Hare We Go (1951)
Directed by Robert McKimson
Story by Warren Foster
Animation by Phil DeLara, Charles McKimson, John Carey, Rod Scribner, J.C. Melendez
Music by Carl Stalling
One of the weaker entries in the Bugs Bunny series, Robert McKimson’s “Hare We Go” opens in the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, where Christopher Columbus is trying in vain to convince the monarchs that the world is round. “It’s-a round like-a my head,” the blonde Columbus declares in his Chico Marx-worthy Italian accent – to which the king bangs his noggin with a mallet, leaving it horizontal while declaring “It’s flat like you’re head!” in the Mexican accent that Mel Blanc used on Jack Benny’s show.
Thrown out of the royal court, Columbus complains to Bugs Bunny, who inexplicably lives in a hole on the royal grounds. Queen Isabella calls Columbus and Bugs to a window and offers them her jewels if they can prove the world is round. Bugs takes out a baseball and glove and throws the ball off to the horizon, turning around to catch it as its returns from the opposite horizon bearing travel stickers from all over the globe.
Columbus sets sail on his historic journey with Bugs as his mascot, although the crew balks because they insist rabbits are bad luck on a ship. At first it appears they were right, as the journey drags on with no sight of land. The crew tries to kill Bugs, but he dispatches them overboard – only Columbus is left on the ship with him. But when their food runs out, Columbus tries to kill Bugs for his dinner. Mercifully, the ship hits land just in time. Bugs claims to have discovered America, but Columbus poses on a knoll with a flag declaring he discovered the New World. A giggling Bugs cedes the credit to Columbus, insisting there was “no use changing all the history books just for little ol’ me.”
Outside of Queen Isabella speaking like Mae West (via an uncredited Bea Benaderet), there is very little in “Hare We Go” that is truly amusing. Columbus is a dull foil who peddles a tiresome Italian stereotype – his idea of cursing is to yell, “Cacciatore, belladonna, antipasto!” – while the angry crew are oversized men behaving in unfunny extremes. Two gags in this short were used to better effect in earlier and better cartoons – the aforementioned baseball bit and the segment when the starving Columbus imagines Bugs as a giant roast chicken.
“Hare We Go” was the first and the least of the 1951 slate of Bugs Bunny cartoons. Mercifully, the subsequent productions were infinitely better.