Hare-abian Nights is a 1959 Merrie Melodies short directed by Ken Harris.
Title
The title is a pun on Arabian Nights.
Plot
A band called Timbuk Two Plus 3 plays "Sweet Georgia Brown" to entertain the sultan in his palace. The performance ends when the unimpressed sultan opens a trapdoor in the floor beneath the band, sending them into a crocodile pit below. The next musician, scared by what happened to the others, performs an Elvis-inspired "Hound Camel,” before meeting the same fate.
Meanwhile, Bugs, intending to travel to Perth Amboy but having missed a left turn at Des Moines, emerges from his tunnel in front of other prospective performers and is ordered to entertain the sultan.
Assigned the role of "Teller of Tales,” Bugs tells how he arrived in the palace. Bugs recounts his problems with the bull he met at a bullfighting ring while trying to find Coachella Valley, and his outsmarting the bull with a hidden anvil. The sultan is prepared to press the button to send Bugs into the pit, but then Bugs recounts his experiences with Rudolph the monster, when Bugs impersonated a hairdresser to outsmart Rudolph. Bugs also describes his encounter in the Sahara Desert with Sam, "the stupidest character of them all,” and Sam's unsuccessful attempts to enter a desert fort.
While Bugs is chuckling at Yosemite Sam's misfortunes, the sultan turns out to be Yosemite Sam himself; Sam presses the button to drop Bugs, but Bugs has shut off the mechanism with the master switch. When Sam tries to find out what is wrong, Bugs turns it back on, dropping Sam into the crocodile pit. Sam escapes, but so does one of the crocodiles, chasing Sam off. Bugs, now with turbans covering each ear, describes Sam's act as a "don't call us, we'll call you" act, along with some other remarks.
Caricatures
- Groucho Marx - "Of course you realize this means war!"
- Elvis Presley - as El-Vez Prezley
Transcript
For this short's transcript, see Hare-abian Nights/Transcript.
Availability
Looney Tunes: Parodies Collection
Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection (restored)
Censorship
When this cartoon aired on ABC's The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show, the excerpt from "Water, Water Every Hare,” in which beautician Bugs gives to Rudolph a dynamite-roller "permanenenent," was cut, though the same show on the same network left the same scene unaltered in "Water, Water Every Hare".[1]
Notes
- This is one of only two shorts in the Golden Age of American animation starring Yosemite Sam not directed by Friz Freleng, although sequences from a Freleng cartoon are used in this short; the other short is "Dumb Patrol" (1964), which was instead directed by Gerry Chiniquy of the Friz Freleng unit.
- This is the only Yosemite Sam cartoon from the classic era which had no involvement at all from the Friz Freleng unit, and the only Yosemite Sam cartoon from the classic era which the Chuck Jones team worked on, even though Chuck Jones himself never directed any Yosemite Sam cartoons until "From Hare to Eternity" (1996), which was ironically the final cartoon he ever directed during his lifetime, done as a dedication to Friz Freleng who died a year before that cartoon's release.
- Barring an episode of The Bugs Bunny Show, this is the only cartoon that Ken Harris ever directed.[2]
- It recycles footage from "Bully for Bugs,” "Water, Water Every Hare,” and "Sahara Hare.”
- The plot of this short was reused in Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales, where Yosemite Sam was once again sultan; it also reuses footage from previous Looney Tunes shorts, this time featuring not just Bugs Bunny, but also other characters.
Gallery
TV Title Cards
References
External Link
- "Hare-Abian Nights" at SuperCartoons.net
| Preceded by Baton Bunny |
Bugs Bunny Cartoons 1940-1964 |
Succeeded by Apes of Wrath |
