Release Date:

February 11, 1950

Main Character(s):

Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam

Summary:

After his sole crew member loses his sanity and escapes, pirate Yosemite Sam (as “Shanghai Sam”) dupes Bugs Bunny into being his replacement crew. Sam of course ends up regretting this.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1108 and was released as a Looney Tune.

This is the second cartoon to feature Sam as a pirate as well as the second cartoon where he’s under a different title rather than “Yosemite”.

The title is a pun for “Mutiny on the Bounty”.

This is the only ever time that Sam dresses in drag.

Despite Bugs referring to Sam at one point as “Sambo” (a derogatory terms used for a black person, most notably used in “Angel Puss”), there is nothing racist about this cartoon.

This cartoon was released five days after my maternal grandmother was born.

What I Like About This One:

On an ominous foggy night complete with foghorns sounding and a dock bell chiming (complete with Sam’s ship labeled as “The Sad Sack… Formerly The Jolly Roger”), screaming is then heard as the man Sam had imprisoned is seen running off the ship, having lost his sanity from Sam’s torturing of him, before stopping to say, “I was a human being once”. Sam appears and yells, “Avast there! Come back here, ya barnacle-bitten swab!” before shooting at him to no avail. With this crew member now gone, Sam thinks to himself, “Blast his scuppers! Now I gotta get me a whole new crew. I’m a-sailin’ with the tide or my name ain’t Shanghai Sam. And it is” (animated by Virgil Ross).

When Bugs strolls past, Sam sets up signs advertising a free trip around the world and acts like a carnival barker for it. Ecstatic about the idea of going around the world for free, Bugs starts up the gangplank, “Well, let’s go! What’re we waitin’ for? Anchors aweigh!”, oblivious to Sam shortly walking up the gangplank behind him with a devious smile and a club behind his back. Bugs calls out, “Aloha! Au revoir! Bon voyagee!” as if there’s a big farewell going on at the dock, but a mouse is the only one present as he states, “He’s not long for this world” in Irish brogue. After Bugs bids, “Farewell to thee!”, Sam clubs him on the head (animated by Ross).

Well into the next day, Bugs is still dazed as he’s saying, “Au revoir. Adios” below deck and rowing the ship all by himself (animated by Ross). Outraged at having his foot locked in a ball and chain, Bugs goes up to complain to Sam, “Captain! Captain! Just what’s the meaning of this!? Here! (gives Sam iron ball) I demand that you get rid of this immediately!” Rather than remove the ball and chain from Bugs, Sam throws said ball and chain overboard with Bugs still attached to it! Bugs gets back on board, stating “this is an outrage. I demand an explanation-” but Sam just yells, “Ah, shut up!” before telling Bugs he is to swab the deck. An “Oh, no I’m not”, “Oh, yes you are!” argument ensues, ending with Bugs getting in Sam’s face and giving out a long “Ohhhhhhhhh….” (animated by Arthur Davis)

The next scene reveals a disgruntled Bugs in a sailor’s outfit and sulking, “Yes, I am” while swabbing the deck. He then writes a rumor about Sam on the deck and yells, “Captain! Captain! Captain, look! Vandals hit!” The message Bugs wrote reads, “The Captain’s wife wears army shoes”. Sam scrubs it away while ranting, “Ooooh, I’d like to lay my hands on the lily-livered swab has writ that forgery!” Bugs writes another rumor on the deck, “The Captain loves Gravel Gertie”. Sam scrubs this away too, this time ranting, “Oooh, that dirty bilge rat has fouled my good name!” Upon seeing a final written rumor, “The Captain is a shnook”, Sam hears Bugs in a lounge chair saying, “My compliments, Captain, on keeping your ship so spic and span”. Sam beams proudly before getting wise and pointing his gun at Bugs: “Ooh, belay there, ya long-eared galoot! Get aloft and furl the tatter-sole top gallants before I keelhauls ya!” (animated by Ken Champin)

Bugs starts going dramatic and acts as if they’ve hit disaster and are sinking fast (animated by Champin). He prevents Sam from escaping in the life boat on the side of the ship, “Oh no ya don’t! The captain goes down with his ship!” Sam declares, “Well I resign! You’re captain!” Bugs and Sam argue back and forth, demanding that the other is captain before Sam ends it with, “I’m captain and I say YOU’RE captain, captain”. Accepting it, Bugs sighs, “Okay, okay. I’m captain”. He stops Sam again and tells him, “Eh, just a minute, you. Women and children first, ya know”. With this, Sam dresses up as an old lady begging in a high-pitched voice, “Help! Help! Save a poor old lady from a horrible fate”. Bugs allows Sam to get into the lifeboat and then cuts the ropes holding said lifeboat so it and Sam are not dropped into the water gently. As Sam rows away, Bugs gets an idea upon seeing the anchor next to him. He yells to Sam, “My baby! My baby! Save my baby! Here, here. Catch my baby!”, where it’s revealed that he disguised the anchor to look like a baby. Bugs shoves it off the ship as Sam attempts to catch it, resulting in him sinking (animated by Gerry Chiniquy).

Getting back onto the ship soaking wet, Sam finds Bugs with a map and digging tools and asks him what he’s doing. Bugs’ reply is, “Who me? Oh, I’m gonna get rich. I’m gonna dig for buried treasure”. Sam takes the map for himself and follows the instructions to go to where “X” marks the spot. The spot where the “X” is is actually the hull on the bottom of the ship which Sam chops away at with a pickax, and only realizes his error when water starts gushing into the ship, causing it to sink all the way down to the ocean floor (animated by Ross).

After repairing the spot he chopped away at, Sam has the ship set sail again and attempts to find Bugs while pulling a cannon with him. Seeing Bugs below deck, Sam points the cannon down towards him and sneers, “Say your prayers!” before evil laughing and lighting the cannon’s fuse. Bugs suddenly appears next to him and encourages, “Attaboy, Sambo! Give ‘em both barrels!” Realizing this will destroy the hull again, Sam attempts to blow out the fuse but every blow causes the fuse to burn faster before the inevitable blast destroys the hull, sinking the ship again (animated by Davis).

Sam repairs the spot he shot at and has the ship set sail once more. Pulling the cannon with him again, he finds Bugs in a nonchalant pose in the middle of the mast. Sam points the cannon upward and fires it that way as well, but the cannonball only flies back down and lands on top of him, crashing through the hull. At the bottom of the ocean floor, the cannonball falls off Sam’s head as a lump grows on his head before the ship sinks on top of him (animated by Davis).

Sam repairs the damaged spot in the ship once more, but this time, Bugs ties the ship to the dock, so that when it sets sail again, the frame is ripped out from the ship’s sides as it immediately slides down into the water off the slipway. When the entire frame is submerged, Sam’s arm pops out of the water, waving a white flag (animated by Davis).

In the end, Sam is seen rowing the lifeboat with Bugs relaxing. The lifeboat being covered in travel stickers reveals that Bugs has forced Sam into doing the free trip around the world for real. Bugs sighs in an elegant voice, “Oh, the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen” before ordering in his normal voice, “Come on, come on! Step on it! We’ve still gotta make Rio de Janei-rio!” (animated by Ross)

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