"Honest chief, I never done nothin' to no one..."
Porky's Hare Hunt is a 1938 Looney Tunes cartoon, directed by Ben Hardaway and starring Porky Pig and an unnamed rabbit (retroactively named Happy Rabbit) who would serve as a basis for future star Bugs Bunny.
The cartoon is centered on Porky Pig and his dog trying to hunt down a pesky rabbit who was stealing from his cornfield, with little success but lots of comical failures.
Tropes:
- Absent Animal Companion: Porky's dog disappears after he is tasked to barricade one end of a pipe that the rabbit went through. Perhaps he's still there and waiting.
- A-Team Firing: Porky mows down an entire cornfield with his shotgun just to shoot the hare, but completely misses him. Later, he fires enough bullets at him to bury Porky in a pile of empty shells, but missed every single shot.
- All There in the Manual: A model sheet for the screwball white rabbit was labelled "'Bugs's' Bunny" after director Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. It might just be how the evolved rabbit got his name.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The rabbit gets away with hurling dynamite at Porky and doesn't get shot at all while Porky is critically injured, bedridden, immobilized and the rabbit ends the cartoon by assaulting an injured Porky some more.
- Bottomless Magazines: Porky's rifle fires a seemingly unlimited amount of ammo without Porky having to reload it. However, his rifle did run out of ammo as soon as he cornered the rabbit next to a tree.
- Bull Seeing Red: Parodied when the hare uses a matador cape to trick Porky's dog into running headfirst into a steel barrel, into a log, and then into the cape itself (which the hare rolls up into a straw and uses to spit the dog out at Porky). Fittingly, the music cue "In Caliente" plays during this.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: The rabbit of course.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Averted, the rabbit comes to visit Porky in the hospital, even bringing him flowers. He's really just there to injure him some more.
- Explosive Breeder: Being a rabbit, he and his wife have lots of children.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Porky ends up getting barbecued by his own stick of dynamite that he intended to use on the rabbit.
- I Have a Family: Getting cornered by Porky while eating a carrot, the rabbit pleads to him "I'm a married man with a family!" then shows him photographic evidence of the hundreds of children he has. Porky angrily dismisses that as any reason to spare him.
- I Shall Taunt You: The rabbit uses this as a tactic, calling Porky "Fat Boy" at one point.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Porky is a poor shot with his shotgun, to say the least. Even when he has a clear shot at the rabbit, he ends up firing enough bullets to bury himself in a pile of shells, but missed the rabbit every single time.
- Invisibility: The hare uses a bottle of "Hare Remover" to vanish into thin air.
- Karma Houdini: The rabbit succeeds in getting Porky landed in the hospital and never gets punished for it.
- No Name Given: The rabbit isn't named in the cartoon, but its been retroactively given the name Happy Hare, based off a name that Mel Blanc gave him in a 70s interview.
- Rascally Rabbit: As an acknowledged predecessor to the Trope Codifier, the rabbit here certainly qualifies, as he spends the whole cartoon tricking Porky in countless, sometimes surreal, ways.
- Sequel: The short is basically a follow-up to Tex Avery's Porky's Duck Hunt.
- Shout-Out: At one point, the rabbit quips "Of course you realize, this means war!" The line would eventually become one of Bugs Bunny's signature catchphrases.
- Visual Pun: The hare drinks a bottle of "Hare Remover" to turn himself invisible and evade Porky.
