| Southern Fried Rabbit | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | I. Freleng |
| Story by | Warren Foster |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer |
| Starring | Mel Blanc |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
| Animation by | Ken Champin Arthur Davis Manuel Perez Virgil Ross |
| Layouts by | Hawley Pratt |
| Backgrounds by | Irv Wyner |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 6:45 |
| Language | English |
Southern Fried Rabbit is a 1953Warner Bros.Looney Tunes cartoon directed byFriz Freleng.[1] The cartoon was released on May 2, 1953, and starsBugs Bunny andYosemite Sam.[2]
Bugs Bunny hears of a record carrot crop in Alabama, prompting him to headSouth. At theMason–Dixon line, he comes under fire from Yosemite Sam, who is wearing aConfederate uniform and claims to have orders fromGeneral Lee to stop any "Yankee" who tries to cross the border. Bugs points out that theCivil War ended almost 90 years ago, but his protests fall on deaf ears.
Bugs uses a series of disguises in order to fool Sam: first a banjo-playing slave, thenAbraham Lincoln, then "Brickwall Jackson", then aSouthern belle, and finally a wounded Confederate soldier. In the last guise, he tricks Sam into heading for Tennessee by telling him "the Yankees are inChattanooga". The short ends with Sam brandishing his gun at theNew York Yankees, who have come to Chattanooga for an exhibition game.
Thebit in which Bugs pretends that Sam is about to whip him (and then scolds him in the guise of Abraham Lincoln) was earlier used in the 1949Daffy Duck-Elmer Fudd shortWise Quackers. Latterly, the short has been recut due to concerns about its use of racial humor.[3]
Southern Fried Rabbit was made available on VHS tape. A restored, uncut version can be found on DVD inLooney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4.[3]
| Preceded by | Bugs Bunny Cartoons 1953 | Succeeded by |