''Lighter Than Hare'' is a 1960

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Di ...

Merrie Melodies ''Merrie Melodies'' is an American animation, animated series of comedy short films produced by Warner Bros. starting in 1931, during the golden age of American animation, and ending in 1969. Then some new cartoons were produced from the late 197 ...

animated short Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...

written and directed by

Friz Freleng Isadore "Friz" Freleng (August 21, 1905May 26, 1995), credited as I. Freleng early in his career, was an American animator, cartoonist, director, producer, and composer known for his work at Warner Bros. Cartoons on the ''Looney Tunes'' and '' ...

. The short was released on December 17, 1960, and stars

Bugs Bunny Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created in the late 1930s by Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring roles in the '' Looney Tunes'' and '' ...

. The title is a play on the phrase ''

lighter than air A lifting gas or lighter-than-air gas is a gas that has a density lower than normal atmospheric gases and rises above them as a result. It is required for aerostats to create buoyancy, particularly in lighter-than-air aircraft, which include free ...

''. It was one of three Bugs cartoons that Freleng both wrote and directed, the others being ''

From Hare to Heir ''From Hare to Heir'' is a 1960 Warner Bros. '' Merrie Melodies'' theatrical cartoon short directed and written by Friz Freleng. The short was released on September 3, 1960, and stars Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. Plot In Bedlam Manor, Sam, Duke ...

'' (1960) and ''

Devil's Feud Cake ''Devil's Feud Cake'' is a 1963 Warner Bros. ''Merrie Melodies'' animated short directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on February 9, 1963, and stars Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. Plot Yosemite Sam robs the Last National Bank and makes h ...

'' (1963).

Plot

The cartoon opens with the credits in outer space as the camera pulls up to Earth, to somewhere in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

. After this, the scene changes to the deserted Highway 17, as a flying saucer from outer space lands and surveys the surrounding area with a

periscope A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...

. At a city dump nearby,

returns home, thinking he should move somewhere else, on account of the neighborhood "gettin' terribly rundown." Inside the spaceship,

Yosemite Sam Yosemite Sam ( /joʊˈsɛmɪti/ ''yoh-SEM-ih-tee'') is a cartoon character in the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series of short films produced by Warner Bros. His name is taken from Yosemite National Park. He is an adversary of Bugs ...

of Outer Space, dressed in a green gloveless spacesuit, sees Bugs on his view screen. Summoning Robot ZX29B to the bridge, he orders the robot to go out and capture Bugs as part of their Earth mission. ZX29B trundles out of the spaceship to Bugs' hole and peeks down at him cleaning up after breakfast, making Bugs get the feeling he's being watched. ZX29B hides among some garbage cans when Bugs comes up from the hole with a pail of trash, making a note to remember to make an electronic trash disposal. Bugs thinks ZX29B is a new garbage can, and so he promptly opens his mouth like a lid and empties his trash into him. When Bugs leaves, ZX29B comes out coughing up the garbage. Angered at the failure of the "stupidest robot

e's is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and drawn by Satoru Yuiga. It was originally serialized in ''Monthly GFantasy'' from 1997 through 2005, and later published in 16 ''tankōbon'' volumes by Square Enix from March 18, 2003 to Februa ...

