Watch Knight-Mare Hare For Free

Sadly Over-hyped

Expected more

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Written by Tedd Pierce and directed by Chuck Jones, "Knight-Mare Hare" is a weird Bugs Bunny cartoon. It seems that Bugs gets knocked unconscious while using an "ear dryer" (?) and ends up in medieval times. His nemeses: a knight, a dragon, and a sorcerer.My favorite scenes? There aren't very many. Bugs mentions his friends the Duke of Ellington, Count of Basie, Earl of Hines, Cab of Calloway, and Satchmo of Armstrong (this joke is quite dear to my heart because I am a jazz musician). During the knight's joust with Bugs, the knight's horse trips and falls, throwing the knight high into the air and inside a castle window, where he falls down a lengthy staircase with numerous crashing sounds.As I said, "Knight-Mare Hare" is a strange cartoon. If you miss it, you're probably not missing much.

Chuck Jones's 'Knight-mare Hare' is an oddly slow-moving parody of Mark Twain's 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'. Beaned on the head by a falling apple, Bugs Bunny dreams that he is in the time of knights in shining armour. This promising set up gives way to a series of laboured exchanges. First there's a pun-filled discussion with a knight, then a tame gag with a dragon and finally a go-nowhere sequence involving Merlin, which proves to be the set up for one of the lamest final gags in cartoon history. A big problem with 'Knight-mare Hare' is Tedd Pierce's curiously lacklustre script but Jones directs the whole thing with an uncharacteristic lack of flair, making for a truly feeble cartoon experience. While I've always thought it a little overrated, Friz Freleng's Oscar winning 'Knighty Knight Bugs', which appeared a few years later, is a far better take on the Medieval Bugs scenario.

For most of Chuck Jones's "Knight-Mare Hare" - the first cartoon in which he billed himself as "Chuck Jones", as opposed to the earlier "Charles M. Jones" - it looked as though the cartoon was one of the shorts holding the places in between the really great ones. But I really laughed when Bugs Bunny rattled off the names of his friends: Duke of Ellington, Count of Basie and Satchmo of Armstrong! That's probably the main reason that it's a good thing that I saw this cartoon now, when I'm old enough to understand it; I can guarantee you that at six years old, I'd never heard of Louis Armstrong or any of those guys, so I wouldn't have known what to think when Bugs named them.But aside from that, it's a pretty funny cartoon, as Bugs gets knocked out and dreams that he's in medieval England, and proceeds to turn everything upside down. Worth seeing.

Long before the invention of the DVD, aye, even before every household had at least one VCR player, there was 8 mm film. Next to blank tapes for your own home movies you could buy selected bits from completed films, with or without sound (depending on the capabilities of your projector). My father used to buy films from the silent era and Loony Tunes. The very last one he got was called "La Magia", a 3 minuted black and white edit of "Knightmare Hare".For some reason the editors deemed the exposition part unnecessary, so they removed the scene where Bugs Bunny gets knocked out by a falling apple while reading "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". They also skipped the part with the Black Knight, leaving "La Magia" to open with Bugs angrily talking to himself (no idea what he's saying) while wearing a robe. Then a Dragon who looks like a cross between "The Reluctant Dragon" and "Pete's Dragon" runs past.After easily getting rid of the fire breather, Bugs enters a tower where (according to the mailbox) Merlin Monroe resides. Apparently there were many more puns uttered in this cartoon, but I have yet to hear them. Merlin looks like Witch Hazel's brother just escaped from the loony bin. He even has one of those little propeller caps that only little kids and total fruitcakes are allowed to wear. Beside the historical inaccurate garb, the dreamlike atmosphere is made even more apparent by the use of one dimensional checkered floors in Castle Monroe. Richard Williams' epic 30 year production "The Thief and the Cobbler" would make even greater and stranger use of this idea. Merlin decides to try out his Magic Powder on Bugsy, but POUF, the magic Bunny has some tricks of his own up his sleeve (and under his thumb).Since they cut out the set up, the bit with Bugs waking up beneath the tree also had to go, and suddenly Mr. B is back in a robe for the usual did-he-or-didn't-he? coda. Although this was not the most enjoyable Loony Toon in our little home collection, being able to dissect 3 minutes of Warner animation by playing it at different speeds, in reverse and freeze frame made me appreciate the art of animation even more. Maybe somewhere in time I might find the complete version.4 out of 10 (not a bad score for half a cartoon)Update: finally having tracked down the complete version, it turns out I had not seen half of it. It turns out an apple fell on Bugs' hairdryer (he had 'just washed his ears' ) while reading "Tales of knighthood and gallantry" by Burton. This set up leads to a namedropping encounter with a knight, Sir O of K. Bugs is really out of his league in the physical department, being unable to lift his sword, but still manages to outwit Mel Blanc's English accented oaf. The encounter with the Dragon/Horney toad is a lot better with the sound effects, funnier too. Now that I know at last how Bugs figures out how to get back to the present (he uses another apple), I must revise my original rating and give this legendary caper7 out of 10