Studio: Leon Schlesinger Productions (Merrie Melodies)
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures, The Vitaphone Corporation
Produced by: Leon Schlesinger
Short Synopsis
The Two Curious Puppies, a large slow dog and a small quick one, are chased by a dog catcher and take refuge in the house of Sham-Fu the magician, who is away and has left his rabbit to guard the place. The small puppy goes through a door that vanishes behind him; the large one meets the rabbit, who runs through his magic tricks, slamming a vase over the dog, clipping his nose with a lobster, emerging from another vase, taunting him with a toy gun, turning into a tree whose fruit tickles him, and planting a kiss on him before disappearing. The small puppy, meanwhile, is beaten up by an Indian rope trick. The two dogs join forces against the rabbit, who keeps vanishing and reappearing, and are finally chased out of the house as confused as they came in.
Why It Matters
- It is the second appearance of the proto-Bugs Bunny, here a silent white rabbit whose only motive is mischief, and Jones, in his first year as a director, makes him a creature of pure malice, kissing his victims and vanishing, in the slow, Disney-like style Jones was then working in; the Curious Puppies were his own first characters. Seen beside A Wild Hare it shows how much the rabbit still had to learn.
- The film is in the public domain through non-renewal, which is why it is often shown as an early Bugs curiosity, though Bugs is not yet Bugs. The original titles were lost in a 1949 Blue Ribbon reissue, so the credits above come from studio records.
Notes and Trivia
- Sham-Fu's name is a pun on Fu Manchu; the magician himself never appears.
- Rudy Larriva, the credited animator, later directed Road Runner cartoons in the 1960s.
- See also: Porky's Hare Hunt (1938), Hare-um Scare-um (1939), Elmer's Candid Camera (1940).
