What's Cookin' Doc?

What's Cookin' Doc? is a 1944 Merrie Melodies short directed by Robert Clampett.
== Title ==
The title is a variant of Bugs' catchphrase, "What's up, Doc?" It also hints at one of the scenes in the picture.
== Plot ==
At the Academy Awards presentation, color film footage of various Hollywood scenes (edited from A Star Is Born) lead up to the Big Question of the evening: Who will win "the" Oscar? The film shows the stereotypical red carpet arrivals of stars, as well as a human emcee starting to introduce the Oscar show.
With the shadow of a now-animated emcee continuing to introduce the Oscar, Bugs assures the viewer that "it's in da bag; I'm a cinch to win." Bugs is stunned when the award goes instead to James Cagney (who had actually won in the previous year's ceremony for Warner Bros.' Yankee Doodle Dandy). Shock turns to anger as Bugs declares the results to be "sa-bo-TAH-gee" and demands a recount, this time relying on the audience's feedback on whether Bugs deserves the Oscar or not.
Bugs then tries to make his case by showing clips from his previous cartoons. He hurls a set of film cans off-screen and tells someone named "Smokey" to "roll 'em!" Bugs tells the audience that these are some of his "best scenes." Immediately, a "stag reel" with a title card literally depicting a grinning deer starts to roll, and the startled Bugs quickly yells out to stop it. He chuckled with embarrassment saying, "Eh, wrong picture." before switching to the right film. Then begins clips from Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt", which includes a clip of Hiawatha attempting to "cook" the rabbit as proof of his allegedly superior acting (an inside joke, as the cartoon had actually been nominated for an Oscar and lost).
After the film is shown, Bugs beats a bass drum and parades across the stage with signs such as "Let Bugs Have It" and "Give It To Bugs," and then quickly passes out cigars en masse to the audience. Finally, he pleads with the audience, "What do you say, folks? Do I get it? Or do I get it?" (echoing Fredric March's drunken appeal to the Academy Award banquet audience in A Star Is Born). The emcee asks the audience (in an effected nasal voice), "Shall we give it to him, folks?" and they yell, "Yeh, let's give it to him!" whereupon they shower Bugs with fruits and vegetables, enabling him to briefly do a Carmen Miranda impression, and an ersatz Oscar labeled "booby prize," which is actually a gold-plated rabbit statue. Bugs, pleased at winning it, remarks, "I'll even take youse to bed wit' me every night!" The statue suddenly comes alive and asks in a voice like that of a radio character, The Mad Russian, "Do you mean it?" and smooches the startled bunny and takes on an effeminate, hip-swiveling pose.
== Caricatures ==
*Katharine Hepburn
*Edward G. Robinson
*Jerry Colonna
*Bing Crosby
*Charles Boyer
*Boris Karloff
*Carmen Miranda
*Bert Gordon - "Do ya mean it?"
== Availability ==
Lt bobbaf.jpg|(1985) VHS The Best of Bugs Bunny & Friends
Viddy-Oh! For Kids VHS 1.jpg|(1986) VHS Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals The Best of Bugs Bunny and Friends (with blue borders)
Lt bbss ld.jpg|(1988) LaserDisc Bugs Bunny: Superstar
Lt bbs.jpg|(1988) VHS Bugs Bunny: Superstar
Bugs Bunny Collection VHS 8.jpg|(1990) VHS Bugs Bunny Collection The Very Best of Bugs (VHS, MGM/UA), (with red borders)
Golden Age LT Vol 1.jpg|(1991) LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 1, Side 9: "Hooray for Hollywood" (with red borders)
The golden age of looney tunes vhs 9.jpg|(1992) VHS The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 9: Hooray for Hollywood (with red borders)
LTGC Vol.4.jpg|(2006) DVD Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, Disc 1 (through Bugs Bunny: Superstar 1995 USA and EU Turner print)
Lt clouds.jpg|(2007) DVD Captains of the Clouds (1995 Turner dubbed version)https://www.amazon.com/Captains-Clouds-James-Cagney/dp/B000MTEFWI
Lt academy award animation collection.jpg|(2008) DVD Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection (1995 Turner dubbed version)
BB SS DVD Warner Archive.jpg|(2012) DVD Bugs Bunny: Superstar (new, unrestored transfer)
Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection.jpg|(2020) Blu-ray Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection (restored and HD)
61IRsk7JFYL._SL1000_.jpg|(2022) Blu-ray Captains of the Clouds
=== Streaming===
lt hbo max.jpg|HBO Max (2020 - 2023) (restored)
lt max.jpg|Max (2023 - ) (restored)
== Censorship ==
This cartoon was part of the "Twelve Missing Hares" that were barred from airing on Cartoon Network's June 2001 Bugs marathon since it included a clip from Friz Freleng's "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt", which was also a member of the "Twelve Missing Hares" for featuring a Native American stereotype.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHNTv3oQoE8 As with the other members of the "Twelve Missing Hares" as described in the unreleased ToonHeads episode, it was originally intended to air in the marathon, but was pulled due to executive backlash from AOL Time Warner.
