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.

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.

I love it how it starts out with Bugs at that old opry house annoucing the events of the evening. Then when Sam hears about Fearless Freep he goes crazy wanting tickets. Then it is wild that just right after Bugs gets done annoucing that the Freep's act is the first one to come up he gets a telegram saying that the Freep is not able to make it due to a train or something running late. Then it all gets so funny when Sam forces Bugs to climb that ladder and do the dive then Sam keeps on falling off instead. Also a while back when they did a Looney Tunes Sportsman of the year contest and it got to the high diving it showed that Sam was the top high diver because of what he did when he went to see the Fearless Freep's act!

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.

"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.