Mississippi Hare

Bugs Bunny, asleep in a cotton field, is picked up by his cottony tail (which a worker mistakes for actual cotton) and bundled into a shipment put on a riverboat going down the Mississippi River (setting sail for Memphis, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Cuc-amonga).

After seeing a steward forcibly eject a ticket-less passenger, Bugs acquires some clothes and presents himself to the steward as a top-hatted gentleman. His self-assurance so clearly suggests that he belongs on the boat that the steward hesitates to even ask for a ticket, but rather than browbeat him with his presumed superior station, Bugs gives the man a ticket.

At this point Bugs could simply relax and enjoy the unexpected trip, which must eventually take the boat back to its starting point and allow him to disembark, but he prefers to seek an adversary with whom he can match wits. He finds one in the Yosemite Sam-esque Colonel Shuffle, a neurotic riverboat gambler. After Shuffle's gunplay clears out the customer base in the casino when another player tops his hand of three Queens with one of four Kings, Bugs remains as his only challenger in a poker game. Beginning with a hundred dollar stake (which amounts to only half a white coin), Bugs soon wins all of Shuffle's money including the original white half coin when he tops the cheating Shuffle's hand of five Aces with six Aces. Literally beaten at his own game, Shuffle challenges Bugs to a pistol duel and an explosion from an exploding cigar, given to Shuffle by Bugs, leaves Shuffle in blackface and Bugs leads him in a dance to "De Camptown Races".

After Colonel Shuffle falls into the river and then comes back into the ship he comes up behind the laughing Bugs (casually asking "Why did you dump me in the Mississippi mud?") and makes a failed attempt to shoot Bugs with a waterlogged pistol (water flows out with a bullet sporting a sail). Bugs then tricks Shuffle into buying a ticket to see "Uncle Tom's Cabin", only to fall back into Old Man River. Shuffle again tries to shoot Bugs ("Why did you dunk my poor old hide in Old Man River, when I bought a loge seat?"), only to be reminded, "Ah, ah, doc! It's full of water!" Shuffle points the pistol at himself, only to get blasted in the face. Shuffle chases Bugs down to the boiler room, only to end up in the boiler himself and having no other option than to get change from Bugs for a cup to get water, only to shoot at Bugs when he puts out his fire.

Bugs dons southern belle garb and beats up Shuffle with an umbrella, with Shuffle frantically apologising until he recognises Bugs and the chase resumes. Bugs appeals to another passenger to rescue "her" from Shuffle, whom the passenger throws overboard. However, after realizing that the "lady" he has assisted is a rabbit, the dumbfounded man has a nervous breakdown and steps overboard himself. Bugs, unfazed, simply comments "Ah well, we almost had a romantic ending" as the cartoon ends (though it is never revealed if there actually was a romantic ending).

• Mississippi Hare on IMDb

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