Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips is a 1944 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The cartoon, released on April 22, 1944, stars Bugs Bunny. A propaganda film that depicts Bugs fighting against the Imperial Japanese Army in the Pacific War, it is now considered controversial for caricaturing the Japanese enemy and expressing anti-Japanese sentiment, and while not one of the Censored Eleven cartoons it has been removed from circulation by Warner Bros.
Plot
Somewhere in the Pacific, Bugs is floating in a box, singing to himself, when "the island that inevitably turns up in this kind of picture" turns up. Bugs swims towards it, admiring the peace and quiet, when bombs start going off as "The Storm" from the William Tell Overture (1829) is heard in the background. Bugs ducks into a haystack, and soon comes face-to-face with a Japanese soldier: a short, bespectacled, buck-toothed, bare-footed, slant-eyed Japanese man who pronounces "L" as "R", and who might be rapidly stating the names of Japanese cities whenever he moves. The soldier chases Bugs into a rabbit hole, into which the soldier dumps a bomb. However, Bugs manages to blow up the soldier with the bomb. When the soldier tries to swing a sword at Bugs, Bugs appears as a Japanese general (presumably Hideki Tojo), but is soon recognized by his trademark carrot-eating, prompting the soldier (who says that he had seen Bugs in the "Warner Bros. Leon Schlesinger Merrie Melodies cartoon pictures", referring to the fact that Bugs was originally exclusive to that series) to ask him, "What's up, Honorable Doc?"
Bugs then jumps into a plane (which looks like a Mitsubishi A6M Zero); the soldier also jumps into a plane (which also looks like a Zero). However, Bugs ties the soldier's plane to a tree, causing the plane to be yanked out from under him. The soldier parachutes down but is met in mid-air by Bugs, who hands "Moto" (cf. Mr. Moto) some "scrap iron" (an anvil), causing the soldier to fall. Painting a Japanese flag on a tree to denote one soldier down, Bugs runs into a sumo wrestler, against whom he confidently faces off (cockily marking a second and bigger flag on the tree). After being temporarily beaten by the sumo wrestler (and wiping the second mark off the tree before collapsing), Bugs dresses as a geisha and knocks out the wrestler, who repaints the second flag on the tree before passing out.
Seeing a group of Japanese landing craft making their way toward the island (and exclaiming "Japs! Hundreds of 'em!"), Bugs thinks of a plan to get rid of them all. He comes out in a "Good Rumor" (a parody of Good Humor) truck, which plays Mozart ("Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja" from The Magic Flute), and hands each of the Japanese an ice-cream bar with a grenade inside it, calling them racist slurs such as "monkey-face" and "slant-eyes" while doing so. All of the Japanese are killed by the explosions except one, who is killed after redeeming a 'free' ice-cream bar from Bugs. Having now painted dozens of Japanese flags on the trees, denoting all the downed enemy forces, Bugs comments again about the "peace and quiet – and if there's one thing I CAN'T stand, it's peace and quiet!"
Then Bugs spots an American battleship (presumed to be the USS Iowa) in the distance and raises a white flag, yelling for them to come get him, but they keep going. Bugs is insulted. "Do they think I want to spend the rest of my life on this island?" With this remark, a female rabbit (dressed in a Hawaiian outfit, possibly a caricature of Dorothy Lamour) appears, saying, "It's a possibility!" Bugs pulls down the distress flag, lets out a wolf-cry and goes running after her.
Cast
- Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny and Japanese soldiers
- Bea Benaderet as Female Bunny (uncredited)
Analysis
The films depicting the Japanese enemy during World War II tended both to identify a formidable wartime adversary and to depict the adversary as inferior to his American counterparts. In cartoons, this translated to a tendency to depict the Japanese as either superman or buffoon. This film more closely represents the latter tendency. The caricature portrayal of this film serves as a host to well-worn stereotypes. He is somewhere in the Pacific and is waiting for "the inevitable island" to turn up. He then sees an island and swims towards its beach. The soldier bows in supplication to the authority figure. Bugs accidentally gives away his identity by casually chewing on a carrot.
The short placed an emphasis on physical peculiarities to imply racial inferiority. The preeminent danger is positioned to be treachery and not military might.
The short has similarities to both Wackiki Wabbit (1943) and Herr Meets Hare (1945). When Bugs professes his hatred of the peace and quiet, demanding someone to get him out of this place, the tune is the Ride of the Valkyries.
Neil Lerner attempts to decipher Carl Stalling's intentions in quoting Wagner at the end of the battle scenes. He suggests that it is connected to the role of the Valkyries, taking fallen warriors to Valhalla. In this case, the use is ironic as Stalling would not view the deceased Japanese soldiers as fallen heroes who deserve an afterlife paradise.
As Bugs signals the American ship, the tune is from the scene where Brünnhilde announces her pregnancy.
Reception
- The Film Daily called the eight-minute short "good fun" and gave the following synopsis:
<blockquote>
"Bugs Bunny, cast away on a Pacific isle, thinks the setting ideal until he finds his paradise infested with Japanese soldiers. How he single-handedly exterminates the enemy makes for a laugh-filled few minutes of typical Bugs antics, off-screen remarks and action in this Technicolor cartoon produced by Leon Schlesinger."
</blockquote>
Notes
Since the 1960s, Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips has been controversial because of its racial stereotyping. However, the cartoon was not one of the "Censored Eleven" and was occasionally shown on television in syndicated packages with other pre-August 1948 Warner Bros. cartoons whose copyrights were under the ownership of Associated Artists Productions. The short debuted on home video in December 1991 on the first volume of MGM/UA Home Video's Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc collection, a 5-disc set that was later issued via 10 separate tapes in 1993. The Japanese American Citizens League started publicly going against its distribution in February 1995 after a Sacramento resident who watched the tape with it with his grandson notified the organization a month prior. but ultimately decided to do so.
This was one of the 12 Bugs Bunny cartoons that were pulled out of Cartoon Network's June Bugs 2001 marathon by order of AOL Time Warner due to stereotypes of Japanese people. However, in a promo for this event, the ending scene where Bugs does a double-take on noticing the female rabbit was used.
See also
- Anti-Japanese propaganda
- Tokio Jokio
- List of World War II short films
- List of American films of 1944
- Lola Bunny, a later female character<!-- see reverted edits of June-July 2021-->