4-F
Draft rating indicating that one was physically unfit for military service. The Wacky Worm warns the audience in Greetings Bait (Freleng, 1943) that those with weak stomachs and 4-F constitutions should not watch his fight with a crab. In Holiday for Shoestrings (Freleng, 1945), a shoe with a fallen arch which is labeled 4-F has its arch fixed, and its classification changed to 1-A (the rating indicating physically fit for military service). The horse in The Draft Horse (Jones, 1942) is rejected by the U.S. Army and is classified as 44-F. Bugs, after surviving a near-death experience in Falling Hare (Clampett, 1943), had a heart pounding in his chest labeled 4F. The little version of Daffy Duck that appears in The Blue Danube sequence of A Corny Concerto (Clampett, 1943) gets rejected by the buzzard with a big 4F sign attached to his rump.
Fantasia
Landmark Disney feature of 1940 which used a series of classical music sequences (the music being directed by Leopold Stokowski [which see]) as the basis for the film, including a sequence with centaurs ( The Pastoral Symphony ). Deems Taylor was the host, giving rather pretentious introductions to the pieces.
Fantasia was something of a target of fun for WB animators. A Corny Concerto (Clampett, 1943) is the biggest spoof of Fantasia, down to the Deems Taylor-like introduction (with a seedy Elmer Fudd) and sequences based on classical music ( Tales From the Vienna Woods and The Blue Danube ). Deems Taylor got the rib again in Pigs in a Polka (Freleng, 1943), with the introduction by the Big Bad Wolf being done in the Taylor style. The Timid Toreador (Clampett/McCabe, 1940) has a gag in which a bull compacts a sarcastic bullfighter into his horse, creating a centaur (this cartoon being released just a month after Fantasia opened).
Fearless Freep
The high-diving actor whose no-show infuriates Yosemite Sam, who forces Bugs to take the place of Freep in High Diving Hare (Freleng, 1949).
Fetchit, Stepin
Character actor of the 1930s who was the archetype for the (offensive, by the standards of today) caricature of the lazy, shiftless Negro. Perhaps mercifully, movies with him in it are rarely shown today.
Fetchit is caricatured in Clean Pastures (Freleng, 1937), as one of the old-fashioned angels, until Heaven gets wise and sends down some hep cats (Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, etc.). One of the Sebben Dwarfs in Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs (Clampett, 1943) also appears to be something of a Stepin Fetchit caricature.
F.H.A.
A still-extant New Deal agency whose purpose was to stimulate the granting of mortgages on homes. Occasionally, WB cartoonists would draw a house with an FHA sign out front, which probably would have struck a responsive chord with Depression-era theatergoers.
Examples include: the log cabin accidentally created by the title character with his plow in The Draft Horse (Jones, 1942), Johnny Smith and Poker-Huntas (Avery, 1938), and the nest built by the bluebirds in Farm Frolics (Clampett, 1941).
Fibber McGee and Molly Long running radio show on NBC starring Jim Jordan as Fibber McGee, a small-town blowhard (with a closet that usually brought forth mountains of junk when opened) and his long-suffering wife Molly (played by Marian Jordan, his real-life wife). Arthur Q. Bryan, the voice of Elmer Fudd, was a supporting player on this show, which also spawned a spinoff based on the Great Gildersleeve character played by Hal Peary.
A number of characters and catch-phrases from this show found their way into WB cartoons, including Taint Funny McGee, I Betcha, Myrt the telephone operator, Gildersleeve, the Old Timer (Taint the way I heerd it, Johnny!) and others.
Fields, W.C. (1880-1946)
Famed vaudeville juggler and comic (he appeared in numerous editions of the Ziegfeld Follies, where he made his pool table routines famous), Fields made a career out of playing various hapless misanthropes in the 1930s. As health problems forced a cutback in movie appearances in the late 1930s, he found a career in radio, playing opposite Charlie McCarthy (the creation of Edgar Bergen) on the Chase and Sanborn radio program. His trademarks were his sonorous voice, his love of highfalutin words (and booze), and his bulbous red nose (the last two being particular targets of jibes by McCarthy).
Fields, and his nose, were used quite often in WB cartoons. At Your Service Madame (Freleng, 1936) features a W.C. Squeals pig character attempting to con a widow pig out of an inheritance, until one of her sons exposes him (note the use by the character of a cane like a pool cue in ringing the door bell). Cracked Ice (Tashlin, 1938) again features Fields as a pig, this time attempting to separate a St. Bernard dog from his hooch, simultaneously fending off barbs from McCarthy (who is alleged to be in the theater audience).
