The cartoon opens with titles featuring an instrumentalof "The Sailor's Hornpipe" (also one of the theme songs to the Popeyecartoon series), seguéing to a scene of Sam as a pirate, who digs a hole tobury his treasure on a beach. Sam is singing the stereotypical pirate shantyDead Man's Chest—on the second strain, Sam switches from the typical"yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!" to a decidedly more original"yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Ma's old fashioned ci-der", with a conga kickon the last syllable and a parody of "Dad's Old-Fashioned Root Beer"(a well-known radio advertising jingle at that time).
In attempting to bury his treasure, Sam has unknowinglyencroached on Bugs Bunny's domain, as Bugs happens to have his rabbit holethere. When Bugs asks him who he is, he responds in his typical way:"What's up, doc?! I ain't no doc! I'm a pirate! Sea-Goin' Sam, theblood-thirstiest, shoot-'em-first-iest, doggone worst-iest buccaneer has eversailed the Spanish main!"
To protect the location of his treasure, Sam prepares toshoot Bugs, claiming "Dead rabbits tell no tales!" Bugs thentemporarily tricks Sam into trying to shoot himself in the head by saying:"Now, just a minute, Red. Ain't you got that wrong? You mean dead men tellno tales." After realizing he's been tricked, Sam grinds his teethtogether so hard they shatter before firing at Bugs.
Bugs escapes in a tied lifeboat, at one point he rowshimself towards Sam's ship without said lifeboat. As for Sam, seeing thepaddles are gone, he swims towards the ship to retrieve the paddles from whereBugs left them—carrying them in his teeth and swimming in a dog-like style, andoblivious that he doesn't even need them since he already made it to the shipwithout them—, then returns to the lifeboat, which he then rows back to theship.
As Sam searches for Bugs on the ship, he sees Bugsdisguised as Captain Bligh, affecting the voice and thick-lipped appearance ofCharles Laughton in his portrayal of Bligh in Mutiny On The Bounty. Sam takescriticism from "Captain Bligh", who then orders him to do a bunch ofchores on deck, then turns to the audience and calls Sam a"marooning|maroon" (a play on the words "moron" and"marooned"). Sam soon realizes he's been tricked again, and follows afleeing Bugs, but crashes into the mast while doing so.
In a side gag, Bugs tries to hide, but a pesky parrotkeeps giving the rabbit away and crowing to Sam: "He's in there! He's inthere! Awk!" Eventually, Bugs gets fed up with the parrot and asks him:"Polly want a cracker?" The parrot changes his tune: "Polly wanta cracker! Polly want a cracker! Awk!" Bugs hands him a lit firecracker,which promptly explodes, blasting all of the bird's feathers off, leaving himdazed, smoldering and complaining before he passes out: "Me and my bigmouth!" For the next part, Bugs poses as the now-unconscious parrot tolead Sam into a cannon. The rabbit then lights the fuse, the cannon explodesand Sam falls out of the barrel.
In a series of gags that mildly anticipate the Wile E.Coyote and the Road Runner series, Bugs is in the crow's nest and Sam triesvarious unsuccessful attempts to get to him. Bugs mockingly tells him that theelevator is out of order and tosses him a rope. But when Sam climbs up therope, he climbs back down and crashes on the ground below. For his nextattempt, he makes a seesaw and puts a ball on it, but that fails. In anothergag that skirts the laws of physics, Bugs tells Sam he's going to jump, thoughhe instead drops a convenient anvil over the side of the crow's nest—Samcatches it, and the anvil's momentum causes the entire ship (except for thecrow's nest) to submerge. Sam mouths some apparent curses underwater, thentosses the anvil overboard and the ship resurfaces.
When Bugs comes down to check on Sam, the latter proceedsto attack him with his sword, making Bugs mad that he's "sore again".Bugs crawls in a hatch in the ship's side, with Sam following with his sword:"Ooooh, I'll keelhaul you for this!". When he opens the board, he isblasted by a cannon. Bugs opens the hatch to Sam's left and calls:"Yoo-hoo! Mr. Pirate!". Sam opens that board and, again, gets blastedby a cannon. Bugs opens another hatch and calls: "Oh, uh, Redbeard!".Sam, trying to avoid getting blasted again, decides to open up the hatch withhis sword from a safe distance. Suddenly, just as he opens that hatch, anotherhatch opens in his face and a cannon blasts him once more, much to hisannoyance.
Sam now chases Bugs again, and is now subjected to thelots-of-doors in-and-out routine (previously used in Little Red Riding Rabbit),which ends with Sam getting blasted yet again by a cannon. After that, Samconfronts Bugs, who throws a lighted match into the powder room, which apanicking Sam swiftly retrieves (a gag that would later be recycled into 1954'sCaptain Hareblower). This is repeated until finally, Sam is too late toretrieve the match that ends up exploding the entire pirate ship when he refusesto go after another match again, reducing the ship to splinters. On his lastnerve, Sam furiously chases Bugs with his gun ("Ooooh, I'll blast yourhead off for this!"). And just when he seemingly has Bugs defeated("Alright, now! I got ya cornered! Come out and meet your doom!"), acannon blasts him once more.
Finally, Sam raises the white flag in defeat; whereasBugs turns to the audience, puts on an old-style ship captain's hat, andparaphrases John Paul Jones by saying: "I have not even begun tofight!", before laughing.
