Horse Hare (1960)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Michael Maltese
Animation by Gerry Chiniquy, Virgil Ross, Arthur Davis
Music by Milt Franklyn
In the Old West of 1886, Sergeant Bugs Bunny is tasked with being the sole guard on duty at Fort Lariat while the U.S. Cavalry leaves on a special mission. Once the Cavalry departs, Yosemite Sam – here known as “Renegade Sam” – leads a battalion of considerably incompetent Indian warriors in an attempt to overtake the fort. Needless to say, Bugs easily outwits these intruders while repeatedly humiliating Sam during the battle.
The first Bugs Bunny cartoon of the 1960s is yet another version of Sam trying and failing to penetrate a fortified edifice with Bugs as the only occupant. If that’s not bad enough, director Friz Freleng and writer Michael Maltese repeat sights gags used with more effectiveness in earlier works. This may have been the cartoon to launch a new decade, but it started off with the same old shtick. It also didn’t help that the animation looked cheap and cruddy – obviously, the budget for this cartoon was on the low side.
“Horse Hare” doesn’t receive the same level of television play as other cartoons in the series due to its stereotyping of American Indians. Most of that humor is benign (the warriors speak in broken English, Bugs substitutes TNT sticks for arrows), although one gag runs afoul of today’s self-policing political correctness. As Bugs shoots down the marauding attackers, he sings “Ten Little Indians” while making harsh marks of his victims. With one mark, he stops and erases part of it while quipping, “Uh oh, sorry, that one was a half-breed.” As the stereotypical Indians might say: Ugh!