Two Freleng cartoons, Little Blabbermouse and Shop, Look and Listen (both 1940) both utilize a W.C. Fields-like mouse, complete with red nose. At one point in Shop, a robotic card cheat is shot by another robot, triggering the observation from the mouse that, quote, it just goes to show you cant cheat an honest man. From the motion picture of the same name. Plug. Endquote. ( You Cant Cheat an Honest Man was released by Universal in 1939, and starred Fields.)
Briefer Fields bits are seen in Book Revue (Clampett, 1946), Have You Got Any Castles? (Tashlin, 1938, on the cover of So Red the Nose ), Porkys Road Race (Tashlin, 1937, helping out Edna Mae Oliver), A Star is Hatched (Freleng, 1938 twice, once as a traffic cop using his nose as a stop light, and again, using his nose as a studio warning light (he is also seen with McCarthy here), The Coo-coo Nut Grove (Freleng, 1936, with a Kate Hepburn caricature) and The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos (Tashlin, 1937, as W.C. Fieldmouse).
Fifth Column
Term that had its origin in the Spanish Civil War, when , when General Emilio Mola, a pro-Franco (i.e., Nationalist) general boasted that he had four columns of troops marching against Madrid, and a fifth column of sympathizers inside the city itself. The phrase was popularized in the U.S. by Ernest Himingway, who wrote a play enitled Fifth Column about the war.
Aside from the title of Fifth Column Mouse (Freleng, 1943), the phrase is also used in the wolf in sheeps clothing gag in Foney Fables (Freleng, 1942), in a quite appropriate usage. Porky Pig also asks all Fifth Columnists to leave the theatre before a newsreel full of military secrets is shown in Meet John Doughboy (Clampett, 1941).
Flynn, Errol (1909-1959)
Swashbuckling and scandal-plagued hero of numerous WB costumers of the 1930s, including the classic Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) [a clip from which appears at the end of Rabbit Hood (Jones, 1949)], as well as standout films such as The Sea Hawk, The Dawn Patrol and The Charge of the Light Brigade. His trial for statutory rape in 1942 (he was acquitted) damaged his reputation and was generally believed to have spawned the phrase In like Flynn, much to his chagrin.
Flynn is one of the students of Kay Kyser (which see) in Hollywood Steps Out (Avery, 1941). Daffy Duck, when posing as a movie director and conning the studio cop in Hollywood Daffy (Freleng, 1946) asks the cop quote, what has Errol Flynn got that you havent? endquote... followed quickly by an aside to the audience that they were not to answer that. Porky asked Leon Schlesinger what Errol Flynn had that he (Porky) did not in You Ought to be In Pictures (Freleng, 1940). Bugs snaps to the audience at the joust he is participating in in Knights Must Fall (Freleng, 1949), asking rhetorically if they were expecting Flynn (given the appearence of Bugs on a little donkey).
Focke-Wulf
In Scrap Happy Daffy (Tashlin, 1943), Daffy discovers that the goat who has been noshing on his scrap pile is a Nazi (his swastika medallion being a dead giveaway), and indicates to the audience that the goat is a Focke-Wulf in sheeps clothing. Focke-Wulf was a maker of German warplanes during World War II, most notably the deadly FW 190 fighter plane.
Foghorn Leghorn
Loud, I say, LOUD rooster (rooster, that is) that is probably the most lasting legacy of the directorial career of Bob McKimson. While the Foggy cartoons, like the Speedy Gonzales and Hippety Hopper cartoons, eventually fell into a formulaic rut starting in the mid-1950s, the Foghorn Leghorn shorts are much easier to take, mainly because of his boisterous high spirits and constant asides the audience regarding the shortcomings of his opponents, not to mention the indignities he inflicts on the hapless dog that is usually the butt of his practical jokes. It is enjoyable, usually, to see Foggy get his comeuppance at the hands of Miss Prissy or the eternally tortured barnyard dog, but on the rare occasions on which Foggy wins (e.g. Crowing Pains , 1947), it is equally enjoyable.
