Hare-um Scare-um - Lost Ending

Lost Ending

There had been speculation about the real ending of this cartoon. While the version shown on television ends abruptly after the rabbits appear following the hunter threatening to beat up the wacky rabbit and his entire family, there are actually two endings that were said to exist (but, due to a recent discovery, the two long-standing rumors of how this cartoon ended have been debunked ):

• One "lost" ending supposedly showed the rabbits attacking the hunter, followed by an iris-out as the cartoon cloud of hostility rages.
• The other "lost" ending supposedly showed the rabbits attacking the hunter and his dog and, once the smoke clears, the viewer sees that the hunter and his dog have been reduced to heads and the heads roll off into the sunset.

On April 27, 2009, animation historian David Gerstein posted a report on his blog that he finally revealed the true ending to this cartoon: the rabbits attack the hunter in a cartoon smoke cloud and then run away. The smoke clears up to show the hunter disheveled (his head is intact). The rabbit returns to give the hunter his busted rifle saying "You oughtta get that fixed. Somebody's liable to get hurt." He then returns to his looney self, bouncing on his head like a pogo stick down the road. The hunter then goes insane, and does the same thing. This scene might have been removed because, as Gerstein theorizes, the ending scene was similar to the ending of Tex Avery's Daffy Duck and Egghead, which was released a year earlier prior to Hare-um Scare-um's release.