User Reviews

• CONTAINS A SOURCE OF QUOTATION -

This episode of Bugs and Elmer's running fight has been released as a Bugs Bunny Special in the Merrie Melodies Series on October 28, 1944. The Old Grey Hare legendarily extends Bugs and Elmer's endless conflict into a lifelong adventure. We're first introduced to Gran'Pappy Bugs and Old Man Fudd in the year 2000, then to Baby Bugs and Baby Elmer both crawling whilst wearing diapers in Gran'Pappy Bugs's memory. Neither Bugs nor Elmer ever once appears in their usual form.

-(1)It's all part of Bob Clampett's general technique of piling absurdity atop absurdity, in what is one of his greatest Bugs Bunny cartoon. It's his ability to stretch the character, the extremity of the age range provided by this single cartoon being all Bugs really needs to give us a full perspective on his being, a sense of his living a total life. Even in old age, we learn, Bugs is more active and spry than most teenagers. It's also part of a general pattern of formula reversal that had been at work since 'The Hare-Brained Hypnotist' in 1942, providing turnabouts, parodies, off-the-wall interpolations, unlikely variations on any established theme; whatever it took to avoid staleness and redundancy(1). -

When put in a logical time line, this episode can be considered as being the last of Elmer and Bugs Bunny series; though it was belong to the earlier episodes practically.

Personally I find Old Grey Hare somewhat scary. From my childhood memory, I remember that one time in Disney's Duck Tales, the elderly Donald Duck 'Scrooge McDuck' was going forward to his future in a nightmare. Also, in Alvin's Future episode from 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' Alvin was having incubuses of himself becoming poor, becoming extremely fat and getting old. Those 3 were the scariest cartoons I ever watched.

What makes Old Grey Hare scary is especially the final scene, in which Elmer buries himself alive into the grave Bugs has dug for him; and we go into the grave with him. The framing look of his grave when he's in it, and the aspect of the sky underground was beyond belief! For anybody from all ages The Old Grey Hare is a must-see.

(1): Fifty Years and Only One Grey Hare(1990) by Joe Adamson, pg:132, Henry Holt and Company New York

"The Old Grey Hare" is a wonderful Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd cartoon directed by that notorious man from Wackyland: Bob Clampett! In this unique entry in the Warner Bros. cartoon library, Bugs and Elmer are either old codgers or young infants. What a neat concept!

Highlights: Baby Bugs asks Baby Elmer, "What's up, Doc?" in baby talk, and Elmer has to read the subtitle! Old Bugs struggles to pop out of his hole, and when he finally does, the violin accompaniment of "Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet" makes his wrinkly appearance even funnier. Baby Elmer chases Baby Bugs (to the accompaniment of the familiar Light Cavalry Overture), when Bugs suddenly declares that it's time for the two of them to have their afternoon nap, which they do (to an amusingly sped-up rendition of "Rock-a-Bye Baby"). Baby Elmer looks for Baby Bugs behind a tree, when suddenly Bugs sneaks around and blasts him with a tuba (this gag is very dear to my heart because I am a tuba player).

"The Old Grey Hare" is a clever age twist on the familiar hunter/rabbit story. We get to see both ends of the age spectrum, with a guarantee that we shall be entertained!

This is a Bugs and Elmer short from Warner Brothers. There will be spoilers ahead:

This is one of my favorite Bugs cartoons. Elmer is bemoaning his lack of success at capturing or shooting bugs when an ethereal voice tells him to be patient and takes him forward across the decades to the far off year...2000! In addition to learning that Bing Crosby's horse still hasn't come in and that there's such a thing as "Smell-o-vision" in 2000, Elmer also finds he has a space age, Buck Rogers type of weapon. He sees an elderly Bugs who's basically Bugs with a grey beard and that durn lumbago. He irks Elmer and the "runs", but is blasted by Elmer.

The "dying" Bugs begins to take Elmer down memory lane, where we see them as kids, though still very much in character. Age-appropriate gags take place which leave Elmer empty handed and we go back to the future, where Bugs is digging a grave. Things don't work out for Elmer any more in the end than they generally go, with a classic ending.

This short is on multiple DVD/Blu Ray discs and is well worth looking for. Most recommended.

"The Old Grey Hare" is a 7.5-minute cartoon from over 80 years ago and not one of the most famous or least famous Warner Bros works starring Bugs Bunny. Bob Clampett, Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan are very prolific with these films, but writer Michael Sasanoff has not come up with too many of these films, but judging from this one here, it is not a major loss. Science-fiction wise it is somewhat interesting as this is a genre that is included in some of the highest appreciated cartoons from the 1950s. I think it was fun to see the young and old version of Bugs and Elmer, but story-wise and comedy-wise there is little memorable quality in here unfortunately. I cannot agree with the high IMDb rating. I have seen many superior Looney (car)Toons). Thumbs down.

. . . Presidential Election Fiasco with this 1944 Looney Tune, THE OLD GREY HARE, explicitly set in the year 2000 AD. Eerily enough, Elmer Fudd does not need to change his appearance (other than aging 56 years) or vocal inflections at all in order to deliver a spot-on performance as Democratic popular vote winner (and, therefore, U.S. President-Elect) Al Gore. (There's also a scene in which Mr. Fudd doubles as the infamous squinting "hanging chads" inspector, the main meme the Rich People's Party used to filch the White House for its draft-dodging, alcoholic Cokehead silver-spoon contender--W--the sort of Cartoonish jerk one would expect to launch a "family-honor" vendetta based upon bogus "intelligence" about fabricated "Weapons of Mass Destruction"--drawn at the 3:00 mark of OLD GREY HARE--that produced 5,000 U.S. Service Heroes fatalities, one million-plus murdered Iraqis, wasted $2 trillion of American taxpayer funds, and created ISIS' World War 3, which still continues to haunt the world. Despite Bugs Bunny--as W--blowing up Elmer (7:30) at his finish line (uncannily foreshadowing the W-enabled Boston Marathon bombers), Warner's warning went unheeded, Americans did NOT riot in the streets when Election Loser W was bribed into the Oval Office--and the rest is Sad History.