Captain Hareblower

Captain Hareblower
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Airdate:	16 January 1954 Blue Ribbon reissue: 11 October 1969
Series:	Merrie Melodies
MPAA Number:	15830
Production Number:	1284
Vitaphone Number:	2323
Runtime:	6 minutes, 57 seconds
Copyright Renewed:	28 May 1982
Starring:	Bugs Bunny Yosemite Sam
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Mel Blanc
Director:	I. Freleng
Written By:	Warren Foster
Producer:	Eddie Selzer (uncredited)
Animated By:	Manuel Perez Ken Champin Virgil Ross Arthur Davis
Layout Artist:	Hawley Pratt
Background Artist:	Irv Wyner
Film Editor:	Treg Brown (uncredited)
Musician:	Carl Stalling

Captain Hareblower is a 1954 Merrie Melodies short directed by I. Freleng.

Title

The title is a play on the C.S. Forester character, Captain Horatio Hornblower.

Plot

One-man Pirate crew Yosemite Sam spots a trading sailship and, upon firing a warning shot, demands its surrender. All of the crewmen abandon ship after they exclaim in horror of "Pirate Sam", leaving only Bugs Bunny, a stowaway in a box full of carrots, who finds "Pirate Sam" does not sound very intimidating ("Pirate Sam, Pirate Sam. BIG deal!"). Bugs then looks at the other ship and says, "Ahoy there! What's up, doc?" Seeing Bugs, Sam demands surrender, claiming that he has the rabbit "outnumbered one to one". Bugs refuses to give up, having "never hoid the woid", defiantly telling Sam whilst donning a Napoleonic hat, "So you'll have to try and take this ship!". Sam simply responds with a warning shot through the hat and between Bugs' ears, leaving a lump on his head ("Now, he should know better than that!")

Bugs and Sam subsequently engage each other in battle. As their ships sail alongside each other, Bugs manages to find and shoot Sam first ("Blast, ya rabbit! Two can play that game!"). Later, as Sam tries to do the same, he ends up meeting another cannon and getting shot again, much to his annoyance.

While Sam is filling his cannons and firing them, Bugs wanders onto Sam's ship and shoots Sam as he is filling one, turning Sam into a pile of rubble.

Later, Sam sneaks aboard Bugs's ship to subject him to the same thing. This time though, the cannon instead launches backwards into Sam, shooting himself out of the ship's side.

Next, in a gag similar to one in Bunker Hill Bunny, Sam tries to swing aboard Bugs' ship ("Prepare to defend yourself, rabbit, cuz I'm a-boarding your ship! Charge!"). However, there is another cannon in Sam's path, resulting in him landing in the cannon; the cannon fires just as Sam tries to retreat.

Then, Sam then makes a model sailship using a barrel of dynamite. He lights it and blows into the sail to push the ship towards Bugs' ship. Bugs tries to blow the explosive model ship back to no avail and then uses an electric fan to blow the ship back towards Sam; when Sam tries to blow it back it explodes when it reaches his face.

Then Sam dresses up in a diving suit, lights a fuse to a bomb and dives underwater (how his bomb does not light out from the water is not explained). When he is swimming towards Bugs' ship with the bomb, a shark comes up from behind and eats Sam. Seconds later the bomb detonates and blows up the shark, leaving only its shock-faced skeleton behind and Sam himself burned and dazed from the explosion.

Sam eventually corners Bugs on the crow's nest of Bugs' ship. Sam tells Bugs to surrender but Bugs challenges Sam to climb up and get him first. Sam in reply uses an axe to chop down the mast. Sam takes cover when it is almost completely cut apart and it starts to shake. When it remains still balanced on the last chunk holding it up, Sam walks under the rested mast to chop the final chunk of it off but before he can react the mast falls on itself and crushes Sam. Sam eventually climbs out of the mast, gets back in shape and glares up at Bugs. He climbs up the net ladders and corners Bugs on the rigging. Bugs decides to take a dive in the ocean instead of facing Sam. When Sam tries to dive after Bugs he lands head-first onto a rock and falls in the water in massive pain.

Finally, in a scene similar to Buccaneer Bunny, Sam starts to threaten Bugs once back on ship. Bugs tosses a lighted match into the powder room of Sam's ship. Sam frantically retrieves the match and tells Bugs "Ya doggone idjit galut! You'll blow the ship to smithereenies! And if ya does that once more, I ain't a-goin' after it!" Bugs nonchalantly decides to throw another match into the powder room forcing Sam to stand and wait like he said he would. After a few seconds, Sam changes his mind and runs after the match but by the time he does so, his ship blows up. To retaliate, Sam lights a match himself and tosses it into Bugs' ship powder room ("What's good for the goose is good for the gander!"). Bugs however refuses to go after it and after realizing that Bugs is serious, Sam panics, dives from the ship and swims off. Bugs reveals that his powder room is actually a make-up room, commenting "I don't know what he's so excited about. Talcum powder doesn't explode." However, moments after saying this, his ship is suddenly blown up as well. As a defeated Bugs is tossed in the air, he sadly tells the audience as he falls, "I could be wrong, you know".

Availability

(1984) VHS
The Looney Tunes Video Show Volume 8

(1993) LaserDisc
Bugs Bunny: Winner by a Hare: 14 of Bugs Bunny's Best

(1993) VHS
Bugs Bunny's Hare-Brained Hits

(1993) VHS
Stark Raving Looneys

(1993) VHS
Under Siege (UK rental only)

(1994) VHS
Special Bumper Collection (Vol. 1)

(2003) VHS
Bugs Bunny (2003)

(2007) DVD
Captain Horatio Hornblower

(2020) Blu-ray
Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection, Disc 2 (restored and HD)

Streaming

Boomerang App ( - 2024)

HBO Max (2020 - 2022) (restored)

Max (2024 - ) (restored)

Notes

• This is the final Bugs Bunny cartoon to get a Blue Ribbon reissue.
• Bugs used the same gag he used on Sam in "Buccaneer Bunny": throwing a lit match into Sam's powder room to blow up his ship, with the ship blowing up after Sam hesitates to retrieve the match.
• Clips from the short are used in one scene from the 1979 film, Time After Time.
• The dueling ships scene was reused in Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island, marking one of the scantest scene times for Bugs Bunny in a Merrie Melodies film.
• This is one of the few Bugs Bunny shorts to not feature his mugshot in the intro, most likely because the new mugshot for him had yet to be made for the smaller circa-1954 Color Rings opening intro. It would make its debut in the next Bugs short, "Bugs and Thugs".
• This is the first cartoon to be released after the WB animation studio reopened on 4 January 1954, after a brief seven-month shutdown from June to December 1953 during the height of the 3-D craze.
• This is the only cartoon where both Bugs and Sam lose in the end.

Gallery

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