Roman Legion-Hare (1955)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Story by Warren Foster
Animation by Virgil Ross, Art Davis, Gerry Chiniquy
Music by Milt Franklyn
It’s 54 AD in Rome and the crowd at the Coliseum is filing in to see the Detroit Lions – not the football team, of course, but the bungle-in-the-jungle bunch who devour any poor soul thrown into the path. Emperor Nero calls for a victim to be tossed to the lions, but the Coliseum is curiously bereft of victims to sacrifice. The captain of the guards (Yosemite Sam) is dispatched to locate a victim for Nero to sacrifice, but the only one around in Rome that afternoon is Bugs Bunny. Needless to say, Sam’s attempt to capture Bugs becomes an exercise in violent futility.
“Roman Legion-Hare” is a fast-paced cartoon with an inventive quantity of gags involving Sam barely escaping multiple encounters with the humorless lions. The funniest segment has Bugs and Sam tiptoeing through a Coliseum enclosure of sleeping lions. Bugs exits first, but just as Sam is ready to escape Bugs lowers an alarm clock on a string that simultaneously awakens all the lions, who take angry aim at Sam’s intrusion.
Also worth noting in this Roman holiday of a romp is Nero’s physical and vocal resemblance to Charles Laughton, who famously played the emperor in the Cecil B. DeMille classic “The Sign of the Cross,” and a chariot-harnessed horse that is drawn in the style of ancient Roman art (see the photo below). The twist ending that occurs after Bugs is trapped in the arena with the lions is one of the most inventive in this series – no spoilers here, because you’ve got to see it to believe it.
