In this short film which came out briefly after World War II, Bugs goes against an evil scientist (where did he go in the end) and his giant, furry, sneaker-wearing monster. The director is Chuck Jones as always and the voice acting is Mel Blanc of course. Writer isn't Michael Maltese this time, it's Tedd Pierce. Jokes in here include manicure, a rabbit hiding in a lamp, a mechanical female rabbit, a painting and a Peter Lorre reference I would not have recognized if I hadn't read it in the credits. All in all, I enjoyed this short film and like the two antagonists. Quite a shame they do not appear in more of these 7-minute cartoons. Still, I wouldn't say it is one of the best Warner Bros. cartoons. Nonetheless, recommended.

Hair-Raising Hare was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon short directed by Chuck Jones that featured an all-red-haired monster that scared Bugs and wanted to eat him. He is usually named Gossamer though in Water, Water, Every Hare, he was Rudolph. The rabbit goes out of his hole and asks, "Do you ever get the feeling you was being watched?" We pull back and see he's being seen on a televisor by an Evil Scientist (which appears in neon lights on his castle) who looks like Peter Lorre. He brings a female rabbit robot to lure Bugs inside. Bugs follows her and after he's locked in, kisses her who then falls apart. Lorre then intros him to the monster. There's lots of fun here as Bugs turns into a gossipy manicurist filing the monster's nails, then he later pokes his eyes twice, then the monster gets scared twice: first by reflection, then by the audience. "People!" LOL! All in all, Hair-Raising Hare is a hilariously atmospheric cartoon.

What a wonderful Bugs Bunny cartoon! Apart from great production values and writing, this movie marks the first appearance of the cute giant orange hairy monster that will later appear in other Warner cartoons.Bugs is in an old creepy castle when he realizes that the crazy doctor (clearly patterned after Peter Lorre) is trying to kill him for his evil experiments. Bugs fleas and the doctor unleashes his secret weapon--a giant hairy orange monster wearing tennis shoes! He's really awfully cute, though also quite intent on capturing Bugs. Well, Bugs responds by using his cleverness to beat the monster and escape. A wonderful and funny cartoon. It especially excels when it breaks through the fourth wall--and involves the audience!If you liked this cartoon, try watching WATER, WATER, EVERY HARE (1952)--a follow-up to this movie.

The most astonishing and visually audacious of the early Bugs Bunnies, a Chuck Jones masterpiece, that uses the cheap target of the Universal horror movie, long since wallowing in parody, to create some extraordinary effects. The tale is the usual - Bugs being chased by a relentless predator; but is given added piquancy by the horror setting. Bugs is often at the root of his own troubles, whether by arrogant egocentricity, disarming androgyny or slippery playfulness goading the less gifted into violence; but in this case it is Bugs' lust that does him in, as he is led to a castle, with 'Evil Scientist' blaring in neon over its portals, by a beautiful mechanical doll, unsurprisingly, considering our hero's narcissism, very similar to himself (what do you mean all rabbits look the same?!). This mixture of the erotic and the machine prefigures Ballard and Cronenburg, of course, but also reaches back to modern horror's roots, the perverse tales of E.T.A. Hoffman.The evil scientist, supposedly a take on Peter Lorre, lures Bugs as pet-food for his fearsome monster, who turns out to be a rather cute carpet beast, a dim-witted giant Bugs makes rather heavy weather of. The variations on the chase are vertiginously invigorating, Jones' art is at the zenith of its inventiveness, mocking the horror genre, yet managing to evoke its resonances and themes. In possibly the greatest sequence in Warners animation, the Monster chases Bugs and sees the long hall he occupies reflected the mirror. He also sees himself - his reflection is horrified by him, and runs away out the reflected hall door. This sequence is, er, mirrored, by a later scene, when Bugs, about to be eaten, reveals the watching audience to the Monster, who, exposed, flees through the never-ending castle walls in shame and terror.This theme of the doppelganger, the shameful double that usually represents all the dark side of our natures we have repressed, is also brilliantly represented in the short's treatment of surveillance. Our first image is of Bugs emerging from his hole, so powerful that the entire forest is his bedroom. and yet he is afraid that he is being watched. Suddenly, he is framed by a screen, which startles the audience (well, me anyway) into a guilty realisation of what it is doing; when the screen belongs to the evil scientist, and the audience is linked to his madman who seeks to murder Bugs, the act of looking, spying, is linked to death - Bugs is in danger as long as he is trapped in the frame, as long as he is being watched. Freedom only is possible when he leaves, and the short is over; but this is a kind of death anyway, as Bugs is a cartoon character who only exists in a cartoon. (Do I need to mention McCarthy?)The dark colours are beautiful; the playing with perspectives ingenious; and the excuse for a 'What's Up Doc?' is as ingenious as Hitchcock's cameo in 'Lifeboat'.