By Bunny Rogers
Looney Tunes, ‘A Witch's Tangled Hare’, 1959. Courtesy the artist
As part of an ongoing series, Bunny Rogers presents a series of images that are important to her. A new image will be posted every day this week.
The Bugs Bunny soup trope
Bugs Bunny is a highly sought after and presumably delicious animal. He has a great personality, can make light of any situation, is lean and supple, and knows when to show vulnerability.
One of the most popular ways in which predators attempt to catch Bugs is to trick him into thinking he’s taking a bath, when he is actually in a hot soup-pot. The whole process of Bugs testing the water, sinking into the ‘tub’, enjoying himself, sometimes washing himself, slowly realizing the water is getting hotter and hotter and then taking in the appetizing smell is the closest we come to seeing him get fucked on screen.
Episodes in which Bugs Bunny gets in a soup pot:
‘Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt’ (1941)
‘Wackiki Wabbit’ (1943)
‘What’s Cookin’ Doc?’ (1943)
‘Hare Tonic’ (1945)
‘Which is Witch?’ (1949)
‘French Rarebit’ (1951)
‘Bewitched Bunny’ (1954)
‘Bedevilled Rabbit’ (1957)
‘A Witch’s Tangled Hare’ (1959)
‘Shishkabugs’ (1962)
‘Bill of Hare’ (1962)
(Side note: in My Little Pony, season 3, episode 13, ‘Magical Mystery Cure’, Rainbow Dash is tied up and put into a cauldron for stew.)
Peter Pan, 1953
A seagull lands on Hook’s hot-toweled face as if to roost. Mr. Smee accidentally prepares and shaves the seagull’s bottom instead of Hook’s face. The seagull appears mortified and tries to hide its nakedness as it flies away.
Felicity pulls a magic ribbon from her bracelet to replace Lisa’s broken shoelace
Wee Sing in the Big Rock Candy Mountains, 1991
The ‘Big Rock Candy Mountains’ are the fully realized dreamscape of a fourth-grader named Lisa. The gatekeepers are interactive, living stuffed toys (plushies) who direct Lisa to keep doing what she’s doing, only different.
Not through the power of believing ‘hard enough’, but through activating internally understood secret codes does Lisa find an escape route from her stationary backyard playset to something much more elaborate. The mountains are a physical backdrop befitting all of her best friends and all of her favourite things: a land where ‘you never change your socks’. It is Lisa’s self-reflexive world, nourished by self-replenishing bushes and endless sun.
Big Rock’s Lisa (‘Sad Lisa’; ‘Lisa Bright and Dark’) proves that private domains and imaginary friends are indistinguishable from their real world counterparts, and can be visited with the slight twist of a dial.