Lighter Than Hare

Marvin the Martian is the famous space alien among the Looney Tunes, but Friz Freleng gave Yosemite Sam the chance to be one in "Lighter Than Hare". The cartoon casts Sam as a spaceman looking for an earthling. Sure enough, he comes across Bugs Bunny, the one truly untrappable earthling! I really liked watching as Sam sends his robots after Bugs and Bugs casually trashes each of them. Is Sam always doomed or something? Then again, he spends most of his time shouting, just like he does as a cowboy, so he has no way of defeating Bugs. Friz Freleng created Yosemite Sam because he wanted Bugs Bunny to have a more challenging enemy than the gullible Elmer Fudd, so he took the smallest man and gave him the loudest voice possible, and thus was born the roughest, toughest, he-man stuffest hombre as ever crossed the Rio Grande. Of course, Sam was no better at beating Bugs than Elmer ever was. Bugs had only to use Sam's anger against him.

All in all, "Lighter Than Hare" is definitely a really funny one.

Silly Bugs Bunny short from Friz Freleng that has Yosemite Sam as an alien invader who comes to Earth in his flying saucer. Sam instructs his robots to bring him Bugs, which goes about as well as you might expect. Not bad for a later Looney Tunes short but far from one of the best. The animation is decent for the period and the colors are nice. What was with so much brown, though? Whimsical music from Milt Franklyn. Great voice work from the incomparable Mel Blanc. Sam's fun as usual. His robots are the best part of the cartoon, including one he refers to as "the most stupidest robot I've got." It's an entertaining cartoon, if not particularly impressive.

. . . more than aerial skillets, atmospheric egg beaters and spoons from Outer Space. This is not very logical, especially to a trained culinary artist. It is likely that there are many other items of dinnerware which could prove as threatening as saucers, if not more so. For instance, take forks for example. Imagine if a 4,000-mile high tuning fork were to suddenly appear jabbed down a sink hole in Tallahassee, FL. In and of itself such a phenomenon could prove quite off-putting. But what if such an extraterrestrial tuning fork were to emanate a continual broadcast of a morbid dirge such as "Dancing Queen" or "Hey Jude"? In such a case, local residents could go bonkers. Therefore, Bugs Bunny gets off fairly easy during LIGHTER THAN HARE.

Bugs is in his rabbit warren when a flying saucer lands outside. Inside, spaceman Yosemite Sam wants to capture an earth creature and picks Bugs. However, when robot ZX29B fails in his mission, Sam sends out his toughest robots before eventually having to confront Bugs himself.

Despite the initial wonder as to why Sam would be a spaceman instead of his usual cowboy or pirate characters, this was a pretty slick little film that was funny throughout. It starts quickly and keeps coming to make the most of the most of the running time. The plot sees Bugs taking on Sam either in person or his robots. It is all pretty funny and it uses the twist of the sci-fi element quite well to get some imaginative sequences.

Bugs is as good as he usually is and some of the robots have a little bit of character and are funnier for it. Sam is good and was funny once I'd accepted him as a spaceman who looks and sounds like a cowboy!

Overall this is an unlikely cartoon but one that is funny and feels slightly fresher than it should on the basis of the different sci-fi element. Not his best, but Sam is a good foil for Bugs and their little battle here makes for an enjoyable 5 minutes!

Lighter than Hare is a fun and quite interesting cartoon, without being either one of the Bugs Bunny's', Yosemite Sam's or Fritz Freleng's best. It is initially odd to see Sam as a Martian sort of character rather than his usual guises, but it was interesting as it does work well. Lighter than Hare does start off a little slowly with the cartoon really getting going when Sam is on earth. While the backgrounds and character designs are detailed and beautifully drawn, the colours did seem on the flat side to me. However, the music is great especially the spookiness of the opening credits. There is some funny dialogue, but it's really in the gags where Lighter than Hare really sells in its humour especially the one with the dynamite and Sam in the robot. Bugs and Sam are their usual entertaining selves and Mel Blanc as ever is stellar. Overall, very good if not outstanding. 8/10 Bethany Cox