Buccaneer Bunny

"Buccaneer Bunny" is a 1947 Warner Bros. cartoon in the Looney Tunes series, released in 1948, directed by Friz Freleng. It features Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam, the latter known in this picture as "Sea-Goin' Sam", a pirate. All voice characterizations in this cartoon are by Mel Blanc.

ynopsis

The cartoon opens with titles featuring an instrumental of "The Sailor's Hornpipe", seguéing to a scene of Sam digging a hole to bury his treasure on a beach. Sam is singing the stereotypical pirate shanty ""Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum", and then switches to "yo-ho-ho and a bottle of... Ma's old fashioned ci-"der" with a conga kick on the last syllable and a parody of "Dad's Old-Fashioned Root Beer", a well-known radio advertising jingle at that time.

In attempting to bury his treasure, Sam has encroached on Bugs' domain, as Bugs happens to have his rabbit hole there on the beach. When Bugs asks him who he is, he responds in his typical way: "I'm Sea-Goin' Sam, the blood-thirstiest, shoot-'em-first-iest, doggone worst-iest buccaneer that ever sailed the Spanish main!"

Bugs spends the rest of the picture tormenting Sam in the usual way, taking advantage of Sam's short temper and blustery personality. At one point he takes Sam through the famous lots-of-doors in-and-out routine. Another time, Bugs disguises himself as Captain Bligh (effecting the voice and thick-lipped appearance of Charles Laughton) and puts the gullible seaman through a whirlwind of shipboard chores.

In a side gag, Bugs is trying to hide, and a pesky parrot keeps crowing, "He's in there! He's in there! Awk!" Finally, Bugs asks the parrot, "Polly want a cracker?" The parrot changes his tune, "Polly want a cracker! Polly want a cracker! Awk!" Bugs hands him a huge, lit "firecracker", which promptly explodes, reducing the bird to near-skeletal remains. His last words before he drops are, "Me and my big mouth! Awk!"

In a series of gags that mildly anticipate the "Road Runner" series, Bugs is in the crow's nest and Sam tries various unsuccessful attempts to get to him; for example, setting up a see-saw, standing on one end and tossing a rock on the other end, he springs straight up, crashes into the underside of the crow's nest, and falls back to the deck. In another one, that skirts the laws of physics, Bugs tells Sam he's going to jump. Bugs drops a convenient anvil over the side of the crow's nest, Sam catches it, and the entire ship (except for the crows nest) submerges. Sam mouths some apparent curses, then tosses the anvil over the railing and the ship resurfaces.

At various times, Sam gets blasted by cannon fire, and then Bugs tricks Sam into playing a "dare" game that ends up exploding the pirate ship's powder magazine, reducing the ship to splinters. Finally, defeated, Sam raises the white flag. Bugsy turns to the audience, puts on an old-style ship captain's hat, and paraphrases John Paul Jones, "I had not even "begun" to fight!"

Censorship

*The now defunct WB! channel edited this cartoon to remove the part where Bugs tells Sam that "Dead men tell no tales," and Sam almost shoots himself in the head before realizing he's been tricked.

ee also

* Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1940-1949)
* List of Bugs Bunny cartoons