McKimson is on record as citing a sheriff character from the 1930s radio show Blue Monday Jamboree as the source for Foggy. However, given the southern nature of the character and his habit of bellowing thats a joke, son it is clear that the character was inspired by the immortal figure of Senator Claghorn, the equally blustery southern senator played by Kenny Delmar on the Fred Allen radio show in the 1940s. (Compare the clear Claghorn caricature in Rebel Rabbit , directed by McKimson in 1949, with Foggy and note the similarities.) For his part, Mel Blanc stated the he based the character on a hard of hearing sheriff from an old vaudeville routine. Cartoon voice expert Keith Scott, for his part, has made a persuasive case that Jack Clifford actually created this kind of a voice for programs for KFWB (q.v.) in the early 1930s, and argues that both Delmar and Blanc were familiar with this character.
His debut in Walky Talky Hawky (1946) netted McKimson one of his only two Oscar nominations.
Fontaine, Frank
Contemporary of Jerry Lewis famed for playing dimwits. The character of Pete Puma ( Rabbits Kin McKimson, 1952) is largely a Fontaine take-off.
Foo
All-purpose nonsense word created by Bill Holman for his manic comic strip Smokey Stover . A single Sunday panel from September, 1938 uses the word no less than *ten* times in different contexts. Needless to say, this nonsense did not escape the eye of Bob Clampett, who used the word twice, once in The Daffy Doc (1938) in the series of signs Daffy uses to get silence (Silence is Foo!), and again in Porky in Wackland (1938) on a sign. Pity that none of the other nonsense phrases from the strip, viz. Notary Sojac and 1506 Nix Nix, ever made it. (It also makes an appearence in The Isle of Pingo Pongo (Avery, 1939), on the microphone the Fats Waller-like native sings into.
Foray, June (fl. 1998)
Talented vocal actress who has played numerous female voices at WB, most prominently Granny (which, indeed, she still does for The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries on the WB Network), Witch Hazel and the Alice mouse in the Honeymousers cartoons. Foray also provided the voice for Rocket J. Squirrel on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and for witch characters not dissimilar to Witch Hazel for other studios.
Forward March Hare
1953 Jones cartoon starring an unusually stupid Bugs Bunny who gets inducted into the Army (in place of his neighbor, B. Bonny). A sergeant (very like the one bully construction worker in Homeless Hare (Jones, 1950)) upon learning the name of the new recruit, makes a sarcastic reference to himself as Sgt. Porky Pig, only to be topped by a colonel who refers to himself as Col. Puddy Tat and also refers to a General Tweety Pie.
Foster, Warren
One of the principal writers at WB from the thirties (he had previously worked at the Fleischer studio) clear into the early 1960s, Foster played a major role in shaping a number of characters at the studio through his work with Bob McKimson and especially through his long association in the 1950s with Friz Freleng. Foster was responsible for writing the vast majority of the Sylvester vs. Tweety cartoons that Freleng directed. The departure of Foster and Maltese to Hanna-Barbera in the early 1960s (Foster worked on The Jetsons and The Flintstones marked an end to an era of writing at WB, and heralded the ultimate demise of the classic era production.
A billboard in Nothing But The Tooth (Davis, 1948) shows that it was placed by the firm of Warren & Foster.
Four Blackbirds
Close harmony group who was responsible for the mimicry of Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Cab Calloway in Clean Pastures (Freleng, 1937).
Fox Pop
Jones cartoon of 1942 involving a fox that tries to sell himself to a fox fur farm. The title is likely a parody of the contemporary radio interview show Vox Pop.
Foxy
A blatant rip-off of Mickey Mouse (essentially redrawn with pointy ears and a bushy tail), this character was deservedly short-lived. Had a Bosko-like voice.
Filmography:
Frank Cluck Expedition
In The Lyin Mouse (Freleng, 1937), the lion is captured by a device labeled as belonging to the Frank Cluck Expedition. This is likely a reference to Frank Buck, the famous Bring Em Back Alive hunter of that era.
Franklyn, Milt
For many years, Franklyn was the assistant to Carl Stalling, writing the arrangements for the scores that Stalling wrote. Based on the recent releases of CDs in the Carl Stalling Project series, Franklyn also seems to have conducted many of the sessions with the musicians in the Warner Brothers Orchestra as well. Franklyn received some solo credits starting in the mid-1950s ( Bugs and Thugs from 1954 being an early example). In the mid-to-late 1950s, Stalling and Franklyn shared the musical direction credit on a number of occasions, and Franklyn occasionally received arrangement credit. When Stalling retired, Franklyn succeeded him as musical director, his first solo efforts appearing in 1958. However, Franklyn died rather suddenly in 1962. His successor, Bill Lava, did not prove to be as imaginative (examine The Jet Cage from 1962, when one half is Franklyn and one half Lava).