For that time, the cartoon was seldom aired on American television. However, in recent years (due to the Hiawatha scene being a small portion of the cartoon and deemed lighter than the original cartoon), this cartoon has been shown on the Turner-owned networks TBS and TNT in the early 1990s and on Cartoon Network USA on The Bob Clampett Show, The Bugs and Daffy Show, and The Looney Tunes Show compilation show. International Turner-based feeds airs this short on a rather regular basis. It has since aired on MeTV several times completely uncensored as well, making it one of three "Missing Hares" to have aired on the network, with the other two being "Frigid Hare" and "Bushy Hare". The short is also available to stream on Max.
== Notes ==
* The cartoon's premise satirizes Warner Bros. Cartoons' then-failure at the Academy Awards, as at the time the cartoon was produced, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series had previously received seven Academy Award nominations but had yet to win an Academy Award. This is heavily alluded to in the clips from the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt", which was nominated for the Academy Award but lost to the Mickey Mouse cartoon "Lend a Paw" from rival studio Disney. It was not until the release of Friz Freleng's Tweety and Sylvester cartoon "Tweetie Pie" (1947) that the Warner Bros. cartoon studio would later win its first Academy Award after ten nominations.
** Coincidentally, Bugs himself would later officially win an Academy Award in Friz Freleng's "Knighty Knight Bugs" in 1958.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6AipTOMpd0
* By the end of the cartoon, Bugs wins a Booby Prize Oscar, which is a parody of the miniature second-class Oscars awarded to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
** Bugs' possessive nature towards his Booby Prize Oscar displayed at the ending would later be re-enacted in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" right after Babs Bunny uses his Shloscar to rejuvenate Bugs out of his insanity brought in as the result of Sappy Stanley forcing Bugs to watch a marathon of the former's cartoons against the latter's will.
* This cartoon was the first time two Bugs Bunny cartoons were released in theaters after the other. This cartoon was the 2nd of said cartoons, with the first one being the previous cartoon, "Little Red Riding Rabbit".
* This cartoon was used in the documentary Bugs Bunny: Superstar.
* This is the final cartoon to use the 1942–44 red Color Rings.
* The person that Bugs refers to as "Smokey" is Henry Garner who was a cameraman and projectionist for the Leon Schlesinger studio.https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqa06t
* The newspaper which predicted the suicide of Adolf Hitler is the same one from "Tortoise Wins by a Hare" and in the Private Snafu short "Fighting Tools". Coincidentally, Hitler would commit suicide in April 1945.
* A "stag reel" is an old fashioned term for a film of pornographic nature, which was to be watched by single men, or "stags."
* The awards speech that Bugs mocks reveals is for James Cagney, whom in the prior year of 1943 had won the Best Actor Oscar for the film Yankee Doodle Dandy (a film released by Warner Bros. in 1942), and thus was an incumbent Oscar winner at the time of the short's release.
* When Bugs accidentally burped when doing a Bing Crosby impersonation, he literally says "burp" because it was against the Hays Code for films to feature a realistic belching sound. Another instance of this happening is in "Baby Bottleneck", another Bob Clampett cartoon.
* This cartoon was originally slated to be included on the Looney Tunes Super Stars' Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire DVD, but was replaced early in development due to executive backlash from Warner Home Video.https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/whv-announcement-looney-tunes-super-stars.290816/#post-3537991
* This short was the first Looney Tunes short to air on MeTV Toons.
==Gallery==
WhatsCookinDocCredits.png
What's Cookin' Doc Lobby Card.PNG|Lobby card
189399 10150123678533926 223597233925 6375111 7473868 n.jpg|Lobby card
420PC1.png|Production cel
420PC2.png|Production cel
420PD1.png|Production drawing
Bugs-drawing-2.jpg|Production drawing
Sabota-gee-drawing-600.jpg|Production drawing
Bugs-drawing-3-via-Paul-Bussolini-600.jpg|Production drawing
420PD2.png|Production drawing
bugs-booby-prize-oscar-pencil-600.jpg|Production drawing
Whats-Cookin-Doc-draft-600.jpg|Animation draft
Bob-and-Mike-Sasanoff.png|Bob Clampett and Michael Sasanoff seated at a table with a bottle of carrot juice, photographed for animation reference.
2005-04-04 0530am The Bob Clampett Show.png|Taken from the April 4, 2005 airing of The Bob Clampett Show, during the brief time that it aired on Adult Swim.
== References ==
Category:Cartoons directed by Bob Clampett
Category:Bugs Bunny Cartoons
Category:Hollywood in Cartoons
Category:Shorts
Category:1944
Category:Merrie Melodies Shorts
Category:Bugs Bunny: Superstar Cartoons
Category:Cartoons directed by Friz Freleng
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Robert C. Bruce
Category:Cartoons written by Michael Maltese
Category:Cartoons produced by Leon Schlesinger
Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons with music by Carl W. Stalling
Category:Cartoons with orchestrations by Milt Franklyn
Category:Cartoons that reuse footage from earlier cartoons
Category:Cartoons in a.a.p. package
Category:Caricatures of real people