Ken Harris | Hare-abian Nights / 1959 [animated cartoon]

bugs performs at the palace

by Douglas Messerli

 

Michael Maltese (screenplay), Ken Harris and Ben Washam (animators), Ken Harris (director) Hare-abian Nights / 1959 [animated cartoon]

 

This 1959 7-minute cartoon is basically a shaggy-dog story that recycles work from other Bugs Bunny cartoons, including Water, Water Every Hare (1952), Bully for Bugs (1953), and Sahara Hare (1955).

     On his way to Perth-Amboy, Bugs winds up in a desert palace where the local Sultan is seeking new talent. Alas, both of the acts, including a band called Timbuk Two Plus 3 and an Elvis impersonator, displease the Sultan, and are sent to the crocodile pit underneath which they performed.

     Bugs arrives just on time to be the next in line. Billed as a storyteller in the manner of Scheherazade, Bugs tells of his adventures on the way to the Sultan’s palace, the first involving a bull who, after knocking Bugs out of the ring, is bested by the rabbit when behind the

red cape he places an anvil.

     Soon after he meets up with Rudolph the Monster, who Bugs immediately calms down by portraying a effeminately gay hairdresser with limp wrists, a slight lisp, and the repetition of the word “interesting”: “My stars, if an interesting monster can’t have an interesting hairdo, I don’t what the world’s coming to. I meet such interesting people.”

 

      After trying out several hair styles, Bugs declares that the red-haired monster needs a permanent, whereupon he hooks up the Monster to several tubes of dynamite and leaves him for “another customer.” The explosion does away with any hairy covering the red-haired monster previously had upon his head.

     The third story involves Yosemite Sam trying desperately to get to Bugs hidden away in a castle, including by attempting to pull out a brick at the bottom on the wall only to be met up with a cannon. He then tries terribly tall stilts to the battlements of the castle tower whereupon he meets Bugs, ready to shoot the rabbit, only to fall backwards to the ground.

     It turns out the Sultan is actually Yosemite Sam, and obviously is not at all impressed with his imitation of Scheherazade. He presses the button to send Bugs to the pit, only to discover that it doesn’t work (Bugs and turned the power off). Furious with the situation, Yosemite Sam gets on the small stage angrily demanding that it open up, whereupon Bugs turns the power back on. Even the youngest of Bugs Bunny fans knows where that will end.

 

Los Angeles, September 21, 2024 / Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).