Most critics agree that Franklyn was the logical successor as musical director to Stalling, and while his scores are not as original and witty as Stalling's, they are generally well done. (The author takes the position that his best jobs were for Whats Opera, Doc? (Jones, 1958) and High Note (Jones, 1960).) Richard Stone, the current musical director for WB animation, has made deliberate efforts to recapture the Stalling/Franklyn style.
Freberg, Stan (fl. 1997)
Voice actor who had a popular following in the 1950s with a witty and satirical radio program, one of the last of the great radio programs. Freberg made numerous records, including a biting satire of the notorious Red-baiter Joseph McCarthy.
At WB, Freberg had three continuing roles, that of Baby Bear (aka Junior or Junyer Bear), Hubie the Mouse (opposite Bertie, voiced by Mel Blanc), and, along with Mel Blanc, as one of the Goofy Gophers. (It is the my opinion that Freberg played the Gopher with the fruitier, lower-pitched voice, rather than the gopher with the higher-pitched voice. The latter gopher has the same voice as the little skunk who taunts Yosemite Sam in Bugs Bunny Rides Again (Freleng, 1948), which leads me to believe both characters were voiced by Blanc.) Freberg also voiced Pete Puma, and reprised the voice for a new theatrical release in 1997.
Fred MacFurry
Caricature of Fred MacMurray as a bear in The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos (Tashlin, 1937).
Freleng Door Gag
A gag relying on exquisite timing, where one character chases another character, the prey usually ducking in and out of doors at a dizzying pace while the pursuer attempts to follow the character. Freleng used this gag to great effect in Little Red Riding Rabbit (1944) and Buccaneer Bunny (1948).
Freleng, Isadore (Friz) (1906-1995)
One of the giants of not just WB animation, but animation in general, Friz Freleng had connections with the WB studio for over 60 years, and directed nearly 300 cartoons, four of which won Academy Awards, more than any other WB director. Even other giants of WB animation, such as Chuck Jones, have acknowledged his influence and reputation.
Like Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney, Carl Stalling and Bugs Hardaway, Freleng was a Kansas City native. Freleng originally started out at Kansas City Film Ad in the early 1920s, the studio that also employed Iwerks and Disney. Freleng came out west to California to join Walt Disney in 1927, replacing Ham Hamilton, who left Disney in late 1926. (Hamilton and Freleng would work together at Disney again in 1928, when Hamilton returned, and at WB in the early 30s). This was actually his first experience in a professional animation studio, and Freleng was mentored by Iwerks, who taught Freleng some of the fundamental of working with characters and objects, like tanks. Freleng caught on rapidly, and some of his work on Alices Picnic (a 1927 Alice in Cartoonland short) marks the primitive beginnings of personality animation, in a scene showing a little kitten climbing out of a wash tub, one of the first efforts to distinguish cartoon characters from one another (a concept that would first bear full fruit in the 1933 Disney short The Three Little Pigs ). Freleng would continue to work on the early Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons in 1927-1928, and in fact headed one of the two Disney units, along with Ub Iwerks.
Freleng was one of the group that left Disney in 1928, recruited away by Oswald producer Charles Mintz. Freleng worked on a number of cartoons in the Krazy Kat series before being recruited by ex-Disney colleagues Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising to join them in a new studio formed with Leon Schlesinger to produce cartoons for Warner Brothers (Harman and Ising have produced and sold a pilot to WB in 1929, on which Freleng had done some work). Freleng is one of the credited animators on the first WB cartoon, Sinkin in the Bathtub (1930). Freleng would continue to animate until 1933, when Harman and Ising left the studio in a money dispute with Schlesinger. Freleng was promoted to director, a status that he would never relinquish.
Most of his cartoons in the 30s were in the color Merrie Melodies series, and thus were mostly musicals. In one of these I Havent Got A Hat (1935), a primitive Porky Pig, based loosely on a Freleng childhood chum (and on some suggestions from Bob Clampett in part), made an appearance. By WB standards of the time, his cartoons were fairly sophisticated, and certainly Freleng was the number one director at the studio.
