Bunker Hill Bunny

Bunker Hill Bunny
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Airdate:	23 September 1950
Series:	Merrie Melodies
MPAA Number:	13579
Production Number:	1133
Vitaphone Number:	1844
Runtime:	7 minutes, 20 seconds
Copyright Renewed:	11 March 1977
Starring:	Bugs Bunny Yosemite Sam
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Mel Blanc
Director:	I. Freleng
Written By:	Tedd Pierce
Producer:	Eddie Selzer (uncredited)
Animated By:	Gerry Chiniquy Ken Champin Virgil Ross Arthur Davis
Layout Artist:	Hawley Pratt
Background Artist:	Paul Julian
Film Editor:	Treg Brown (uncredited)
Musician:	Carl Stalling

Bunker Hill Bunny is a 1950 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng.

Plot

In 1776 at the "Battle of Bagle Heights", following the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Yorktown, Bugs is an American Minuteman defending a Fort against the red-coated Sam von Schmamm, the Hessian, defending a large stone fortress. Sam's fortress is heavily armored, bristling with artillery; by contrast, Bugs' defenses are rather pathetic, with only one cannon. Sam taunts Bugs with the boast that he has him "outnumbered, one to one" and, after a barrage of ineffective cannon fire, charges across the battleground rattling his saber.

Sam's first charge involves only Sam emerges, fully clothed, holding a musket, and yells, "Charge!" But Bugs does not. Running into the barrel of a large cannon, Sam attempts a swift retreat, only to be blasted back into his own fort.

Running out of the fort, Sam yells, "You ornery, flea-bearing rebel, you'll pay for this!" He takes out a circular bomb, lights it, and throws it towards Bugs' fortress. Bugs runs inside and emerges wearing a baseball uniform and carrying a bat. Bugs hits the bomb away towards Sam's fort. Taking out a baseball mitt, Sam runs backwards, yelling, "I got it! I got it!" The bomb explodes in the base, with a white flag being hoisted on the flagpole, proclaiming, "He Got It!"

Sam then threatens Bugs that he will "Blow [him] to smithereenies," to which Bugs replies, "Ah! Your brother blows bubble gum!" Enraged, Sam loads a Spigot Mortar and fires at Bugs. Bugs catches the mortar round in his own cannon and fires it back, yelling, "Eh, that's the old pepper boy!", imitating a catcher. Sam fires the cannon a second and third time to the same effect, with Bugs firing back jeers on each volley. The third time, a stopper is shot after the cannonball, which Sam pulls off, only to be shot when his own cannon self-ignites.

Frustrated, Sam burrows his way underground into Bugs' base using a pickaxe. Upon surfacing, Sam lights a match, only to find that he has miscalculated and emerged in a munitions shack full inside his own fortress. The explosives detonate, leaving Sam stumbling out, dazed.

As a last gambit, Sam attempts to use a keg of gunpowder to blow up Bugs' base; due to a hole in the keg, gunpowder falls into the backside of Sam's pants. After Sam lights the fuse and departs, unknowingly leaving a powder trail, Bugs, sitting on the powder keg and munching a carrot, calmly extinguishes it and nonchalantly lights Sam's gunpowder trail in return. Sam attempts to evade his impending fate by running out of his fortress and up an apple tree, only to have the tree's crown explode on him. Beaten and worn out, Sam states, "I'm a Hessian, without no aggression. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Defeated, he joins Bugs in a fife-and-drum march.

Availability

(1985) VHS
A Salute to Friz Freleng

(1994) LaserDisc
Bugs Bunny: Hare Beyond Compare: 14 More Bugs Bunny Classics

(1993) VHS
Yosemite Sam's Yeller Fever

(1996) VHS
Looney Tunes Collection - Yosemite Sam

(2000) VHS
Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition Vol. 9: A Looney Life (1998 THIS VERSION, without notice)

(2000) VHS
Mil-Looney-Um 2000 - Bumper Collection

(2003) DVD
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1, Disc Four (1998 THIS VERSION, without notice)

(2003) DVD
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 1, Disc Two (1998 THIS VERSION, without notice)

(2004) DVD
Looney Tunes Collection All Stars Volume 2

(2004) DVD
Looney Tunes Collection All Stars Volumes 1 & 2, Disc 2

(2005) DVD
The Best of Looney Tunes (KFC)

(2014) DVD
Looney Tunes Center Stage Volume 2

(2018) DVD
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volumes 1-3 Repack

Streaming

Boomerang App ( - 2024) (1998 THIS VERSION, low pitched audio)

HBO Max (2020 - 2023) (restored, low pitched audio)

Max (2023 - ) (restored, low pitched audio)

Censorship

• The penultimate sequence, involving Sam digging underground to ambush Bugs' fortress, only to end up in a dynamite shack that blows up when he lights a match to see, was removed when aired on ABC's The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show.

Notes

• Most of this cartoon was used in the TV special Bugs Bunny: All American Hero.
• The gag of an opponent of Bugs yelling "I got it, I got it, I got it!" and then a sign reading "He Got It" was previously used in "Baseball Bugs".
• When Bugs' switches forts, the green WE flag has a carrot under it every time the fort is switched.
• Yosemite Sam's line "Varmint, I'm gonna blow ya to smithereenies!" was used on a radio broadcast from the mid-2000s, in a New Mexico desert, close to Albuquerque. The broadcast was later revealed to be run by Mobility Assessment Test and Integration Center, sometimes shortened as MATIC.
• This cartoon, alongside "Big House Bunny", "What's Up Doc?", "Hillbilly Hare", and "Bushy Hare" are the only cartoons from 1950 to not get a Blue Ribbon reissue. Coincidentally, all of these cartoons star Bugs Bunny.

Gallery

Lobby card

Lobby card