie/Pojedyncze+kresk*c3*b3wki/008.Zwariowane+Melodie+-+Co+tam+pichcisz+doktorku,1637869003.rmvb(video)
  8. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqa06t
  9. Shull, Michael S.; Wilt, David E. (2004). "Filmography 1944", Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films, 1939-1945. McFarland & Company, page 177. ISBN 978-0899502182. 
  10. Liebman, Roy (2003). Vitaphone Films: A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts. McFarland, page 280. ISBN 978-0786412792. 

External links[]

Bugs Bunny Shorts
1938 Porky's Hare Hunt
1939 Prest-O Change-OHare-um Scare-um
1940 Elmer's Candid CameraA Wild Hare
1941 Elmer's Pet RabbitTortoise Beats HareHiawatha's Rabbit HuntThe Heckling HareAll This and Rabbit StewWabbit Twouble
1942 The Wabbit Who Came to SupperAny Bonds Today?The Wacky WabbitHold the Lion, PleaseBugs Bunny Gets the BoidFresh HareThe Hare-Brained HypnotistCase of the Missing Hare
1943 Tortoise Wins by a HareSuper-RabbitJack-Wabbit and the BeanstalkWackiki WabbitFalling Hare
1944 Little Red Riding RabbitWhat's Cookin' Doc?Bugs Bunny and the Three BearsBugs Bunny Nips the NipsHare Ribbin'Hare ForceBuckaroo BugsThe Old Grey HareStage Door Cartoon
1945 Herr Meets HareThe Unruly HareHare TriggerHare ConditionedHare Tonic
1946 Baseball BugsHare RemoverHair-Raising HareAcrobatty BunnyRacketeer RabbitThe Big SnoozeRhapsody Rabbit
1947 Rabbit TransitA Hare Grows in ManhattanEaster YeggsSlick Hare
1948 Gorilla My DreamsA Feather in His HareRabbit PunchBuccaneer BunnyBugs Bunny Rides AgainHaredevil HareHot Cross BunnyHare SplitterA-Lad-In His LampMy Bunny Lies over the Sea
1949 Hare DoMississippi HareRebel RabbitHigh Diving HareBowery BugsLong-Haired HareKnights Must FallThe Grey Hounded HareThe Windblown HareFrigid HareWhich Is WitchRabbit Hood
1950 Hurdy-Gurdy HareMutiny on the BunnyHomeless HareBig House BunnyWhat's Up Doc?8 Ball BunnyHillbilly HareBunker Hill BunnyBushy HareRabbit of Seville
1951 Hare We GoRabbit Every MondayBunny HuggedThe Fair Haired HareRabbit FireFrench RarebitHis Hare Raising TaleBallot Box BunnyBig Top Bunny
1952 Operation: RabbitFoxy by Proxy14 Carrot RabbitWater, Water Every HareThe Hasty HareOily HareRabbit SeasoningRabbit's KinHare Lift
1953 Forward March HareUpswept HareSouthern Fried RabbitHare TrimmedBully for BugsLumber Jack-RabbitDuck! Rabbit, Duck!Robot Rabbit
1954 Captain HareblowerBugs and ThugsNo Parking HareDevil May HareBewitched BunnyYankee Doodle BugsBaby Buggy Bunny
1955 Beanstalk BunnySahara HareHare BrushRabbit RampageThis Is a Life?Hyde and HareKnight-Mare HareRoman Legion-Hare
1956 Bugs' BonnetsBroom-Stick BunnyRabbitson CrusoeNapoleon Bunny-PartBarbary-Coast BunnyHalf-Fare HareA Star Is BoredWideo WabbitTo Hare Is Human
1957 Ali Baba BunnyBedevilled RabbitPiker's PeakWhat's Opera, Doc?Bugsy and MugsyShow Biz BugsRabbit Romeo
1958 Hare-Less WolfHare-Way to the StarsNow, Hare ThisKnighty Knight BugsPre-Hysterical Hare
1959 Baton BunnyHare-abian NightsApes of WrathBackwoods BunnyWild and Woolly HareBonanza BunnyA Witch's Tangled HarePeople Are Bunny
1960 Horse HarePerson to BunnyRabbit's FeatFrom Hare to HeirLighter Than Hare
1961 The Abominable Snow RabbitCompressed HarePrince Violent
1962 Wet HareBill of HareShishkabugs
1963 Devil's Feud CakeThe Million HareHare-Breadth HurryThe UnmentionablesMad as a Mars HareTransylvania 6-5000
1964 Dumb PatrolDr. Devil and Mr. HareThe Iceman DuckethFalse Hare
1979 Bugs Bunny's Christmas CarolFright Before Christmas
1980 Portrait of the Artist as a Young BunnySpaced Out Bunny
1990 Box Office Bunny
1991 (Blooper) Bunny
1992 Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers
1995 Carrotblanca
1997 From Hare to Eternity
2004 Hare and Loathing in Las VegasDaffy Duck for President
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