TheLittleSongbird
As an avid Looney Tunes fan, this was throughly enjoyable and clever. While perhaps a tad too short with an abrupt ending, The Hare-Brained Hypnotist was simply great fun.The animation is really good, with beautiful crisp backgrounds and lavish colouring. The music is wonderful too, from the haunting opening credits from the rousing and playful motifs that crops up every now and again, it is a mighty fine orchestral score. The story is pretty dark in tone in comparison to other Looney Tunes cartoons, but has enough amusing moments, thanks to some funny, witty dialogue typical Looney Tunes fashion and some clever sight gags. Bugs is a lot of fun yet again and Elmer is a great foil, and both characters are superbly voiced by Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan.Overall, very clever and fun. 9/10 Bethany Cox
Michael_Elliott
Hare-Brained Hypnotist, The (1942) *** (out of 4) Nice short has Elmer Fudd trying to use hypnotism to capture Bugs Bunny but the plan backfires. Elmer does get some sweet justice when Bugs turns him into the rabbit and he finally gets to harass Bugs. This early Bugs Bunny short manages to have some pretty good laughs and I've always enjoyed the animation from this period. There are many good sequences but there's no doubt that the best one is at the end when Elmer thinks he's the rabbit and gets to mess around with Bugs by giving him some of his own medicine. The movie is a minor classic but there were certainly better shorts out there.
phantom_tollbooth
Friz Freleng's 'The Hare-Brained Hypnotist' is an ingenious and very funny cartoon which plays with the normal conventions of a Bugs and Elmer cartoon. This was a brave concept considering how early in Bugs' career this film was made but his impact was so instant that the Bugs/Elmer dynamic was already well enough established with audiences for this experimental take on it to work. Elmer Fudd takes up hypnotism as a way of overpowering woodland animals. With a view to using it on Bugs, he pursues the rabbit but cannot get him to cooperate long enough to hypnotise him. This sequence sets out the normal occurrences of a Bugs and Elmer picture for anyone who may be unfamiliar with them. However, when Bugs hypnotises Elmer into thinking he's a rabbit, Elmer takes on the characteristics of Bugs and begins heckling right back, forcing Bugs into the Elmer role. It's an unexpected and brilliantly executed twist which makes for a fascinating role-reversal based second half. One of the rare cartoons where Bugs ends up as the fall guy, 'The Hare-Brained Hypnotist' is a refreshing experience as Elmer finally gets some payback. The slightly too bizarre ending does not detract from how brilliantly Freleng has pulled off a potentially very complex film.
Lee Eisenberg
We've probably all been warned not to hypnotize people, as it could have a dangerous outcome. Well, after watching "The Hare-Brained Hypnotist", you just might want to hypnotize someone. This cartoon has Elmer Fudd trying to catch Bugs Bunny by hypnotizing him, only to have everything go a little haywire. I partly agree with a previous reviewer that the ending seemed like a little bit of a cop-out, but on the other hand, a cartoon couldn't really go on for too long or it would get tiresome.So anyway, it may not be the best cartoon ever produced by the Friz Freleng crowd, but it's still very fun to watch. Ready to hypnotize anyone?
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