got", Yosemite Sam summons the Demolition Squad, a trio of red robots, to the bridge and orders them to destroy Bugs. The robots, each with a fuselit barrel-shaped bomb, go into the dump. Seeing them coming, Bugs panics at the sight of the "spacemen" and dives into the pipe leading down to his underground bomb shelter. The robots proceed to dump their bombs down the pipe, and leave to head back to the ship. Escaping the shelter through a back way, an angered Bugs tosses a giant magnet down the pipe to "take care of those mechanized mobsters". The entire squad is pulled down the pipe, where the bombs explode and blow the squad to smithereens, prompting a Medic Robot to appear and sweep up the mess. Angered at the Demolition Squad's failure, Sam decides he will go after Bugs himself and hops into an indestructible tank that he drives into the dump. When Sam scans the dump, he sees Bugs come up in a machine, that opens the tank hatch so it can drop a lit stick of dynamite into the tank. Sam tosses the dynamite out, but the machine drops it back in and rivets the hatch shut. Sam tries to hammer out the rivets, but the dynamite explodes sending Sam to drive his crippled tank back to the ship. At this time, Bugs decides to make his getaway by taking a handcar from the Flag Station. Just after he cranks away, Sam gives chase in the spaceship. The spaceship lowers a ladder and Sam starts going down it, but he gets knocked off at a tunnel, falling to the ground stunned. The spaceship picks him up with an extending plunger and pulls him back into itself. Sam catches up to Bugs via rocket pack and stops him at ray gun point. When Sam brags that Earth creatures ''can't maneuver very well'', Bugs proves him wrong by spinning his ears like the blades on a helicopter and flies away. Sam shouts a catchphrase ("Yosemite Sam of Outer Space!") and tries to catch up by rocket pack, but misses when Bugs moves. When Bugs lands in a hole, Sam decides to wait so he can disintegrate Bugs the moment he comes out. While waiting, Bugs goes underground into an old tree stump behind Sam and secretly replaces his rocket pack with a lit stick of dynamite. Bugs flies out of the stump, and Sam, ready to chase after him, shouts his catchphrase just as the dynamite explodes and destroys his spacesuit ("Yosemite Sam of Outer - BANG! - Space?"). Back at the dump, Sam uses his Robot Ferret in his next attempt to catch Bugs. The Ferret descends into Bugs' hole and encounters a Robot Rabbit built by Bugs out of old war surplus equipment. Sounding like

Marvin the Martian Marvin the Martian is an extraterrestrial character from Warner Bros.' ''Looney Tunes'' and '' Merrie Melodies'' cartoons. He frequently appears as a villain in cartoons and video games, and wears a helmet and skirt. The character has been voice ...

, the Robot Ferret threatens the Robot Rabbit with a ray gun to go with him. The Robot Rabbit agrees, provided that the Robot Ferret doesn't press the button on his stomach. Defiantly, the Ferret ignores the request and presses the button, releasing a metal block which smashes him to pieces. Angered at seeing the Robot Ferret in ruins, Sam decides that he's through fooling around. Bugs, meanwhile, places a time bomb in another Robot Rabbit's stomach and dresses it up like himself. Outside, a huge ray gun emerges from Sam's Saucer and aims down at Bugs' hole, ready to blast Bugs, but Bugs, yelling out that he surrenders, sends out his decoy, which walks into the spaceship. Their mission "complete", Sam and the flying saucer take off and fly back to Sam's homeworld. Later that night, Bugs turns on his war surplus radio and listens in as Sam presents the Robot Decoy to the planet's

Potentate Potentate may refer to: * Imperial Potentate, the title of the head of the Shriners Shriners International, formally known as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (AAONMS), is an American Masonic society established in ...

. The Potentate orders the Robot Rabbit decoy to come forward and when he orders the Robot to speak, its time bomb explodes in his presence. The dazed Potentate comments that Earth creatures always shoot off their mouths. Laughing at this, Bugs changes the channels wondering if ''

Amos and Andy ''Amos 'n' Andy'' is an American radio sitcom about black characters, initially set in Chicago and later in the Harlem section of New York City. While the show had a brief life on 1950s television with black actors, the 1928 to 1960 radio show ...

'' is on yet.

Cast

Mel Blanc Melvin Jerome Blanc (born Blank ; May 30, 1908July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor and radio personality whose career spanned over 60 years. During the Golden Age of Radio, he provided character voices and vocal sound effects for comedy ra ...

, Robot ZX29B, Robot Rabbit, Robot Ferret, Alien Potentate

Home media

"''Lighter Than Hare''" is available, uncensored and uncut, on the ''Looney Tunes Superstars'' DVD. However, it was cropped to widescreen.

References

External links

Lighter Than Hare
at

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

{{Friz Freleng 1960 films 1960 animated films 1960 short films Merrie Melodies short films Warner Bros. Cartoons animated short films Short films directed by Friz Freleng Films scored by Milt Franklyn Animated films about extraterrestrial life Animated films about robots Films set in Oregon Films set in Washington (state) Animated films set in outer space Bugs Bunny films 1960s Warner Bros. animated short films Yosemite Sam films 1960s English-language films

Plot

Cast

Home media

See also

References

External links