High Diving Hare

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = High Diving Hare
series = Looney Tunes


caption =
director = I. Freleng
story_artist = Tedd Pierce
animator = Gerry Chiniquy
Manuel Perez
Ken Champin
Virgil Ross
Pete Burness
voice_actor = Mel Blanc
musician = Carl W. Stalling
producer = Eddie Selzer
distributor = Warner Bros. Pictures
release_date = April 30, 1949 (USA premiere)
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 7 min. 31 Sec.(one reel)
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0041462

"High Diving Hare" is a 1948-produced Warner Brothers "Looney Tunes" theatrical cartoon short starring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. It was released to theaters on April 30, 1949 and as of 2003 is available in the DVD box-set "".

Crew

It was written by Tedd Pierce and directed by Friz Freleng. The credited animators were Gerry Chiniquy, Manuel Perez, Ken Champin, Virgil Ross, and Pete Burness, with backgrounds by Paul Julian and layouts by Hawley Pratt. Mel Blanc performed the voice characterizations and the musical score was composed, arranged and conducted by Carl Stalling.

ynopsis

Bugs Bunny is drumming up business for a Vaudeville show in a remote western town (notably one of the posters in the background is for "Frizby the Magician", a reference to director Friz Freleng). One of the main attractions is 'Fearless Freep' and his high-dive act. As soon as Yosemite Sam hears the name 'Fearless Freep', he goes into a frenzy, buying as many tickets as he can. ("I'm a-splurgin'!")

During the show, as Bugs is about to introduce Freep, he gets a telegram informing him that Freep is delayed and won't be able to appear until the next day. An angered Sam insists on seeing the high-diving act and forces Bugs at gunpoint to the top of a high-dive platform. But Bugs manages to pull out all his tricks and stops, and it is Sam who does all the diving, in a different comical setting no less than nine separate times...

1: Sam pushes Bugs to the edge of the platform (and for the first and only time we see Bugs bare his claws to secure himself to the edge of the board). Bugs dupes Sam into covering his eyes while he puts on his bathing suit, and then proceeds to spin the board around so that Sam is at the diving edge. Bugs makes it look like he's taken the dive, but Sam turns around and starts to walk off, right off the edge and into the tank, which falls apart with the water still intact!

2: Bugs springs on the board so hard that he sends Sam up, over and down. Bugs then realizes that he forgot to fill the tank with water, so he grabs a bucket of water from off-camera and throws it down from the diving board past Sam. The water makes it into the tank, but Sam misses the tank altogether, smashing into the stage.

3: Sam walks to the end of the board and finds Bugs standing "under" the board upside-down. But it is "Sam" who is upside-down. Sam looks "up", sees the tank, and falls "up" into it.

4: Having been verbally hit with "fightin' words", Bugs dares Sam to "step over this line", sending Sam down for the splash again (but not before springing back up briefly to declare: "I hate you!")

5: Sam is stopped by a door, and yells "Open up that door!" then turns to the audience and says, "You notice I didn't say Richard?". He backs up and charges towards the door, which Bugs opens at the last microsecond, leading Sam to another splash, this time assisted by an anvil which Bugs gives him.

6: Bugs, dressed as an Indian, points Sam to a "short-cut" in a desert-like setting. Sam thanks the "Indian" and takes the route leading to yet another dive.

After two more dives in which the setups are unseen, Sam finally has Bugs tied and standing on the edge of the platform, with Sam sawing away at the board, gloating: "This" time, you're a-diving!" However, as soon as Sam cuts through the board, it's the ladder and platform that falls, leaving the cut plank suspended in mid-air. Bugs turns to the camera and cracks, "I know this defies the law of gravity, but, you see, I never "studied" law!"

"High Diving Hare" can be seen in the third act of "The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie".

Censorship

*On ABC and Nickelodeon, the scene of Bugs dressed as an American Indian and giving Sam directions in stereotypical Native American English ("Quick! Quick! Him go that way! You take 'em short cut! Head him off at pass!") when the two are on the diving board near the end of the cartoon was cut.
*The ABC version cut this cartoon even further to remove Sam shooting off his pistols (in the beginning when Bugs is pitching the Fearless Freep act and when he further persuades Bugs to take over for Fearless Freep), the shot of Sam strangling Bugs when Bugs goes to explain why Fearless Freep didn't show up, and Bugs explaining that he can't dive because he gets "goosebumps on his goose bumps" (the second set of "goose bumps" meaning his rear end).

ee also

*List of Bugs Bunny cartoons

External links

*imdb title|0041462