Rabbit Fire

Rabbit Fire
Lobby card
Directed by	Charles M. Jones
Story by	Michael Maltese
Produced by	Eddie Selzer
Starring	Mel Blanc Arthur Q. Bryan
Music by	Carl W. Stalling
Animation by	Ken Harris Phil Monroe Lloyd Vaughan Ben Washam
Layouts by	Robert Gribbroek
Backgrounds by	Philip de Guard
Color process	Technicolor
Production company	Warner Bros. Cartoons
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date	May 19, 1951 (1951-05-19) (U.S.)
Running time	7:33
Language	English

Rabbit Fire is a 1951 Looney Tunes cartoon starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd.^[1] Directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese,^[2] the cartoon is the first in Jones' "hunting trilogy"—the other two cartoons following it being Rabbit Seasoning and Duck! Rabbit, Duck! It is also the first cartoon to feature a feud between Bugs and Daffy. Produced by Edward Selzer for Warner Bros. Cartoons, the short was released to theaters on May 19, 1951 by Warner Bros. Pictures and is often considered among Jones' best and most important films.

The film marks a significant shift in Daffy's personality, going from being the insane "screwball" character who (like Bugs) overwhelmed his adversaries, to a much more flawed individual, full of greed and vanity and desire for attention under the spotlight. This personality change, which was previously explored by Jones in You Were Never Duckier and Daffy Dilly, and even earlier in Friz Freleng's You Ought to Be in Pictures, was done in order for Daffy to better serve as Bugs' foil. This was fueled by Bugs' popularity surpassing Daffy's quickly over the years, increasing the desire of the studio's animators to pair the two together. Since then, Daffy's earlier screwball personality has been revisited in newer Looney Tunes media such as Looney Tunes Cartoons.