The Song of Hiawatha from the poem. The most famous was the 1937 Silly Symphony "Little Hiawatha," whose hero is a small boy whose pants keep falling down. The 1941 Warner Bros. cartoon "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt" features Bugs Bunny and a pint-sized version of Hiawatha in quest of rabbit stew. The 1944 MGM cartoon "Big Heel-watha," directed by Tex Avery, follows the overweight title character's effort to win the hand of the chief's daughter by catching Screwy Squirrel. The Song of Hiawatha The Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem in trochaic tetrameter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that features Native American characters. The
The Song of Hiawatha revival performances continue. The initial work was followed by two additional oratorios which were equally popular: "The Death of Minnehaha" (Op. 30, No. 2), based on canto 20, and "Hiawatha's Departure" (Op. 30, No. 4), based on cantos 21–2. More popular settings of the poem followed publication of the poem. The first was Charles Crozat Converse's "The Death of Minnehaha", published in Boston around 1856. The hand-colored lithograph on the cover of the printed song, by John Henry Bufford, is now much sought after. The next popular tune, originally titled "Hiawatha (A Summer Idyl)", was not inspired by the poem.