Pre-Hysterical Hare (1958)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Sorry, this movie sucks

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

With footage taken from CAVEMAN INKI, it is basically the same old Bugs Bunny versus Elmer Fudd story, only this time it is set in prehistoric times. While Elmer Fudd has hair and a unibrow, Bugs Bunny has a long buck tooth. Here is a fact, there is such thing as a prehistoric rabbit. It is called a Palaeolagus, which looks like a rabbit, but smaller on the years. It is pretty fun to watch and it is directed by Robert McKimson. In one scene there is a narrator that sounds like Hanna-Barbera cartoon character, Captain Caveman. All in all, give it a watch, it is highly enjoyable. Not rated, but a G-rating will work.

As other reviewers have noted, this is one the of the few duds in the classic Looney Tunes era. It starts with Bugs being chased by Elmer, then falling into an underground cave. In the cave he finds an ancient film reel, which he takes home and watches. The film is a documentary from 10,000 BC and features a caveman version of Elmer hunting a sabre-toothed rabbit version of Bugs. Very corny. Mel Blanc's voice work is fine but Elmer sounds like he has a cold, due to his being voiced by Dave Barry instead of Arthur Q. Bryan. The stock music is generic and doesn't fit the action of the cartoon well. The animation is not the best, either. The backgrounds are flat and the colors are dull and kind of gritty. The worst offense of the short is that it's just not funny. Every gag and line falls flat. It's hard to believe this is from the 1950s. It's pretty much '60s TV quality. Avoid unless you're a Bugs completist.

Even if this 7-minute short film from over 55 years ago includes cartoon legends Robert McKimson, Tedd Pierce and Mel Blanc, I thought this wasn't really too funny sadly. The prehistoric versions of Elmer and Bugs were only interesting for a couple seconds and the way they go against each other with Bugs always winning of course. It's basically a film within a film. After roughly 90 seconds in we switch to the prehistoric past and follow the two heroes' adventures back then. I must say I have seen many better and superior Warner Bros Looney Toons and I cannot really recommend this one. Still it's not a complete disaster either, it's just that the expectations were maybe too high, but then again, by 1958, these cartoons were already becoming a bit worse I think. Not recommended.

I know that sounds harsh, but considering Bugs and Elmer were here I expected better than this. Granted, this is not the worst Looney Tunes have done, and it is not their only bad cartoon, there are about five or six others that range from mediocre to crud-worthy(Devil's Feud Cake and See Ya Later Gladiator are two of those). But, that is little consolation. For me, the only redeeming qualities were Mel Blanc and Bugs mocking Elmer's laugh, that's it. The animation is dull in the colours, lacking finesse in the backgrounds and the characters especially Bugs look really odd. The music is tepid and annoying, and I hated how it sounded too, canned music can work but I have heard too many cases when it doesn't and this is one of them, while the pace has no energy, the writing is unoriginal and tired with gags that suffer from poor timing and the story is too thin a premise, takes far too long to start and finishes abruptly. Another big disappointment was the voice of Elmer, which to be honest was really quite poor and felt too imitative. Overall, a huge disappointment. 2/10 Bethany Cox