High Diving Hare (1949)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Tedd Pierce
Animation by Gerry Chiniqiuy
Music by Peter Burness
You wouldn’t think you could do much with a short that centered on almost nothing but gags of Yosemite Sam falling off a high dive, but you’d be wrong. While short on variety, “High Diving Hare” is a blast because it feels like a return to form. Like previous shorts, there’s a three act structure, a perfectly funny set up, and a lot of really funny gags between Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny. I remember watching this short a lot during the “Bugs Bunny and Tweey Show” back on Saturday mornings but with a lot of the opening set up cut out to fit commercials. While the opening set up to the ensuing mayhem isn’t detrimental to enjoying the entire short, it does give the whole concept a lot of context,
And I am a huge fan of how simple but fun the whole introduction to the chao is. Bugs Bunny is in a new town as a Carnival barker promoting a series of brand new death defying acts including a new high diving act (“Fearless Freep” and his high-dive act!). He’s confronted with an overly enthusiastic Yosemite Sam who is anxious to see the show and is eager to buy up as many tickets as possible. The night of the show, Yosemite appears in the audience demanding the act, but much to Bugs’ chagrin he learns through a telegram that “The Fearless Freep” isn’t appearing, after all.
That doesn’t stop Yosemite Sam though he approaches him with guns drawn demanding that he carry out the entire high diving act. Whether he likes it or not. The entirety of the short is centered on this one high dive and the writers manage to do such a great job in taking so much comic material from it. While the setting is minimal and simple, the work from Paul Julian and Hawley Pratt are so effective and very much lend a punctuation to the deceptively one note premise. Bugs and Sam outwitting each other on a high dive manages to derive so much good laughs and chuckles almost per minute, and the sound work really mails home the film’s whole running gag which is this giant high dive and what amount of gags can be taken from it.
Any more would be too much, and any less would be too little. It’s just so well paced and very much in line with Bugs and Sam’s entire role in this back and forth. It’s so much of why I loved this short, mainly because it’s so raucous and outrageous. Bugs is able to get around Yosemite Sam’s violent nature by taking advantage of his eagerness, playing with the dimensions of the high dive, too; in one instance Bugs even manages to hit the high dive so hard that Sam flips over from the other end, over Bugs, and landing in to the water. While I won’t recommend it for anyone who is terrified of heights, the comedy is just too good to miss.
There’s Bugs mounting a door forcing Sam to bang at it angrily and storm in, coming out over the ledge, and there’s also one of my favorite gags where Bugs mimes the high dive with a cup of water at the ready. The animation here is just top notch and I loved the playing with perspective and the consistent crashing scenes. I love how one instance inspires Sam to defy (even spite) gravity just to look at Bugs and growl “I… hate… you…!”
This is very much the classic dynamic between Bugs and Sam that I enjoy that I’m glad the shorts take advantage of. Sam is such an easy mark and Bugs works better when he’s playing defensive rather than punching down.
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