The Big Snooze

The Big Snooze
File:Thebigsnooze.jpg Title Card for the Big Snooze
Directed by	Robert Clampett (uncredited)
Produced by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Animation by	Rod Scribner I. Ellis Manny Gould J.C. Melendez
Color process	Technicolor
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Running time	7 mins

The Big Snooze is a 1946 Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Bob Clampett, his final cartoon for Warner. Its title was likely inspired by the 1939 book The Big Sleep, and its 1946 film adaptation, a Warner release. The Big Snooze features Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, voiced as usual by Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan respectively.

Plot

In this cartoon-within-a-cartoon, Bugs and Elmer are in the midst of their usual hunting-chasing scenario. After Bugs tricks Elmer into running through a hollow log and off a cliff three times (a comic triple of sorts originally used in Avery's All this and Rabbit Stew), Elmer becomes enraged and frustrated that the writers never let him catch the rabbit "in every one of these cartoons". He tears up his Warner contract and walks off the set to devote his life to fishing. With a line in the water, and lying against a tree, Elmer quickly falls asleep.

Bugs, stunned by Elmer's walkout, observes Elmer's nap and takes sleeping pills ("Take Dese and Doze") in order to rock Elmer's "dreamboat" by "invading" his dream and continuing to drive Elmer crazy. Symbolic of his dreamland plight, Elmer appears nearly nude, wearing only his derby hat and a strategically placed "loincloth" consisting of a laurel wreath. The two resume their chase, through a surreal landscape.

Elmer talks to the audience in "The Big Snooze"

In Elmer's nightmare,Bugs liquefies him,then re-molds the liquid Elmer into a shapely female by pouring him into a slinky green dress, which creates a bustline,the form fitting dress also grants the budding beauty girlish gams. Afterwards,Bugs then conjures the final "ingredients" of his recipe for revenge,a ringlet-styled wig,then lipstick which is applied to Elmers' mouth before Elmer can protest what has transpired thus far. Placing her hands on her hips, its hard for her to deny that she has become curvy enough to be considered a silver screen goddess,nor does she remember this is a dream. Bugs takes a moment to admire his handiwork,satisfied with his "creation",the backdrop of the dream rises,transporting them to Hollywood and Vine,where a group of "Hollywood wolves" dressed in zoot suits hoot and holler at "Elmyra", crying "Howwwwww old is she?" (a line also used by the "wolves" in Clampett's Book Revue, released the same year).

Elmyra cries "Gwacious!",lifts the skirt of the dress ever so slightly,revealing her dainty female feet,pedicured nails,the high heels she wears, then she runs away as fast as her coltish legs will carry her,first from the wolves,then a second time with Bugs,the latter time,mimicking some crazy dance steps suggested by Bugs ("Hey, Doc, run 'this way'!"). When she mimics the dance,she reveals how complete the makeover really was,the vivacious beauty is wearing tap pants in the exact same color as the form fitting,strapless dress she wears over her panties,and her curves!

While running from the potential paramours,"Elmyra" stops and asks the audience, "Have any of you giwls evew had an expewience wike this?" (In the short "Hare Splitter" that came out two years later, Bugs (himself in drag) asks a similar question). Bugs and Elmer dive off a cliff (in a scene similar to The Heckling Hare). Bugs drinks some "Hare Tonic - Stops Falling Hare" and screeches to a halt in mid-air,while the dream Elmer continues to careen toward earth. She begins to cry, afraid that her life is coming to an end just when it took a turn for the better. She finally crash-lands into the real Elmer's snoozing body as he wakes up with a start: "Oh, what a howwibwe nightmawe!"

Elmer dashes back to the cartoon's original set, pieces his Warner contract back together, and tells the audience, "Oh, Mr. Warner... I'm ba-ack!" and the chase through the log begins anew. The happy Bugs faces the audience in a closeup, closing with the catchphrase from the "Beulah" character on the radio show Fibber McGee and Molly (also used at the end of The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, another Clampett feature from 1946), "Ah love dat man!" ("Love dat man!")

Censorship

• Due to concerns about drug use or abuse (even though the Latin-American dubbing states "non-addictive"), the part where Bugs takes a sleeping pill (from a bottle that reads, "Take Deze and Doze") to invade Elmer's dream is edited out when shown on TV (mostly syndicated runs where the pill-ingesting is deleted with a jump cut and on Cartoon Network where the pill-ingesting is deleted with a fake black-out, until it was shown uncut on Cartoon Network's "The Bob Clampett Show" and was shown uncut ever since on other Looney Tunes compilation shows, such as "Bugs and Daffy" and "The Looney Tunes Show").

Availability

This short is shown (uncut and uncensored) on the second volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set and is in Part 1 of What's Up Doc?: A salute to Bugs Bunny in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3 (also uncut and uncensored).

Trivia

• At one point early in the dream, Bugs consults a book entitled "A Thousand And One Arabian Nightmares" to determine how best to sabotage the dream.
• Elmer Fudd clearly pronounces the R in cartoons.
• Bugs sings a song sung in other shorts like Hare-um Scare-um.

I'm going cuckoo, woo-woo!

Here comes the choo-choo, woo-woo!

I'm so gooney Looney Tuney, touched in the head

Please pass the ketchup, I think I'll go to bed

etc.

Eight years later, the song would be varied somewhat and reprised by Bugs in Easter Yeggs.

Here's the Easter Rabbit, hooray!

The happy Easter Rabbit, hooray!

I am getting Looney Tuney, touched in the head

This whole thing is gooney, I should have stayed in bed.

See also

• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography
• List of Bugs Bunny cartoons

External links

• The Big Snooze at the Big Cartoon Database