Hillbilly Hare

For no particular reason, except that this is probably the single funniest Bugs Bunny cartoon ever made. Not necessarily the "best," but certainly in my top five (more to come).

The first time I remember seeing this was in June 1980, and we were on one of our periodic vacations to Southern California. At the time, Bugs was still a regular on the Saturday morning cartoons, and this one made my entire family crack up.

I didn't see it again for nearly 20 years, when it popped up on the late, lamented "June Bugs" feature on Cartoon Network. We now have it on an ancient VHS tape, along with 40-50 other Bugs classics, and I just hope the tape holds up a few more years.

According to the Wikipedia page on this cartoon, it was banned on network TV in the mid-1990s, because of its negative portrayal of the "hillbilly" stereotype. That's either some kind of commentary on our day and age, or just further proof that people don't have much of a sense of humor these days. Because if you can't laugh at this, even if you ARE from the Ozarks, then you probably don't laugh at much of anything.