Freleng was lured to MGM in 1937 by the promise of a higher salary and bigger budgets for cartoons. However, his tenure was not successful, mainly because he was forced to make cartoons based on the comic strip The Captain and the Kids, which proved to be unsuccessful commercially (though the cartoons themselves are modestly funny). The principal legacy Freleng left was his influence on two up and coming young directors at MGM, Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
Freleng returned to WB in 1939, and it is clear that his style had improved immeasurably during his absence from the studio. Aside from playing a key role in the early development of Bugs Bunny with cartoons like Fresh Hare and The Hare-Brained Hypnotist (both 1942), Freleng directed one of his first real masterpieces, Rhapsody in Rivets (1941), a silent cartoon relying solely on the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Lizst, and construction work set to this music, to summon forth the laughs. One of two Freleng cartoons nominated that year for an Oscar (the other being Hiawathas Rabbit Hunt), this cartoon would foreshadow such great musical cartoons as Pigs in a Polka (another nominated cartoon, in 1943), and what in the my opinion is his ultimate masterpiece, Rhapsody Rabbit , another nearly silent cartoon that relies on Liszt, and is coupled with some of the most beautiful and colorful animation to appear in a WB cartoon.
(Freleng, by a fluke of fate, was probably robbed of an Oscar for this cartoon. Technicolor delivered footage from this cartoon to MGM, where Hanna and Barbera were working on a similar cartoon, The Cat Concerto. Seeing that Freleng was ahead of them, MGM rushed work on the cartoon and got it qualified for contention in 1946, the same year as Rhapsody Rabbit, even though the MGM cartoon would not go into general release until 1947. During the nomination process, The Cat Concerto was shown right before Rhapsody Rabbit, leading Freleng to surmise that voters thought he had copied MGM. The Cat Concerto would go on to win the Oscar.)
Freleng would successfully battle the successor to Leon Schlesinger, the feckless Eddie Selzer, to produce cartoons starring Tweety (inherited from Bob Clampett) in the way Freleng wanted it. As usual, the artist was right, and Selzer was wrong, as Tweetie Pie proved to be a big hit, winning Freleng his first Oscar (though Selzer, as producer, got to accept and keep the Oscar.) This would be the start of a long string of cartoons co-starring a Freleng creation, Sylvester, and a series that would win another Oscar (for Birds Anonymous in 1957), as well as other nominations. Freleng also introduced around this time an explosive little character who seemingly shared his red hair, small size and explosive temper, Yosemite Sam. Freleng, who was bored with Fudd, created Sam to provide a challenge to Bugs, and in a long series of cartoons, Sam proved indeed to be a challenge (although an unsuccessful one)Êto Bugs, culminating in another Oscar for Freleng, for the classic Knighty Knight Bugs (1958). Freleng would adapt Speedy Gonzales (created by Bob McKimson), refine the character into its final form in Speedy Gonzales,Ó (1955) and win anther Oscar for his WB work.
It is his mastery of razor-sharp timing that probably cements his reputation as a great director. A cartoon like High Diving Hare (1949) has only one joke: Sam gets Bugs to go up a ladder to perform a high dive, and Bugs tricks Sam to take the dive instead. It is his ability to time the repetition of these gags, particularly in a sequence where we see only Sam going up a ladder, a pause, and then Sam going down to a dive to splash off-screen, that really makes the cartoon work. Canned Feud (1951) is yet another example of Freleng using timing and silent-era pantomime acting to brilliantly put a cartoon across. Still another example is the Private Snafu short ÒPay DayÓ (1944), which is almost completely without dialogue, but puts across the message (the folly of not saving money) with clarity and punch.
With the closure of the WB studio in the early 60s, Freleng would form an alliance with Dave Depatie to create the Pink Panther series (for which Freleng won a fifth Oscar, for The Pink Phink (1964)). Freleng would produce, though not direct, cartoons for WB in the mid-1960s, as well as other cartoons for television. Freleng would return to WB in 1980 to direct television specials and various compilation features.
To summarize, let us quote Chuck Jones, who said this when Freleng passed away:
He was a giant in my best estimation, and it is hard to recognize a giant in your midst when he is only 5-foot-4. He was quite conceivably the best short-subject animation editor who ever lived.
Freleng received story credit for the following cartoons that he directed:
The nickname Friz is said, in some accounts, to have derived from a fictional congressman Frizby used in a column in the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper.
