User reviews

This was an incredibly enjoyable episode, with a good mixture of well-thought slapstick jokes, witty jokes and a few traditional but entertaining slapstick gags. The plot and the idea of the cartoon was well-thought up and the references of "Falling Hare" brought in were funny to watch and worked brilliantly in this cartoon too.

It starts with the world's largest plane driving over Bugs Bunny's home, in fact, one of the wheels obscures most of Bugs Bunny's entrance, but he manages to escape and observe the plane. Fancying a "50 cent tour", he goes on the ESCALATOR (yes, not steps, but an ESCALATOR) leading up to the inside of the plane. My personal favourite quote in the episode, that comes up here, is: "It's the Grand Central Station with wings!" Boarding the plane with Bugs Bunny is none other than Yosemite Sam, who orders the Bunny to drive him and the plane outta here...

I laughed out loud a great deal during this cartoon and it deserves to have people laughing at it. I highly recommend this cartoon to anyone who likes Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and to people who enjoy Looney Tunes in general. Enjoy "Hare Lift"! :-)

8 and a half out of ten.

Bugs Bunny is one of my favourite Looney Tunes characters, and Yosemite Sam is one of his best-written opponents, making their partnership one of the most fun.

Although all their cartoons have many pleasures, 'Hare Lift' is one of their best collaborations. The animation is excellent, no surprise seeing as the best animation in the Looney Tunes cartoons came from the cartoons made the late 1940s to about 1958 in my opinion. Here the animation is drawn absolutely beautifully, the colours are vibrant but never garish and there is a lot of meticulous detail here. Both Bugs and Yosemite Sam are well drawn and their movements move easily, Sam here being more kinetic in movement is a touch more expressive.

Carl Stalling, my favourite of the regular Looney Tunes composers by quite some margin, provides yet another outstanding music score. The music is supremely characterful and energetic, the orchestration is lush and clever and most importantly aside from that it's very memorable it fits with to the action and adds to it, Stalling also showing his perhaps unmatched ability at that time to enhance the action. Also note how the energy and frenzy keeps piling up in the climax to thrilling effect.

With any Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam collaboration, one expects great gags and dialogue. 'Hare Lift' has both of those, in fact containing some of the sharpest and wittiest dialogue (Bugs' wit and matter-of-factness contrasting brilliantly with the increasingly desperation and tough-guy-act of Sam's) and even with the references to 'Falling Hare' some of the funniest and most inspired gags and slapstick of all their cartoons. The story is not as routine or as predictable as it could have been, and has wonderful energy, especially once Bugs and Sam are together. The climax is most exciting, one of the most exciting of any of their cartoons.

Both Bugs and Sam are on top form and their chemistry is a fond reminder as to why the two are so popular together. Mel Blanc's voice work is characteristically spot on, once again as always showing an ability that has yet to be matched or bettered as consistently brilliantly for voicing more than one character and making each character completely individual from the other.

Overall, although the Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam cartoons all have many pleasures 'Hare Lift' is one of their classics. 10/10 Bethany Cox

DOING AN EXCELLENT job of combing two sub-genres of the cartoon world, the production team of HARE LIFT turned in a short that rates up near the top of the heap. It is interesting how well Isador "Fritz" Freleng always seems to have handled the character and Bugs Bunny foe par excel lance in Yosemite Sam.

PERHAPS AT LEAST a part of the great affinity lies in the fact that Sam is allegedly a sort of caricature of the great animation Director, himself.

SO WE MENTIONED combining two types of stories in this cartoon were successfully combined. They are the regular series star type and what has been called the "Clothesline" picture. We heard this last term in an interview with ROCKY & BULLWINKLE co-producer Bill Scott.

HE STATED THAT the aforementioned "Clothesline" story is one with no real, true or discernible scenario. The lack of a plot is replaced by the large number of gag sequences, which are laid out one after another until the allotted one reel of film is filled. it is likened to hanging out the laundry on clothesline to dry. As a classic example, we offer THE ROADRUNNER & COYOTE Series.

BUT GETTING BACK to this Bugs Bunny cartoon., we find it to be about good as so many previous shorts featuring Yosemite Sam. It bids fair to keep up the standards that the Warner Brothers Animation unit at "Termite Terrace" had set in the previous two decades.

WE MUST CONCLUDE and wrap it up by saying that HARE LIFT is the product of the post World War II variety of historical happenings. One being the Berlin Air Lift of 1947.* Another would be the fame that was heaped upon the mega giant Howard Hughes plane, known as the Spruce Goose. it was a plane that never did fly.

NOTE: * This first great test of the "Cold War" between the Nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Soviet Union was dramatized in THE BIG LIFT(20th Century-Fox, 1950) with Montgomery Clift and Paul Douglas.

Classic Bugs Bunny cartoon with Bugs forced to fly "the world's largest plane" by Yosemite Sam, who's on the run from the police after robbing a bank. As you might expect, hilarity ensues as Bugs takes Sam on the flight of his life. Like I said, this one's a classic and one of my personal favorite Bugs & Sam shorts. The animation is beautiful with rich colors and some excellent action scenes. I always liked it when Looney Tunes would take characters out of their normal settings, allowing the WB animators to draw something different. Flawless voice work by Mel Blanc. Fantastic music from Carl Stalling. The cartoon moves along at a quick pace with one funny bit after another and some great lines from Bugs and Sam. It's an exciting short full of humor and action. Definitely on my must-see list of Bugs cartoons.

Sam and Bugs cross paths again, this time in the world's largest airplane. The foul-tempered cowboy - having just robbed a bank - forces the acerbic rabbit to fly away, leading to the craziest flight ever. There are a couple of things that occur a lot in cartoons, and some of the scenes look based on previous cartoons, but it's impossible not to laugh at the gags. As Friz Freleng noted, he created Yosemite Sam with the aim of giving Bugs Bunny a formidable opponent (since the dim-witted Elmer Fudd wasn't much of a challenge). Sure enough, Sam was nothing but a blowhard. No matter how many times he calls Bugs a flea-bitten, fur-bearin' varmint, the tall gray one is bound to win. Lots of fun.