Rabbit Transit Smears

“Ptoo!” I say to people who don’t like the three Bugs Bunny-Cecil Turtle cartoons because there’s supposedly some kind of “rule” that “Bugs has to win all the time.” Given the context of the story, people shouldn’t expect Bugs to win because the hare didn’t in the fable the cartoons use as a starting point.

All three have much to enjoy. The final one, “Rabbit Transit” (released in 1947), has some wonderful acting by animator Virgil Ross in the opening scene; watch how he moves Bugs’ body and fingers. And Virgil tosses in some of his smear animation. Here are three frames from later in the cartoon.



Who better to comment on this kind of effect than animator Greg Duffell? He wrote on Facebook:

Virgil Ross (who animated the scene displayed) did similar transition effects in this general period. I gather they are based on examples starting in THE DOVER BOYS. There is a formula to how Virgil did these. The effect usually takes 3 frames. Frame 1 is a slight stretching out of the first key, frame 2 is much like the example provided here which is basically a full stretching from between the start and destination pose, and frame 3 is a slight stretching out of the destination frame 4. Each drawing is photographed for one frame each. This technique was largely abandoned by all units by 1950. LONG HAIRED HARE uses this technique for the conducting sequence, to particularly good effect.

Here are a few more smear frames.



The scene toward the end when the angry Bugs is trying to get at the turtle has some great poses, too. I’ll get to that in a future post.