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Prince Violent
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Wikipedia article
'Prince Violent' (retitled 'Prince Varmint' for television) is a 1961 Warner Bros. 'Looney Tunes' cartoon directed by Friz Freleng and Freleng's longtime layout artist Hawley Pratt. The short was released on September 2, 1961, and stars Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam.
Plot
A Viking named Sam the Terrible is rowing upriver towards a castle, and he is noticed by two people on a nearby riverbank, who retreat to the castle sensing an invasion. As he passes by Bugs Bunny's hole, Bugs peeks out and thinks that Sam's outfit is that of an "electric can opener broken loose". As Bugs sees Sam enter the castle, Bugs takes it upon himself to fight Sam.
In Bugs' first confronting Sam, who is trying to get the locals to come out, Bugs calls Sam's outfit a Halloween costume, and takes the sword from Sam and dulls it, rendering it useless, and kicks Sam out of the castle. Sam tries to re-enter, only to see the horns of his cap get stuck in the castle door. In the meantime, Bugs paints a door on the castle walls to trick Sam, and Sam (this time with the help of a pink elephant) tries to break the "door" down, only to instead knock in some of the stones where the door was painted. Sam berates the elephant who then angrily slams Sam on the floor multiple times.
Next, Sam, with the help of the elephant, is catapulting rocks over the castle walls. Bugs sees an opportunity to ruin Sam's plans and pours pepper on the elephant, making him sneeze a rock right into Sam, flattening him. Thinking that Sam has retreated, Bugs asks for the bridge to be lowered. Sam, however, reappears and tries to cross the bridge with the elephant, but the elephant is so heavy that Sam and the elephant both fall through into the moat.
Sam then decides to try to sail in the back way (using the elephant's belly as a boat) to enter via the back. Bugs, however, notices this and while Sam is sailing, he plugs the elephant's trunk with a cork. The elephant, in his struggle to breathe, runs back to land, forcing Sam to use his hat to sail back to shore, where he furiously chases away the elephant ("AND DON'T COME BACK!!! I'll handle that Prince Varmint myself!").
Frustrated, Sam tries to mine his way into the castle under one of the towers, only to have the tower pancake onto him. After this attempt fails, ("I'm through foolin' around! Now I'm gonna get serious!") Sam attempts to blow open the castle door with TNT. When Sam tries to leave, however, the drawbridge has been raised from the other end and Sam is forced to wait with the lit explosives. After the door blows open, Sam rushes in, only to meet the elephant that he chased away earlier, who proclaims (in a voice mimicking Joe Besser) that he is now on Bugs' side ("I'm on the GOOD guy's side now! So take that, bad guy!") before chasing Sam back to the beach with a hammer. Furious, Sam vows that he will be coming back to get even with the double-crossing elephant ("YA DOUBLE-CROSSERS! I'm a-comin' back, and I ain't comin' back to play marbles!") as he escapes on his boat. Bugs comments about what can be accomplished for peanuts ("Y'know, it's amazing. The things you can accomplish for just peanuts!") and rewards the elephant with a pack of them as the cartoon fades out.
See also
*List of Bugs Bunny cartoons
* List of Yosemite Sam cartoons
References
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