A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

. . . Bugs Bunny was performing aerial stunts as a B-19. That's the upshot of THE HARE-BRAINED HYPNOTIST, a World War Two Era Warner Bros. animated short. Bugs kisses Elmer Fudd once during HARE-BRAINED, while Elmer smooches the friendly rabbit thrice, proving that humans are 200% more likely to be gay than rodents and\or rabbits. (Speaking of mice, the 5-12-16 USA Today editorializes that Disney Megacorp's greed over Mickey Mouse's copyright and its continual bribing of the U.S. Congress makes a mockery of such "protection," resulting in our Capitol Dome becoming an international laughing stock, and putting Western Civilization on the brink of implosion.) Can you imagine if all your favorite things were rotting away because Warner Bros. was Hell-bent upon keeping Elmer Fudd locked up in solitary confinement until our Sun burned out?! I bet that you'd call that pretty Looney Tunes. Yet, as USA Today states, most old movies and shorts are crumbling to dust Today, along with 98% of the World's Great Literature, because everyone's lawyers warn them not to risk Disney's Wrath.

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.

Elmer reads that one can hypnotize "dumb animals" so when he's out hunting one day (and reading the book at the same time), he comes across a bear. Lo and behold - it works! He puts the bear to sleep and has him float around like a canary. He then realizes this is his chance to finally capture the elusive Bugs Bunny.However, Bugs, as well know, is anything but a "dumb animal," and turns the tables on dumb Mr. Fudd. By the way, does Elmer's laugh annoy anyone else out here? It annoys me. This is one guy I don't mind getting the short end of the stick when it comes to Bugs Bunny's mayhem. He's right on when he calls Elmer "a jerk" in this story.The last third of this picture is excellent, however, when Elmer turns into a rabbit and asks Bugs, "What's up, doc?" He then drives Bugs crazy.That's one thing about these cleverly-written cartoons; the smarter Bugs doesn't always prevail, as we see in here.

Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny find themselves as each other thanks to Elmer's faulty attempt to hypnotize Bugs. I found this cartoon to be clever and funny for the most part and the change between the personalities of the two main characters was interesting. I didn't really care for the ending as it just seemed that the powers that be told Friz to wrap it up to keep the length of the short to a lean 7 minutes even and it seemed like a non-ending more than anything else. But overall I did enjoy this one a lot. This animated short can be seen on Disc 1 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2.My Grade: B+