Hare Trigger
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Hare Trigger is a 1945 Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies cartoon short starring Bugs Bunny directed by Friz Freleng. It marks the first appearance of Yosemite Sam, who appears as a train robber. Mel Blanc does both characters' voices.
[edit] Plot
Bugs is riding in the mail car of a train, singing a goofy song about "Peakin' through the knothole of Grandpa's wooden leg", when a pint-sized bandit boards the train and begins to rob it while it continues to roll on down the track. He accidentally throws Bugs Bunny in his sack. Bugs asks him if he's Jesse James. The bandit scoffs and tells him (and the audience) who he actually is: "I'm Yosemite Sam, the meanest, toughest, rip-roarin'-est, Edward Everett Horton-est hombre that ever packed a six-shooter!" Bugs tells Sam that there is another tough guy in the train packing a "seven-shooter", and Sam goes looking for him -- and he is actually Bugs in disguise.
Various fights ensue, as each character temporarily gets the upper hand for awhile. At one point, Bugs tricks Sam into dashing into a lounge car in which a horrific fight is occurring, actually stock film footage of a stereotypical western saloon fight. With the sounds of crashes and bangs in the background, Bugs calmly sings "Sweet Georgia Brown" to himself. Sam emerges tottering, banged and bruised, to a comical instrumental of "Rally 'Round the Flag", and a race-based gag occurs that is subtle enough it is usually left intact: Bugs effects the stereotyped voice of an African-American train porter, and has the dazed Sam convinced he's supposed to disembark the train, piling him up with luggage; Sam even hands Bugs a silver coin as a tip, and Bugs says, "Thank you, suh!" As Sam steps off the train, the mail-drop hook grabs him and temporarily whisks him off the train. But he gets back on board somehow.
Finally, Sam has Bugs tied up, dangling from a rope, weighted down by an anvil, and fiendishly cutting through the rope, while the train is passing over a gorge. The screen fills with the words the narrator (also Mel Blanc) is saying, "Is this end of Bugs Bunny? Will he be dashed to bits on the rocks below?" and so on. Then Bugs walks across the screen, dressed in top hat and tails, carrying a bag full of gold (reward money), and dragging the tied-up villain behind him, mocking the on-screen words ("Will he be doomed to utter destruction and be rendered non compos mentis?"). Bugs closes by turning to the audience and repeating a popular radio catch-phrase from Red Skelton's "Mean Widdle Kid": "He don't know me vewy well, do he?"
[edit] Notes
- A character similar to Sam was the southern sheriff seen in Stage Door Cartoon (1944), also directed by Freleng.
- The Bunny and Sam would square off again in a western setting, three years later, in Bugs Bunny Rides Again.
