Saute qui peut!

In a series of gags that can basically be boiled down to "Sam falls down" Friz Freleng proves just how important tempo and pacing are. Friz actually "scripted" his cartoons using blank sheet music pages. He understood that WHEN a gag happened was just as important as WHAT the gag was. A perfect example is the sequence where we've seen Sam fall enough times that the screen locks to a shot of the a mid-point on the ladder. We see Sam climb up, and a few seconds later we see him fall past us. Repeat several times. We don't even get to SEE the joke, we just know when it happened, and we know it's funny. Add the alway perfect Carl Stalling music, and you get an idea of exactly what a Loony Tune is supposed to be.

"High Diving Hare" epitomizes the phrase "They don't make 'em like they used to." It features Bugs Bunny hosting a high-diving act when he learns that the performer can't arrive. Incensed, Yosemite Sam - who'd earlier bought about 100 tickets - orders Bugs to dive at gunpoint. But Bugs tricks Sam into diving. When Bugs tries to continue the show, Sam once again orders Bugs up the ladder. But no matter how many times he tries, Sam always ends up diving; Bugs Bunny has some great tricks up his sleeve. And that end scene was a real hoot.

I said it before and I'll say it again: the people who created the classic Looney Tunes cartoons were real geniuses.

"Due to an unfortunate delay," announces the barker, Bugs Bunny, "Fearless Freep will be unable to perform his high-diving act today." But Yosemite Sam had bought out the house just to see Freep. If Freep isn't going to dive, someone else will just have to. And that someone is going to be Bugs Bunny. Bugs is no high diver; but at gunpoint, he'll have to take his first-ever 500-ft. jump into a tank of water. Or will he? Yosemite Sam will find himself tricked into doing the dive himself—many times—before realizing that no matter what he does, Bugs's blissful ignorance of physics will always save him.

Friz Freleng said he took a big chance on this one-joke idea. It paid off big time. You've got to love this parody of human nature, as represented by Sam. The little bully doesn't get his way, so he takes it out on the closest person at hand. And of course—of course!—he gets outraged when his victim refuses to be bullied. Bugs's own heroic brand of stubbornness only inspires Sam to redouble and requadruple his efforts. Oh, and don't you love what Sam does the first time he tries to force Bugs off the diving board—and thinks he's succeeded? He feels sorry!

But not for long. If the bullies of the world are Yosemite Sams, why can't the rest of us be Bugs Bunnys?

This short is available on "Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One," Disc 1.

Friz Freleng's 'High Diving Hare' is one of the director's best and best loved cartoons. A master class in how to put a different spin on the same gag over and over again, 'High Diving Hare' quickly sets up its premise and then has tons of fun with it. When high-diving daredevil Fearless Freep cancels his appearance at a carnival, Yosemite Sam will stop at nothing to see the diving act he's been promised. Holding Bugs Bunny at gunpoint, he attempts to force him into performing the act himself. Needless to say, it is Sam who ends up plunging into the water tank again and again and again. Much like when Lucy convinces Charlie Brown that she won't pull away the football when he tries to kick it, 'High Diving Hare' derives its humour from the numerous different ways in which Bugs convinces Sam to take the plunge himself. By the end of the cartoon, Freleng doesn't even need to show us this, such is the inevitability of the situation. Instead he resorts to an inspired shot of Sam running up the ladder, a couple of seconds silence and then him plunging downwards. The inevitability of this conclusion has become the gag itself. 'High Diving Hare' takes a minimalist concept and milks it dry. The repetitiveness of the short is where its charm lies. It remains a skilfully executed and extremely funny film.

This is a classic Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon and one of the all time greats of the Warner Brothers shorts collection. The plot is this: Yosemite Sam is eager to see the star of the high-diving act, Fearless Freep. When Freep fails to show, he forces the fast-talking usher, Bugs Bunny, to perform the act instead of Fearless Freep. Bugs is extremely reluctant, but Yosemite Sam leaves him with no choice.

He and Sam chase hilariously chase each other around stage, up and down the tall high-diving ladder, and through various classic, anvil-dropping, TNT-exploding Warner Brothers gags, Bugs eventually, as always, comes out on top.