Mississippi Hare
Mississippi Hare is a cartoon produced by Looney Tunes back in 1949. The short directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The short was released on February 26, 1949 and features Bugs Bunny.[1]
Plot
Bugs Bunny, fall asleep in a cotton field and picked up by his cottony tail (which a worker mistakes for actual cotton) and bundled into a shipment put on a riverboat going down the Mississippi River).
In the ship Bugs sees a steward forcibly eject a ticket-less passenger, Bugs acquires some clothes and presents himself to the steward as a top-hatted gentleman. His self-assurance so clearly suggests that he belongs on the boat that the steward hesitates to even ask for a ticket, but rather than browbeat him with his presumed superior station, Bugs gives the man a ticket.
Along the journey, Bugs finds the Yosemite Sam-esque Colonel Shuffle, a neurotic riverboat gambler. After Shuffle's gunplay clears out the customer base in the casino when another player tops his hand of three Queens with one of four Kings, Bugs remains as his only challenger in a poker game. Bugs soon wins all of Shuffle's money including the original white half coin when he tops the cheating Shuffle's hand of five Aces with six Aces. Literally beaten at his own game, Shuffle challenges Bugs to a pistol duel and an explosion from an exploding cigar, given to Shuffle by Bugs, leaves Shuffle in blackface and Bugs leads him in a dance to "De Camptown Races".
Colonel Shuffle falls into the river but then comes back into the ship he comes up behind the laughing Bugs and failed to shoot Bugs because of a waterlogged pistol. Bugs then tricks Shuffle into buying a ticket to see "Uncle Tom's Cabin", only to fall back into the river. Shuffle again tries to shoot Bugs only to be reminded, "Ah, ah, doc! It's full of water!" Shuffle points the pistol at himself and get blasted in the face. Shuffle chases Bugs down to the boiler room but end up in the boiler himself and having no other option than to get change from Bugs for a cup to get water, only to shoot at Bugs when he puts out his fire.
Bugs disguised as a southern belle garb and beats up Shuffle with an umbrella, with Shuffle frantically apologizing until the props failed and Bugs revealed, the chase resumes. Bugs appeals to another passenger to rescue "her" from Shuffle, whom the passenger throws overboard. However, after realizing that the "lady" he has assisted is a rabbit, the dumbfounded man has a nervous breakdown and steps overboard himself.
The Controversy
Cartoon Network has this cartoon on its list of twelve Bugs Bunny cartoons that were pulled from airing on the 2001 due to its offensive depiction to African Americans.[2] In the opening there's a scene of cotton farm with black-skinned cottonpickers which also promote slavery. The blackface/"Camptown Races" song that was censored on ABC.[3] This cartoon also shown the "Uncle Tom's Cabinet" scene, which the original cartoon Uncle Tom's Bungalow was pulled from syndication due to it’s racist content and grouped with other racist cartoon under Censored Eleven.
External Link
Watch Mississippi Hare at Dailymotion
Mississippi Hare at IMDb
Camptown Races song at Youtube
See Also
Camptown Races
Uncle Tom's Bungalow
Censored Eleven
References
- ↑ Mississippi Hare, Retrieved January 6, 2021.
- ↑ Mississippi Hare, Loney Tunes Fandom. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
- ↑ Mississippi Hare, TV Tropes. Retrieved January 6, 2021.