Yosemite Sam

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Yosemite Sam is a cartoon character who appeared in 33 short films in the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoon series between 1945 and 1964 . The character was developed by the American animator Friz Freleng as an adversary of Bugs Bunny and spoken by Mel Blanc . In the German version, Yosemite Sam was initially voiced by Walter Reichelt , from 1996 the voice actor Tilo Schmitz took over this role. Yosemite Sam usually appears as a short, red-haired cowboy with a quick temper.

Development of the figure

Yosemite Sam was the best-known and successful character from a series of animated films that the director Friz Freleng developed together with his screenwriter Michael Maltese in the mid-1940s to present the hugely popular Bugs Bunny as equal opponents. Freleng designed Yosemite Sam as an aggressive character with no subtleties, whose motives were clear from the start. So this figure stood in contrast to the rather soft Elmer Fudd .

Freleng and Maltese designed Yosemite Sam as a small, red-haired cowboy with a huge mustache who always wore a black mask. They were inspired by the character Sheriff Deadeye from Red Skelton's radio comedy show , but according to Michael Maltese the small, red-haired mustache-bearer Freleng himself was the godfather. In addition, there were similar characters in earlier Looney Tunes films, for example, in Robert Clampett's Buckaroo Bugs in 1944, a red-haired cowboy, the Red Hot Ryder , appeared as an adversary of Bugs Bunny. In Freleng's Bugs Bunny film Stage Door Cartoon (also from 1944), a white-haired, short stature sheriff appeared towards the end of the film , who can be regarded as the prototype of Yosemite Sam. The onomatopoeic name was derived from California's Yosemite National Park .

Mel Blanc developed the voice of Yosemite Sam by chance. After several attempts to give the character a rather drawn out way of speaking, Blanc found the right voice while driving when he was upset by a traffic hooligan. The roaring voice became Yosemite Sam's trademark, but it kept causing Mel Blanc problems because it was very demanding and quickly made him hoarse.

Appearances in Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies

Yosemite Sam had his first appearance in the short film Hare Trigger , which was released in the spring of 1945. In the film, Sam is a wanted outlaw who is caught off guard by Bugs Bunny while trying to rob a train. It wasn't until 1947 that there was a reunion with Yosemite Sam; in the cartoon Along Came Daffy he had to deal with Daffy Duck . In the following year, Yosemite Sam appeared not only in the cartoon Bugs Bunny Rides Again , which was set again in the Wild West , but also as a pirate in Buccaneer Bunny .

Until 1964, Yosemite Sam appeared in at least one Warner Brothers cartoon every year. In 31 of the 33 short films Friz Freleng directed, last only Sam's appearance in 1964, the the First World War settled Dumb Patrol , and with excerpts from old Bugs Bunny films compiled Cartoon Hare Abian Nights 1959 took over other directors the responsibility. With the exception of Along Came Daffy and the solo work Honey's Money from 1962, Yosemite Sam always appeared as an opponent of Bugs Bunny.

Although Yosemite Sam was conceived as a cowboy, he also appeared in other locations, which often involved a name change. He appeared as a pirate under the name "Sea-goin 'Sam", as "Sam Schultz" he was a prison guard in the movie Big House Bunny (1950), in Bunker Hill Bunny (also 1950) he fought as "Sam von Schamm He was named Riff Raff Sam in the 1955 film Sahara Hare , The Hessian, in the American Revolutionary War and as an Arab . In 1958, Knighty Knight Bugs , the only Oscar- winning Bugs Bunny cartoon, Yosemite Sam played the bad guy Black knight.

Other appearances

The films with Yosemite Sam, produced between 1945 and 1964, were broadcast on television as part of the Bugs Bunny Show and were used for various television specials as well as for some compilation films in the early 1980s . In the German synchronization of the Bugs Bunny Show , initially under the title Bunny the Rabbit , from 1983 onwards under the title Mein Name ist Hase , Klaus W. Krause and Walter Reichelt took over the role of Yosemite Sam.

In 1988, Yosemite Sam, along with numerous other Warner Brothers characters, made a guest appearance in the film Wrong Game with Roger Rabbit . Although Mel Blanc acted in the film as the spokesman for several characters, Joe Alaskey took over the demanding part of Yosemite Sam.

After Mel Blanc's death in 1989, various actors voiced the character of Yosemite Sam. Sam worked as a lecturer at Acme Looniversity in the animated series Tiny Toon Adventure and with “Montana Max” he had a childlike character. He also appeared in several episodes of the animated series The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries and as the alien villain K'chutha Sa'am in Duck Dodgers . Yosemite Sam also made cameo appearances in the films Space Jam (1996) and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003).

See also

literature

  • Michael Barrier: Hollywood Cartoons. American Animation in its Golden Age . Oxford University Press, New York 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-516729-0 .
  • Will Friedwald, Jerry Beck: The Warner Brothers Cartoons . Scarecrow Press, Metuchen 1981, ISBN 0-8108-1396-3 .
  • Kevin S. Sandler: Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros. Animation . Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick 1998, ISBN 0-8135-2538-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Michael Barrier: Hollywood Cartoons , p. 471.
  2. Jeff Lenburg: The Great Cartoon Directors . McFarland, Jefferson 1983, ISBN 0-89950-036-6 , p. 8.
  3. quoted in Joe Adamson: 'Well, for Heaven's Sake! Grown Men! ' Interviews . Film Comment , Jan-Feb 1975, p. 18.
  4. Will Friedwald, Jerry Beck: The Warner Brothers Cartoons , p. 111.
  5. Tim Lawson, Alisa Persons: The Magic Behind the Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors . University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2004, ISBN 1-57806-695-6 , p. 50.
  6. ^ Will Friedwald, Jerry Beck: The Warner Brothers Cartoons , pp. Xv.
  7. Michael Reufsteck, Stefan Niggemeier: Das Fernsehlexikon . Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-30124-6 .