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Rhapsody Rabbit is a Bugs Bunny animated short film from Warner Bros. released in 1946 and directed by Friz Freleng. Bugs plays the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt for a concert audience while trying to remove a mouse from his piano. Merrie Melodies end title Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. ...
Image File history File links Rhapsody_Rabbit. ...
Bugs Bunny is an Academy Award-winning, street-smart, anthropomorphic, fictional gray hare, despite the name Bunny, who appears in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated films produced by Warner Bros. ...
Isadore Friz Freleng (August 21, 1905–May 26, 1995) was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros. ...
Edward Stacey Tedd Pierce III (August 12, 1906, – February 19, 1972), was an American animated cartoon writer, animator and artist. ...
Michael Maltese (February 6, 1908 - February 22, 1981) was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York. ...
Germain Adolph Gerry Chiniquy (June 23, 1912 - November 22, 1989) was an American animator. ...
Melvin Jerome Blanc (May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was a prolific American voice actor, performing on radio, in television commercials, and most famously, in hundreds of cartoon shorts for Warner Bros. ...
Carl W. Stalling (November 10, 1892–November 29, 1972) was a noted composer and arranger of music for animated cartoons. ...
Warner Bros. ...
November 9 is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 52 days remaining. ...
1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...
Logo celebrating Technicolors 90th Anniversary Technicolor is the trademark for a series of color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation (a subsidiary of Technicolor, Inc. ...
Bugs Bunny is an Academy Award-winning, street-smart, anthropomorphic, fictional gray hare, despite the name Bunny, who appears in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated films produced by Warner Bros. ...
Warner Bros. ...
1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...
Isadore Friz Freleng (August 21, 1905–May 26, 1995) was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros. ...
The Hungarian Rhapsodies are a set of pieces of music by Franz Liszt, originally for solo piano. ...
Franz Liszt (Hungarian: Liszt Ferenc; the surname is pronounced as the English word list, that is ) (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian [1] virtuoso pianist and composer of the Romantic period of German descent. ...
The short is available on Disc 4 of Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2, also included is a commentary by music historian Daniel Goldmark. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
The plot is uncannily similar in concept and execution to The Cat Concerto, a Tom & Jerry short from the same year. They even use the same piece of music as their subject matter. Both were created in 1946, though the Tom & Jerry short won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film. Hanna & Barbera and Friz Freleng sued each other for plagiarism, claiming that ideas were stolen from each other. This remains uncertain even today, though Rhapsody Rabbit has an earlier MPAA copyright number and release date. The massive similarities could be coincidental, for "all great minds think alike." The animators at Warner Bros. and MGM were great at cartoons, and it could be likely that they all thought of similar concepts and expanded them, not knowing that similar situations resulted in each cartoon. Tom & Jerry at odds in The Cat Concerto. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
This class was known as Short Subjects, cartoons from 1932 until 1970, and as Short Subjects, animated films from 1971 to 1973. ...
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Plot synopsis
The cartoon opens with a bar of Merrily We Roll Along, followed by a segment of the "lively" portion of Wagner's Siegfried funeral march, as Bugs walks onstage to applause and prepares to play the grand piano. Throughout the cartoon he runs through a large assortment of visual gags while continuing to play the Hungarian Rhapsody. The first gag involves an apparent audience member who coughs and hacks loudly just as Bugsy is poised to play. When it happens a second time, Bugs pulls a revolver out of his tuxedo and dispatches the audience member. Merrily We Roll Along is a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, and a musical loosely based on it by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. ...
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813 – February 13, 1883) was a German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or music dramas as he later came to call them). ...
(Twilight of the Gods – see Notes) is the last of the four operas that comprise Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), by Richard Wagner. ...
Although the film is mostly pantomime, Bugs speaks a few times (voice of Mel Blanc). At one point he is interrupted by the ring of a phone, timed to echo a short strain that Bugs is playing at that moment. The phone is inside the piano: "Eh, what's up doc? Who? Franz Liszt? Never heard of him. Wrong number." When playing a notable triad in the middle of the piece, which happens to be the same triad notably used in the unrelated Rossini aria "Largo al factotum", Bugs accompanies his piano playing by singing, "Fi-ga-ro! Fi-ga-ro!" Melvin Jerome Blanc (May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was a prolific American voice actor, performing on radio, in television commercials, and most famously, in hundreds of cartoon shorts for Warner Bros. ...
This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
Portrait Gioacchino Antonio Rossini (February 29, 1792 – November 13, 1868)[1] was an Italian musical composer who wrote more than 30 operas as well as sacred music and chamber music. ...
Largo al factotum is Figaros aria from The Barber of Seville by Gioacchino Rossini. ...
A mouse appears and pesters Bugs the rest of the way, although the first ("slow") half of the piece is played nearly "straight", with just a few small gags. Bugs stops at the very short pause in the piece, acknowledging the applause of the audience. Before he can begin the "fast" part of the piece (where the gags accelerate), the mouse instigates a major musical shift, to a "Boogie-woogie" number. Bugs joins in, although he eventually traps the mouse and seemingly disposes of the pest. Bugs then returns to playing the Rhapsody. As the pace picks up, he speaks to the camera (and for the last time in the cartoon): "Look! One hand! ... NO hands!" The camera pulls back, and he is deftly playing the piano keys with his toes. Boogie-woogie is a style of piano-based blues that became very popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. ...
Nearing the end of the Rhapsody, he is startled to hear the frenzied finalé playing, behind him. It is the mouse, complete with tie and tails, playing a toy piano that plays like a normal-sounding piano. Cut back to Bugs after the full-orchestra finalé, and he disgustedly plays the three single notes that actually end the piece, while appearing to mouth "son of a gun" or something like that (a bit of Hays Office tweaking, seen in the occasional Warner cartoon). The Production Code (also known as the Hays Code) was a set of guidelines governing the production of motion pictures. ...
Spoilers end here.
Censorship - On the WB channel airing of this cartoon, the part where Bugs shoots a man in the audience who can't stop coughing was cut.
See also This is a listing of the shorts, feature films, television programs, and television specials in Warner Bros. ...
This is a list of the various animated cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny. ...
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