Prince Violent

Prince Violent (later re-issued as Prince Varmint, see "Edited versions and retitling" below) is a 1961 Looney Tunes cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam directed by Friz Freleng and Freleng's longtime layout artist Hawley Pratt.

Plot

The cartoon starts out with Yosemite Sam (here, a Viking named "Sam the Terrible") rowing the sea towards a castle. The villagers spot him and retreat to the castle. Bugs hears the commotion, peeks out of his hole and decides to fight the invader.

While Sam terrorises the castle, Bugs (dressed in a medieval tunic and a helmet with holes for his ears) begins confronting Sam, calling his outfit a Halloween costume, taking the sword from him and denting it, and ultimately kicking Sam out of the castle. Later Bugs paints a door on the castle walls and Sam mounted on a pink elephant tries to smash the "door" down, but instead knocks into the stone wall where the door was painted. Sam scolds the elephant for failing, but the incensed elephant becomes angry at Sam and repeatedly slams him to the floor.

Next Sam has the elephant catapulting rocks over the castle walls. Bugs sprinkles pepper on the elephant, making it sneeze a rock right on Sam. Later Bugs orders the bridge to be lowered. Sam appears and mounted on the elephant charges across the bridge, but the bridge can't hold their weight and they both fall through into the moat.

Sam then tries sailing in the back way (using the elephant's belly as a boat) to enter via the back. Bugs awaits and plugs the elephant's nose with a cork, forcing him back to land for air and forcing Sam to use his hat to sail back to shore, where he furiously chases away the pink elephant and decides that he will go after Bugs himself.

Frustrated, Sam tries to dig his way into the castle under one of the towers, but the tower falls on top of him. Next Sam attempts to blow open the castle door with dynamite. When Sam tries to leave, the drawbridge has been raised at the other end and Sam is stranded near the lit explosives. After the door blows open, a tattered Sam rushes into his former elephant who proclaims that he has defected to Bugs and then chases Sam away with a club. With that Sam gets to his boat and leaves. Bugs reveals he bribed the elephant with peanuts.

The cartoon retitled as "Prince Varmint."

Edited versions and retitling

• This cartoon has been retitled Prince Varmint due to the intimidating title (despite being a pun on the still-running comic strip, Prince Valiant) for TV broadcast versions on ABC, CBS, Fox, Cartoon Network, the syndicated "Merrie Melodies" show and the former WB! Channel , On a 1992 episode of "The Merrie Melodies Show", the original title card showing a Viking ship with the title on the sail was replaced with a title card where Bugs Bunny (in Viking garb) is sitting on the side of a castle along with new credits being issued. The intro and outro cards were also replaced with 1958 opening cards, the 1947 "Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" and 1953 closing cards.
  • In addition to the above cut, the ABC version also edits the part where Bugs pulls up the drawbridge and leaves Yosemite Sam stranded on the castle's doorstep with a pile of dynamite by replacing the scene with a repeat shot of Sam running away from the explosion (though the shot of Sam looking disheveled after the explosion was left intact).

See also

• List of Bugs Bunny cartoons
• List of Yosemite Sam cartoons

External links

• Prince Violent at the Internet Movie Database