Elmer's Candid Camera

Elmer's Candid Camera
Elmer's Candid Camera
	Lobby card
Directed by	Charles Jones
Story by	Rich Hogan
Produced by	Leon Schlesinger
Starring	Mel Blanc; Arthur Q. Bryan; Marion Darlington
Music by	Carl W. Stalling
Animation by	Bob McKimson
Color process	Technicolor
Production; company	Leon Schlesinger Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures; The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date	March 2, 1940;
Running time	7:49
Language	English

Elmer's Candid Camera is a 1940 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon short directed by Chuck Jones.^[2] The short was released on March 2, 1940, and features Elmer Fudd and an early Bugs Bunny prototype.^[3]

Plot

The title card of *Elmer's Candid Camera*

Elmer is reading a book on how to photograph wildlife. He walks along whistling as he holds the camera. He finds a rabbit and wants to take a picture of him. The rabbit finds himself a convenient victim to harass as Elmer tries to photograph him. Elmer points to where the rabbit was sleeping and tells him that he wants to take a picture of him.

Throughout the rest of the picture, the rabbit continues to bother Elmer as he tries to photograph other animals in the forest. This all comes to ahead when Elmer has had enough of his shenanigans and attempts to catch the rabbit with a net, but is fooled again when the rabbit fakes his suffering. This tormenting eventually drives Elmer insane, causing him to jump into a lake and nearly drown. The rabbit saves him, ensures that Elmer is perfectly all right – and promptly kicks him straight back into the lake. Then, the rabbit throws Elmer's "How To Photograph Wildlife" book on his head, thus ending the cartoon as the screen irises out.

Analysis and Comments by Jones

This is the first appearance of a redesigned Elmer Fudd, a character previously known as "Elmer" on the Lobby cards for The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938) and Cinderella Meets Fella (1938), and even on screen in A Feud There Was (1938) and was also referred to as "Egghead's Brother" on the Vitaphone Publicity sheet for "Cinderella Meets Fella" (1938) which was shown on Michael Barrier's website (and now voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan).^[4]

It is also the fourth appearance of the prototype rabbit that would later evolve into Bugs Bunny. Apart from making a fool of Elmer Fudd, the usual characteristics are absent; the voice used by Mel Blanc is a low-pitched generic voice, and his laugh is a precursor to the laugh Blanc used for Woody Woodpecker.

Chuck Jones directed this cartoon in a time when he was going for a more slow and methodical approach in vain to works by Disney and Harman and Ising. He would later go on to disavow this short later in his life. In his autobiography Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist, he stated:

"In this cartoon we find Bugs stumbling, fumbling, and mumbling around, vainly seeking a personality on which to hang him dialogue and action, or— in better words than mine—'walking around with his umbilical in his hand, looking for someplace to plug it in.' It is obvious when one views this cartoon, which I recommend only if you are going to die of ennui, that my conception of timing and dialogue was formed by watching the action in the La Brea tar pits. It would be complimentary to call it sluggish. Not only Bugs suffered at my hands, but difficult as it is to make an unassertive character like Elmer Fudd into a flat, complete shmuck, I managed. Perhaps the kindest thing to say about “Elmer's Candid Camera” is that it taught everyone what not to do and how not to do it." ^[5]

Home media

VHS – Cartoon Moviestars: Elmer!
VHS – Looney Tunes Collectors Edition: Wabbit Tales
Laserdisc – Bugs! and Elmer!
Laserdisc – Golden Age of Looney Tunes Vol 2
DVD – Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1
DVD – Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 1
DVD – The Essential Bugs Bunny
Blu-ray – Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2^[6]
Blu-ray – Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection

References

^ Scott, Keith (3 October 2022). Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2. BearManor Media. p. 79.
^ Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 99. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 77–79. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
^ "MichaelBarrier.com -- "What's New" Archives: June 2009". 2009-09-01. Archived from the original on 2009-09-01. Retrieved 2024-09-13.
^ Jones, Chuck (1999). Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-374-52620-7.
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-08-11. Retrieved 2016-09-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

External links

Preceded by Hare-um Scare-um	Bugs Bunny prototype Cartoons 1940	Succeeded by None

This Merrie Melodies–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[CartoonVoices-1] Scott, Keith (3 October 2022). Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2. BearManor Media. p. 79.

[Beck-2] Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 99. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.

[3] Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 77–79. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.

[4] "MichaelBarrier.com -- "What's New" Archives: June 2009". 2009-09-01. Archived from the original on 2009-09-01. Retrieved 2024-09-13.

[5] Jones, Chuck (1999). Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-374-52620-7.

[6] "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-08-11. Retrieved 2016-09-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

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