High Diving Hare

Classic Bugs Bunny short directed by Friz Freleng with a story by Tedd Pierce. This is one of the Bugs cartoons I saw most as a little kid because it was on a compilation video that my teacher would play on rainy days when we couldn't go out for recess. It's brilliantly simple as it's basically one gag done over and over but, trust me, it never stops being funny. The premise is that Bugs is working as a barker for a show where there's a high diving act. When the diver doesn't show up for the performance, angry audience member Yosemite Sam tries to force Bugs at gunpoint to perform the act himself. What follows is Bugs repeatedly outsmarting Sam, resulting in Sam being the one to do the dive. Like I said, it's one gag but it's done a little different each time and never gets old. The animation is gorgeous. I especially love the colors. Excellent voice work from the great Mel Blanc. Carl Stalling's music is exciting and fun. It's a hilarious cartoon that every Looney Tunes fan should see. For my money it's one of the best Bugs and Sam shorts ever made.

Bugs is in front of the Opry House in an Old West town, barking out all the acts trying to sell tickets for the show. Fifteen cents will get you in to see 15 acts. One of them is "Fearless Freep," the high diver. "That's my boy!," yells Yosemite Sam, firing his pistols in the air. He buys a lot of tickets and comes into the theater with his guns blazing.

At the last second, Bugs gets a telegram from "Fearless" saying a storm has delayed him. He relays that to the crowd but Yosemite demands to see the diving act, so he forces Bugs to do it! He follows the rabbit all the way up the steps to the platform, threatening to shot him.

The rest of the animated short is what happens afterward as things backfire on Sam. How many times can they play this one joke (Sam, not Bugs, taking the plunge) and still make it funny? The answer: EVERY time!

A very clever and funny cartoon.

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.

A hilarious Friz Freleng directed Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam short finds Yosemite Sam trying to get Bugs Bunny to perform in his high diving show after his star atraction can't make the show. What follows with Bugs tricking Sam to dive again and again is vintage Looney Tune style antics that will make you cry with laughter. Quite possibly my favorite Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam paring and that's no mean feat! This cartoon is uncut (so you get quite a few more jokes that you would have missed if you caught it playing in syndication) on the 'Looney Tunes Golden Collection' on disk 1. It has commentary & featurette.

My Grade: A+

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.