Episode Title:
Mississippi Hare.
Episode Description:
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"...
