Yosemite Sam (/joʊˈsɛmɪti/ yoh-SEM-ih-tee) is a cartoon character in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of short films produced by Warner Bros. His name is taken from Yosemite National Park in California. He is an adversary of Bugs Bunny and his archenemy alongside Elmer Fudd. He is commonly depicted as a mean-spirited and extremely aggressive, gunslinging outlaw or cowboy with a hair-trigger temper and an intense hatred of rabbits, Bugs in particular. In cartoons with non-Western themes, he uses various aliases, including "Chilkoot Sam" (named for the Chilkoot Trail; Sam pronounces it "Chilli-koot") and "Square-deal Sam" in 14 Carrot Rabbit, "Riff Raff Sam" in Sahara Hare, "Sam Schultz" in Big House Bunny, "Seagoin' Sam" in Buccaneer Bunny, "Shanghai Sam" in Mutiny on the Bunny, "Von Schamm the Hessian" in Bunker Hill Bunny, "Baron Sam von Schpamm" in Dumb Patrol, and many others. During the golden age of American animation, Yosemite Sam appeared as antagonist in 33 animated shorts made between 1945 and 1964.
History
Animator Friz Freleng introduced the villain character in the 1945 cartoon Hare Trigger. With his grumpy demeanor, fiery temper, strident voice, and short stature (in two early gags in Hare Trigger, a train he is attempting to rob passes right over top of him and he has to use a set of portable stairs to get on his horse; in Bugs Bunny Rides Again, he rides a miniature horse), along with his fiery red hair, Sam was in some ways a caricature of Freleng. While he often denied any intentional resemblance, in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, surviving members of his production crew assert, and the director's daughter acknowledges, that Sam definitely was inspired by Freleng. Freleng himself even said in an interview with the Associated Press that "I have the same temperament, I'm small, and I used to have a red mustache." Other influences were the Red Skelton character Sheriff Deadeye and the Tex Avery cartoon Dangerous Dan McFoo. When he does a "slow burn" and cries "Oooooh!" he borrows a bit from such comedic character actors as Jimmy Finlayson (a frequent foil to Laurel and Hardy) and Frank Nelson (one of Mel Blanc's costars on The Jack Benny Program). Freleng also cited the Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang, a character in the Toonerville Trolley comic strip, as an influence. In his memoir Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist, Chuck Jones says that a great-uncle who occasionally visited his family was a retired Texas Ranger who was short, had red hair, a large mustache, and a hair-trigger temper (but no beard, unlike Sam). Michael Maltese originally considered calling the character Texas Tiny, Wyoming Willie, or Denver Dan, but then settled on the final name.
Other characters with Sam-like features appear in several Looney Tunes shorts. The Bugs Bunny entry Super-Rabbit (1943) features the cowboy character "Cottontail Smith", whose voice is similar to Sam's. Stage Door Cartoon (1944), however, features a southern sheriff character that looks and sounds similar to Sam, except for a more defined Southern stereotype to his voice. In a Daffy Duck cartoon called Along Came Daffy (1947), Daffy has to contend with two Yosemite Sams, one with Sam's red hair and one with black hair. Finally, Pancho's Hideaway (1964) features a Mexican villain who is designed much like Sam but has a different accent. In addition, in the 1949 Chuck Jones-directed cartoon Mississippi Hare, Bugs Bunny battles with an old, pistol-toting gambler called Colonel Shuffle, one whose role could have easily been portrayed by Sam.
Freleng created Yosemite Sam to be a more formidable adversary for Bugs Bunny. Until then, Bugs' major foe had been Elmer Fudd, a man so mild-mannered and good-natured that Freleng thought Bugs actually came off as a bully by duping him. Sam, on the other hand, was extremely violent and belligerent, not at all a pushover like Fudd. Freleng compacted into a tiny body and 11-gallon hat the largest voice and the largest ego "north, south, east, aaaaand west of the Pecos".