Stage Door Cartoon

Stage Door Cartoon is a 1944 Warner Bros. cartoon in the Merrie Melodies series, directed by Friz Freleng and featuring Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and a predecessor to Yosemite Sam. The voices for Bugs and the proto-Sam are provided by Mel Blanc (who, by that year, had come to receive his exclusive voice credit), except for Elmer, who is voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan (as usual, uncredited). The cartoon's title is a parody of the 1943 musical film Stage Door Canteen.

Plot
Elmer Fudd starts attempting to catch Bugs with a carrot on a fish hook, who turns the tables on Elmer by attaching the hook to his pants and "reeling" him in. As Elmer gets riled, Bugs then throws Elmer back for being too small and ends up getting chased to a Vaudeville theater. Bugs disguises himself as a can-can dancer, but Elmer sees through the disguise during the bow. Bugs then does his tap-dance routine, one of his recurring schticks. When Elmer tries to ambush Bugs with the piano, Bugs ends up playing the piano up to the point where Elmer is launched from the piano.

He then tricks the shy Elmer onto the stage, forcing him into performing a high-diving act. This ends up being a high-diving act into a glass of water.

Then, he prompts Elmer in a Shakespearean outfit through some classic acting emotive poses, seguéing into face-making, which draws a ripe tomato in the face from the jeering crowd. Then he tricks Elmer into doing a "striptease" down to his boxers (while "If I Could Be with You (One Hour Tonight)" plays on the underscore).

Finally, Bugs disguises himself as a southern sheriff, just as a real one (as revealed as prototype Yosemite Sam by later events) arrests Elmer for "indecent southern exposure". Before leaving the theater, a Bugs Bunny cartoon begins on the movie screen and the sheriff decides to stay and watch it. Elmer appears to get wise when the cartoon shows the scene where Bugs disguises himself as the sheriff. Elmer, thinking the sheriff is really Bugs, calls the sheriff an "impostor" and pulls off his clothes but finds out, to his surprise, he was really sitting next to the real sheriff. The furious sheriff proceeds to lead Elmer out of the theater with his shotgun ("You'll swing for this, sir!"). The last scene shows Bugs conducting the orchestra (wearing a similar black outfit as the sheriff) into a big finale.

Availability

 * DVD - Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2, Disc Four