An exceptional Freleng caricature is seen in Hasty Hare (Jones, 1952), where he is caricatured as I. Frisby, the head of the Shalomar Observatory. (It would be interesting to know if a threat to quit to take up turkey farming was a longstanding Freleng joke.) Freleng can also be seen as one of the gremlins in Russian Rhapsody (Clampett, 1944), likely the little green gremlin with a saw for a nose. Freleng is also mentioned in the rant by Hitler at the start of the cartoon.
In the years before nicknames were allowed in the credits of WB cartoons, often one could detect the use of the word Friz in the background paintings in various Freleng cartoons. One can be seen, for example, on the billboard (Hotel Friz) passed by the speeding cars at the start of Racketeer Rabbit (Freleng, 1946). Friz is one of the names carved on the door jamb Bugs is leaning against in Bugs Bunny Rides Again (Freleng, 1948), and on a soda can seen in that I Taw a Putty Tat (1948). Friz- Americas Favorite Gelatin Dessert is seen on a crate in Putty Tat Twouble (Freleng, 1951), along with a portrait. Frizby is one of the dogs listed in Boskos Big Race (Harman/Ising, 1932).
Frisky or Frisky Puppy
Sweet, innocent and maniaclly hyperactive puppy that is the bane of the existence of Claude Cat in a trio of first rate Chuck Jones cartoons, Twos a Crowd (1950), Terrier Stricken (1952, and featuring great Ken Harris animation), and No Barking (1954, with yet more great Ken Harris animation).
Fudd, Elmer J.
The arch-patsy of Bugs Bunny (the J is only used in one cartoon, in the famous sequence in Hare Brush (Freleng, 1955), where the shrink gets Bugs to repeat endlessly quote, I am Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire; I own a mansion and a yacht, endquote) in dozens of cartoons, usually, but not always, in the role of hunter versus prey. Two of the finest Chuck Jones cartoons, The Rabbit of Seville and Whats Opera, Doc? (1950 and 1957), play on this relationship with outstanding results.
Fudd evolved from Egghead, a character created by Tex Avery and used in a number of late 1930s cartoons. The evolution is clear, based on the fact that 1) Egghead did appear as a hunter in one film ( Daffy Duck and Egghead (Avery, 1938)); 2) was identified as Elmer Fudd in A Feud There Was (Avery, 1938); and 3) was identified as Elmer on at least one lobby card for The Isle of Pingo-Pongo (Avery, 1938), as is shown in the first volume autobiography of Chuck Jones.
By the time of Elmers Candid Camera (Jones, 1940), Egghead had been redesigned, keeping the bulbous nose, stiff collar, and derby used in Little Red Walking Hood (Avery, 1937). (A model sheet from Little Red Walking Hood reprinted in Schneider at pg. 165 shows check marks next to these features placed there by Tex Avery and Bob Clampett during this redesigning process.) Importantly, Arthur Q. Bryan began to provide the recognizable lisping voice for the character. The author would argue that Elmers Candid Camera is a better candidate for the debut of Fudd debut than the later A Wild Hare (Avery, 1940); Adamson, in Fifty Years argues that A Wild Hare is the cartoon where Elmer is truly born and fully fleshed out. The only real difference between the two cartoons is that in the later cartoon, Elmer is given hunting clothes and a rifle, instead of a camera, to hunt Bugs.
His appearance still underwent some tinkering in 1941 and 1942, with Wabbit Twouble (Clampett, 1941), Any Bonds Today? (War Bond short directed by Clampett, 1942), The Wabbit Who Came to Supper (Freleng, 1942), and The Wacky Wabbit (Clampett, 1942) using a stockier, plumper Fudd more closely resembling Arthur Bryan. Starting with Fresh Hare (Freleng, 1942), Fudd returned to a version a little closer to what passes for normal.
Friz Freleng has described Fudd as not being really a villain, but more of a pitiful character. Freleng stated that there was no credit to a guy who could outsmart Elmer Fudd. (This is part of the reason Freleng developed Yosemite Sam as a foil for Bugs.) But his simpy charm enabled the character to adapt with the years, and continue to be used with great effectiveness, particularly as the hero (?) in Whats Opera, Doc? , the waiter in Slick Hare (Freleng, 1947), or in the so called Hunter's Trilogy directed by Jones in 1951-1953. Clampett used Fudd in a sharp spoof of both Deems Taylor and, seemingly, Emmett Kelly, in the Fantasia spoof A Corny Concerto (1943). On occasion, Fudd was even able to turn the tables on Bugs and get the better of him, as in The Hare-Brained Hypnotist (Freleng, 1942), or Hare Brush .