Hot Cross Bunny

Hot Cross Bunny is a 1948 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies theatrical animated short, starring Bugs Bunny. The title is an obvious play on the nursery rhyme Hot Cross Buns as well as a punny allusion to the basic plot premise.

This was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon in the WB-owned TV packages (released August 1, 1948 or later) to be released.

Summary
Bugs is "Experimental Rabbit #46" in the Paul Revere Foundation (which sports the unlikely slogan 'Hardly a man is now alive'). Bugs lives a pampered life, oblivious to the fact that a scientist plans on switching his brain (or at least his personality, since no surgery is involved) with that of a chicken (said chicken bears no resemblance to McKimson-only character Foghorn Leghorn).

The scientist brings Bugs out to the operating theater, in front of an audience of fellow doctors. Bugs, of course, thinks he's been brought out to perform. He pulls out all the stops, singing, dancing, scatting (ala Danny Kaye) comedy routines (including his impression of Lionel Barrymore), and magic acts. Upon finishing each act, he looks around to see the unimpressed, stern-faced doctors in exactly the same frame position each time ("What a tough audience! It ain't like Saint Joe!"). The scientist attempts to retrieve Bugs but is pushed away. He strikes Bugs with a hammer while the rabbit is in the middle of a scat routine, but Bugs quickly revives and, having failed as the entertainment, becomes a vendor instead, selling hot dogs to the scientists, only to be hammered again. Learning the scientist's intentions, Bugs runs and a chase ensues. Bugs hides in a closet, unaware there was a skeleton in there, and comes out scared. Then he makes a chocolate malt and tries to fool the scientist to think that it is an explosive cocktail which he will use on him by warning him "One more step and I'll blow ya up!", until Bugs reveals the formula consisting of "manganese, phosphorus nitrate, lactic acid and dextrose". Then he hides near an oxygen tent disguised as a Boy Scout. Finally, Bugs is rendered helpless with laughing gas and placed on the table, metallic mind-switching caps on him and the rather uninterested-looking chicken. But at the last minute, he switches the electrodes (though it is revealed at the end that Bugs cut the wire connecting to his electrode instead) and the scientist ends up clucking like a chicken, while the chicken (with the scientist's mind) states in plain English his hope that the experiment can be reversed ("In our next experiment, we will reverse the procedure, I hope."). Bugs tells the audience, "Looks like Doc is a victim of fowl play!".

Production
With production number 1053, this was the first cartoon in the post-1948 package to be produced.

Censorship

 * The ABC version shortened the part near the end where Bugs, the doctor, and the chicken are hooked up to the machine to remove the part where all three of them get an electric shock.

Trivia and Errors

 * Bugs' dancing from this short would later be reused in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Prom-Ise Her Anything".
 * Also when the doctor was going to get Bugs for an experiment notice the doctor's uniform turns blue, then turns blue again.