People Are Bunny

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People Are Bunny is a 1959 Warner Bros. cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, along with an appearance by a caricature of Art Linkletter named "Art Lamplighter". "People Are Bunny" is a takeoff of the Art Linkletter show People Are Funny where people do different tasks to win money.

[edit] Plot

Bugs and Daffy are reading the newspaper when Daffy sees an ad for someone to receove $1,000.00 for supplying a rabbit to a hunting show on the QTTV-TV station. Daffy first uses fake enthusiasm in an attempt to convince Bugs to come to the station with him, but Bugs immediately suspects Daffy is up to no good and declines. Daffy then grabs a gun and tells Bugs to oblige or be shot.

At the QTTV-TV station, Daffy has Bugs with a gun pointed at him. At that point, they see a bunch of prizes coming out of the studio (car, boat, fur coat, refrigerator, etc) and they see people going into the show "People Are Phony" starring Art Lamplighter. With dollar signs in Daffy's eyes, Daffy puts Bugs in a telephone booth and Daffy goes into the show. Meanwhile, Bugs receives a call in the telephone booth. It is an announcer who tells Bugs if he answers this question he will win the jackpot in question. Bugs answers the question (which is a math question) and answers right, where the jackpot comes out through the coin return slot. The announcer then asks Bugs how he knew the answer. Bugs says, "Well, what we rabbits know how to do is multiply."

Meanwhile, Daffy is on the show "People Are Phony" where his task is taking a little old lady across the street, but things backfire in a hurry when the old lady starts hitting Daffy with her umbrella, saying she knows how to walk the street. Then Daffy staggers and then is missed getting hit by a bus and then gets hit by a motorcycle. Art Lamplighter tells the audience that Daffy didn't quite make it, and it goes to show that "People Are Phony".

Sorely mad, Daffy comes back to the telephone booth where Bugs is, who is counting his jackpot. Daffy asks Bugs how he got it. Bugs says he got a call in the phone booth, which Daffy cdoesn't believe. Bugs says at any time now an announcer would call for a contestant. The telephone rings (actually Bugs making the sound of a telephone) and they want another contestant to come on the phone. Daffy pushes Bugs out of the booth and tells Bugs to let him have it. Daffy has the receiver - which is now a stick of dynamite - and it explodes as Bugs walks away. Bugs says, "So I let him have it."

Looking for Bugs, Daffy asks a studio page (actually Bugs in disguise) where he could find a rabbit. Bugs points him to a door, and Daffy is sent to the show "Were You There?" depicting Custer's Last Stand. Daffy then comes out with his head scalped.

At the end, Bugs is disguised as a producer and he tells Daffy that he is wanted for a show, tricking him into donning a rabbit costume. The show he is sent to is the very hunting show to which Daffy intended to bring Bugs, where Bugs collects the fee Daffy wanted for himself. When Daffy protests that he is no rabbit but a duck, the host declares it is now duck season, and a bunch of hunters shoot at Daffy. Bugs shrugs off Daffy's plight, noting, "Eh, they always shoot blanks on TV," but Daffy, his beak full of bullet holes, mutters "'Blanks', he says." Emptying several bullets from his mouth, he offers them to Bugs: "Have a handful of blanks! Sheesh!"

[edit] Trivia

The part where Bugs is a studio page was first seen in the 1956 cartoon Wideo Wabbit with Elmer Fudd as his victim. Elmer was also sent to a re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand, except the TV show was "You Were There" instead of "Were You There?"

[edit] Censorship

  • The syndicated Merrie Melodies show edited the ending where Daffy is shot by hunters and the "Blanks, he says" sequence by fading out after Bugs says, "Eh, they always shoot blanks on TV".
  • The FOX Merrie Melodies show, in contrast to the syndicated version, leaves in Daffy coming in after getting shot, but replaces the scene of the hunters shooting Daffy with a still shot of Bugs before he comments on how the hunters are shooting blanks.
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Preceded by
A Witch's Tangled Hare		 Bugs Bunny Cartoons
1959		 Succeeded by
Horse Hare