Horse Hare (1960) Online

. . . lots of close friends, neighbors, colleagues, classmates, and relatives who are. Therefore, a question uppermost on pretty much every HORSE HARE viewer's mind is, "Will this brief cartoon offend me, or any of my circle?" In a word, the answer to this query is "Surely." As Bugs Bunny is slaughtering a battalion of on-coming Warriors blithely singing "One little, two little, three little Indians . . . " while chalking up hash marks to tally the death toll of his Genocidal turkey shoot, he interrupts his merry ditty to say "Sorry--that one was a Half Breed," while he erases half of one hash mark. To add in salt to injury, the seemingly mindless Native Horde is led to its doom by an openly declared WHITE man, Yosemite Sam. Sacrilegiously decked out in the trappings of Holy War, Sam's motivations are never explained in any way. Neither are those of the corporation who would distribute such mind-numbing filth.

The obvious point in Friz Freleng's "Horse Hare" is the stereotyping of American Indians. The plot has Bugs Bunny put in charge of defending an Old West fort from Yosemite Sam and a group of Indians (since when do cowboys and Indians form an alliance?). Bugs does what you might expect to Sam. While there's nothing totally original here, any classic Looney Tunes cartoon is a good one in my opinion. Of course, since their Golden Age was unequivocally winding down by this point, it was probably a good idea that they soon started retiring the characters. As it is, what I really like about the Yosemite Sam cartoons is that his loose-cannon personality always leads to his downfall. Maybe that's just me, but I still say so.

Anyway, an OK cartoon.

This is a cute cartoon, but the gags aren't especially new or inventive here, as many of them are taken from other Warner Brothers shorts, some as bits and pieces and other lifted whole. Still entertaining enough in its own right and worth watching. Recommended.

Now Horse Hare is good, but to be honest it isn't something I'd immediately recommend. The animation is good, as is the music. Bugs and Yosemite Sam have their share of fitfully amusing dialogue, the cartoon is paced well and Mel Blanc's voice characterisations are once again superlative. However, the story is a little on the predictable, and there is not much in either the dialogue or in the sight gags, though both have some very nice moments, that is particularly original or hilarious. The funniest the material is is amusing really. Then there are some of the supporting characters that border on stereotypical. All in all, it is good but there is nothing exceptional other than the voice characterisations. 6/10 Bethany Cox