Hare Lift (1952)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Warren Foster
Animation by Ken Champin, Arthur Davis, Manuel Perez, Virgil Ross
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Bank robber Yosemite Sam makes a gun-toting withdrawal from the Last National Bank, warning those inside the bank to “keep a-reachin’ for the ceilin’ till ya’ reach it!” But the sound of approaching police sirens forces him to flee and drives to the airport where the world’s largest airplane has arrived for public exhibition. Bugs Bunny is alone in the airplane, sitting in the cockpit while pretending he’s a pilot. Sam mistakes him for the real pilot and forces Bugs to take off – even though Bugs knows nothing about flying. Nonetheless, Bugs starts the airplane and begins to drive it down a main street before abruptly taking it on a wild ride up to the moon and then back in a dizzying plummet to Earth.
“Hare Lift” has a few cute sight gags when it begins – Sam’s ill-gotten gains are stuffed in a bag with a dollar sign that’s roughly the same as his body, and upon exiting the bank he wipes away the asset total advertised on the front window from “4,562,321.08” down to “.08.” Later in the cartoon, a button marked “Robot Pilot” unleashes a mechanical robot from a closet that quickly realizes the aircraft is doomed and puts on a parachute before jumping out into the skies.
But once “Hare Lift” gets off the ground, it plays like a low energy retread of the classic “Falling Hare” with an insouciant Bugs taking the role of the mischievous gremlin in the 1943 short while Sam becomes the beleaguered and battered passenger who – like Bugs nine years earlier – twice falls out of the airplane while it is in flight. But “Hare Lift” lacks the demented feral energy of “Falling Hare” and its sense of mayhem deflates before Bugs hits the brakes – literally and figuratively – on the cartoon’s action.