Case of the Missing Hare (1942)
Bald stage magician Ala Bahma plasters handbills everywhere, including Bugs Bunny's own tree, and after a humiliating pie-in-the-face trick, Bugs sneaks backstage to sabotage the act one illusion at a time.
Case of the Missing Hare pairs Chuck Jones’s direction with the graphic, flattened backgrounds of Gene Fleury and John McGrew, which producer Leon Schlesinger singled out for praise, and it’s also one of the rare Bugs Bunny cartoons in which he never says “What’s up, Doc?”
Background
Case of the Missing Hare pairs director Chuck Jones with the flattened, graphically bold background art of Gene Fleury and John McGrew, a visual style that producer Leon Schlesinger reportedly singled out for particular praise at the time. The plot follows Bugs Bunny taking revenge on a bald stage magician named Ala Bahma, who has plastered handbills everywhere including Bugs’s own tree, by sneaking backstage and sabotaging the magician’s act one illusion at a time.
What to watch for
Watch for how the cartoon departs from some of the character’s usual conventions, it is one of the relatively rare Bugs Bunny shorts in which he never actually says his signature catchphrase, “What’s up, Doc?” The distinctive, angular background designs here also mark an early example of the more stylized visual approach that would become increasingly common in American theatrical animation over the following decade.
