Falling Hare is a 1943 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Robert Clampett, starring Bugs Bunny. The title is another play on "hair", as "falling hair" refers to impending baldness, while in this cartoon's climax, the title turns out to be descriptive of Bugs' situation.
Within the cartoon are several contemporary pop culture references, including to Wendell Willkie, John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men and the folk songs "Yankee Doodle", "I've Been Working on the Railroad", and the Russian folk song "Dark Eyes. In addition, the Gremlin's behavior is possibly a homage to Bob Clampett's version Daffy Duck (for example, he is seen in one scene riding an invisible bicycle, one of Daffy's old trademarks, among other acts.)" The Gremlin holds the distinction, along with Cecil Turtle and the unnamed mouse from "Rhapsody Rabbit", of being one of the very few antagonists to actually outsmart and rattle Bugs.
This cartoon probably influenced Russian Rhapsody, which portrayed Adolf Hitler making a bomb run on Moscow and being plagued by gremlins.
Certain catch phrases, such as Baby Snooks' "I'm only three-and-a-half years old", were used.
Bugs' Gremlin nemesis makes two reappearance in the 1990s cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures. In the episode Journey to the Center of Acme Acres the gremlin appears (with several look-alikes) as the cause of earthquakes in Acme Acres after their gold is stolen by Montana Max. In the special Night Ghoulery a singular gremlin antagonizes Plucky Duck in the segment titled Gremlin on a Wing, a spoof of the Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
Plot synopsis
This cartoon opens with an extended series of establishing shots of an Army Air Force base, to the brassy strains of "We’re In To Win" (a World War II song also sung by Daffy Duck in Scrap Happy Daffy a year before).
Bugs is found reclining on a piece of ordnance, idly reading Victory Through Hare Power (a parody of the extremely influential book "Victory Through Air Power") and laughing uproariously at the book's claim that gremlins wreck American planes with "di-a-bo-LICK-al sab-oh-TAY-gee" (diabolical sabotage). He immediately encounters one of the creatures, who is experimentally striking a bomb with a mallet to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad". In response to Bug's "What's all the hubbub, bub?" the gremlin replies, "These Blockbuster bombs don't go off unless you hit them juuuuuuuust right." Noticing the gremlin's lack of success, Bugs offers to "take a whack at it" but comes to his senses an instant before striking the detonator, screaming "WHAT AM I DOING?!" Bugs asks the audience sotto voce, "Say, do youse t'ink dat was a... gremlin?" The gremlin, perched on Bugs' shoulder the whole time, yells in his ear, "IT AIN'T VENDELL VILLKIE!"
The Gremlin continues to outsmart Bugs throughout the film, frequently hitting him with a mallet or otherwise giving him grief. Bugs soon finds himself fighting a losing battle with the gremlin inside a flying but unpiloted bomber (resembling a Douglas B-18 Bolo). At one point, when Bugs comes back inside from being outside of the aircraft mid-flight, his heart is pounding, with 4F labeled on it (the term refers to a military draftee rejected for being physically unfit). In the finale, the plane goes into a tailspin (ripping apart during its descent, with only the fuselage remaining), but comes to a sputtering halt (Blanc, borrowing his Maxwell bit from the Benny show) about six feet before hitting the ground, hanging in mid-air, defying gravity, a scene bringing to mind Chico Marx's nonsensical speech from the 1935 MGM film A Night at the Opera.
Bugs and the Gremlin now seem to be on friendly terms as they both address the audience. The gremlin apologizes for the plane having "run out of gas". Bugs chimes in and just as he speaks, the camera pans to the right, revealing a wartime gas rationing sticker: "You know how it is with these 'A' cards!"
That unexpected gag probably resonated well with the audience. The "A" card, under the reverse-psychology of the rationing scheme, was the least generous of the classifications, limiting the bearer to minimal gasoline purchases.
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