Influencers & Inspiration Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another…
What began as MGM Studios’ attempt to punish Clark Gable ended up making him immortal. MGM loaned the actor out to RKO for a low-rent movie, a mere 4-week shoot. Gable was to play newspaperman Peter Warne, on a road trip with a runaway heiress, Ellie Andrews, played by Claudette Colbert. But that movie, It Happened One Night (1934), became a cultural phenomenon. It set the template for Screwball Comedies (an heiress attracted to a man outside her social circle); won 5 Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Gable; and earned him the nickname, ‘The King of Hollywood.’ And, as if that weren’t enough, in 1993 It Happened One Night was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Those accomplishments alone (along with that other little film in 1939, Gone With The Wind) justifies Gable a level of film immortality, but, is that it? Nope. That’s not all folks!
Warner Bros. animation luminaries Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones have all cited Gable in a scene from It Happened One Night as the inspiration for Bugs Bunny. In the scene, Warne (Gable) laconically leans against a fence, chomping away on a carrot and talking fast to Ellie (Colbert). He’s a wise guy who knows it all. Sound familiar? Animation historians consider A Wild Hare (1940) to be the official debut of Bugs Bunny. Audiences at the time would’ve recognized Bug’s attitude as that of Gable’s from It Happened One Night. It’s why further in the cartoon Gable’s then wife, actress Carole Lombard, is mentioned by Elmer Fudd. It was a parody and an extremely successful one.
So, the next time you hear “Eh…what’s up, Doc?” you can thank ‘The King of Hollywood.’
Reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable) and heiress-on-the-run Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) languish with style and wit in just one of the many iconic scenes from the Academy Award winning It Happened One Night (1934). Also, it’s the scene that inspired Bugs Bunny.
In the original A Wild Hare (1940), Carole Lombard’s (Mrs. Clark Gable) name is among other glamorous actresses that Elmer Fudd guesses in a gag with the new animated character introduced here named Bugs Bunny.
Tragically, Carole Lombard died in a plane crash in January, 1942. The country was at war and Lombard was extremely patriotic. She had thrown herself into appearing at war bond rally’s. En route from Indiana back home to Hollywood, where she had just headlined such a rally, her plane crashed. There were no survivors. In deference to the much-beloved actress and her inconsolable husband, it seemed disrespectful to keep using her name as part of a gag. So the decision was made to dub in a different one.
