Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas is a 2004 Looney Tunes short directed by Peter Shin and Bill Kopp.
Title[]
The title is a play on Hunter S. Thompson's book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and its film adaptation.
Plot[]
Bugs is living in his rabbit hole just outside of Las Vegas, when Yosemite Sam builds a casino over it. Being given the option to gamble or get out, Bugs tries his luck. At every game he plays, including blackjack, roulette, and slots, he seemingly cannot lose, much to Sam's consternation. By the time he leaves with a sum total of $8,042,123,297.55, plus more after using Sam as a slot machine, Sam is down to his last quarter. He reprimands a group of people he believes to be cheaters, telling them that lucky medals, four leaf clovers, horse shoes, or rabbit's feet are not allowed, and realizes he's been "duped" by Bugs.
Bugs has meanwhile used his new found riches to buy a luxury hotel suite. Sam follows him shooting, and Bugs quickly wins a prize car to outrace him; Sam meanwhile drives a giant boat, complete with cannons. The two race out of Las Vegas, turning the French flag on the Eiffel Tower into a white flag, all the way to Hoover Dam. There is a conveniently placed slot machine, which Sam uses his last quarter to play. He "wins" and the screen reads H2O, causing the dam to burst.
Sam phones Bugs, who is atop the now empty dam, to tell him, "I hate you, rabbit." Porky says, "That's all folks!"
Availability[]
Looney Tunes Back in Action Bonus Disc (Australia only)
The Essential Bugs Bunny, Disc 2
Looney Tunes Back in Action
Looney Tunes: Parodies Collection
Streaming[]
Notes[]
- This short was intended to be released theatrically with The Polar Express, but due to the financial failure of Looney Tunes Back in Action, it received a direct-to-video release as part of the Australian DVD edition of Back in Action (from which Sam reprises his role as a casino owner).
- Its first official American release was in 2010 on The Essential Bugs Bunny DVD.
- During a December 31, 2023 marathon of final episodes on Boomerang, this short made its network debut.
- This is the third Looney Tunes entry to be set in Las Vegas, the first two being Tweety's High Flying Adventure and Looney Tunes Back in Action.
- Billy West and Maurice LaMarche are credited in this short even though none of their voice work is heard in the short. This likely meant that the two of them were originally cast as Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam respectively before they were replaced by Joe Alaskey and Jeff Bennett who voiced the aforementioned characters in Back in Action.