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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Bunker Hill Bunny (1950)

Editor’s Note: Cinema Crazed founder Felix Vasquez Jr. began the “Every Bugs Bunny Ever” series on January 3, 2023, with the goal of reviewing the cinematic output of the most popular star from the Warner Bros. animation studio. Felix passed away yesterday, and I will be inheriting the series and continuing with this weekly output in tribute to Felix’s legacy and his love for animated films.

Bunker Hill Bunny (1950)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Tedd Pierce
Animation by Ken Champin, Virgil Ross and Arthur Davis
Music by Carl Stalling

“Bunker Hill Bunny” takes place during the American Revolution – specifically, the Battle of Bagle Heights. As battles go, this was on the small side, with the red-coated Hessian mercenary Sam von Scham (our old pal Yosemite Sam) taking on patriot Bugs Bunny. The rivals are in adjacent forts, with Sam firing multiple cannons at once from a might stone structure while Bugs shoots off a single cannon by reaching out of his hole-in-the-ground residence and pulling a string attached to the weapon.

Sadly, “Bunker Hill Bunny” never plumbs the potential for history-related humor tied to the American Revolution, but instead provides a silly serving of sight gags with Sam getting blown up repeatedly – three times with point-blank cannon fire, once by catching a bomb, once by tunneling into an explosives supply shack and lighting a match, and once by having his gunpowder-filled pants detonated by a tossed match from Bugs. Aside from a couple of amusing sight gags – including musket-bearing Sam and Bugs charging past each other in combat and a closing image riffing on the classic “Spirit of ‘76” painting – “Bunker Hill Bunny” is strictly a mild and minor endeavor.

The Termite Terrace team would give the American Revolution a proper spoof four years later with “Yankee Doodle Bugs.” But “Bunker Hill Bunny” would gain its own warped immortality in 2004 when one of Sam’s lines – “Varmint, I’ma gonna blow yah t’smithereenies” – was used by a mysterious shortwave radio station operating in the American Southwest. You can read about that bizarre incident here.