This is a Bugs and Elmer short from Warner Brothers. There will be spoilers ahead:This is one of my favorite Bugs cartoons. Elmer is bemoaning his lack of success at capturing or shooting bugs when an ethereal voice tells him to be patient and takes him forward across the decades to the far off year...2000! In addition to learning that Bing Crosby's horse still hasn't come in and that there's such a thing as "Smell-o-vision" in 2000, Elmer also finds he has a space age, Buck Rogers type of weapon. He sees an elderly Bugs who's basically Bugs with a grey beard and that durn lumbago. He irks Elmer and the "runs", but is blasted by Elmer.The "dying" Bugs begins to take Elmer down memory lane, where we see them as kids, though still very much in character. Age-appropriate gags take place which leave Elmer empty handed and we go back to the future, where Bugs is digging a grave. Things don't work out for Elmer any more in the end than they generally go, with a classic ending.This short is on multiple DVD/Blu Ray discs and is well worth looking for. Most recommended.

I absolutely love The Old Grey Hare. While one or two parts do take a little too long to build up, this cartoon is still one of Bob Clampett's best, and when he is good, he is great. The animation is excellent. The colours are plentiful and very beautiful to look at, the backgrounds are both simple and imaginative and the character designs are convincing, particularly with Bugs. The music is energetic and rousing, exactly how I like it to be, with the use of the Light Calvary Overture nicely judged. Actually some of the gags work so well because of the music come to think of it, in particular the one with the tuba.The concept here is an interesting one, when Elmer goes into the future and Bugs reminisces about babyhood. I was intrigued about how it would turn out, and it did turn out wonderfully. The story was well-paced more at the end than the beginning, carefully structured and maintained its freshness throughout. The Old Grey Hare also excelled in its humour, and I was surprised at how much there was for such a short running time. The sight gags are very funny, and the dialogue is witty and also has an element of cuteness without being too cloying. And the climax was both haunting and clever.Elmer and Bugs work very well together. Elmer does have a persona of being dim-witted and somewhat naive, and while this persona is apparent what I liked especially about Elmer here was that the writers decided to give him a bit of pathos which gave a poignant air to the proceedings. Bugs as usual is great, rascally, smart, arrogant yet very likable and also here I thought he was quite cute especially as a baby. I can not write without mentioning Mel Blanc. He adds such a lot to these cartoons, and as always he is superb. Same with Arthur Q. Bryan, whose voice work makes Elmer even more endearing.Overall, a wonderful cartoon, and one of Clampett's best. 10/10 Bethany Cox

CONTAINS A SOURCE OF QUOTATION - This episode of Bugs and Elmer's running fight has been released as a Bugs Bunny Special in the Merrie Melodies Series on October 28, 1944. The Old Grey Hare legendarily extends Bugs and Elmer's endless conflict into a lifelong adventure. We're first introduced to Gran'Pappy Bugs and Old Man Fudd in the year 2000, then to Baby Bugs and Baby Elmer both crawling whilst wearing diapers in Gran'Pappy Bugs's memory. Neither Bugs nor Elmer ever once appears in their usual form.-(1)It's all part of Bob Clampett's general technique of piling absurdity atop absurdity, in what is one of his greatest Bugs Bunny cartoon. It's his ability to stretch the character, the extremity of the age range provided by this single cartoon being all Bugs really needs to give us a full perspective on his being, a sense of his living a total life. Even in old age, we learn, Bugs is more active and spry than most teenagers. It's also part of a general pattern of formula reversal that had been at work since 'The Hare-Brained Hypnotist' in 1942, providing turnabouts, parodies, off-the-wall interpolations, unlikely variations on any established theme; whatever it took to avoid staleness and redundancy(1). - When put in a logical time line, this episode can be considered as being the last of Elmer and Bugs Bunny series; though it was belong to the earlier episodes practically.Personally I find Old Grey Hare somewhat scary. From my childhood memory, I remember that one time in Disney's Duck Tales, the elderly Donald Duck 'Scrooge McDuck' was going forward to his future in a nightmare. Also, in Alvin's Future episode from 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' Alvin was having incubuses of himself becoming poor, becoming extremely fat and getting old. Those 3 were the scariest cartoons I ever watched. What makes Old Grey Hare scary is especially the final scene, in which Elmer buries himself alive into the grave Bugs has dug for him; and we go into the grave with him. The framing look of his grave when he's in it, and the aspect of the sky underground was beyond belief! For anybody from all ages The Old Grey Hare is a must-see.(1): Fifty Years and Only One Grey Hare(1990) by Joe Adamson, pg:132, Henry Holt and Company New York

Wow, this was a strange feeling to watch this cartoon near the end of 2007. The animated short was made almost 65 years ago and deals with Elmer Fudd being transported by God to the future: the year 2000, which probably seemed far, far away to audiences in the theater back then. Now, here we are almost another decade later.Anyway, Elmer suddenly finds himself "all winkled" and "gway," still in his hunter's outfit and sitting under a tree. He sees a newspaper headline that claims "Smellovision Replaces Television." Hey, I've seen today's programs and that prediction has pretty much come true!Even better is when Bugs pops out of his hole nearby and has a white goatee - hey, he's in style!!! Who knew back in 1944? "What's up, prune face?" he asks old-man Elmer.Bugs may need a cane to walk with his bad hip and limp, but he's still a wise-guy. Mel Blanc voicing Bugs as an old man is a hoot, too.Time is reversed in the second half of the cartoon when Bugs - supposedly on his death bed - relives old times with Elmer, beginning when the latter was baby crawling along the ground with diapers and a popgun, looking for "Bugsy."