Fakir Audingas

History

The unnamed, prototype Warner Bros. rabbit

Main article: Evolution of Bugs Bunny

An unnamed rabbit bearing some of the personality, if not physical characteristics of Bugs, first appeared in the cartoon short Porky’s Hare Hunt, released on April 30, 1938. Co-directed by Ben Hardaway and an uncredited Cal Dalton (who was responsible for the initial design of the rabbit), this short had a theme almost identical to that of the 1937 cartoon, Porky’s Duck Hunt (directed by Tex Avery), which had introduced Daffy Duck. Porky Pig was again cast as a hunter tracking another silly prey who seemed less interested in escape than in driving his pursuer insane; this short replaced the black duck with a small white rabbit. The rabbit introduces himself with the odd expression “Jiggers, fellers”, and Mel Blanc gave the rabbit nearly the voice and laugh that he would later use for Woody Woodpecker. This cartoon also features the famous Groucho Marx line that Bugs would use many times: “Of course you know, this means war!” The rabbit developed a following from the audience viewing this cartoon which inspired the Schlesinger staff to further develop the character.

First incarnation of the rabbit debuts in Porky’s Hare Hunt (1938)

The rabbit’s second appearance came in 1939′s Prest-O Change-O, directed by Chuck Jones, where he is the pet rabbit of unseen character Sham-Fu the Magician. Two dogs, fleeing the local dogcatcher, enter his absent master’s house. The rabbit harasses them, but is ultimately bested by the bigger of the two dogs.

His third appearance was in another 1939 cartoon, Hare-um Scare-um, directed by Dalton and Hardaway. This short, the first where he was depicted as a gray bunny instead of a white one, is also notable both for the rabbit’s first singing role. Charlie Thorson, lead animator on the short, was the first to give the character a name. He had written “Bugs’ Bunny” on the model sheet that he drew for Hardaway, implying that he considered the rabbit model sheet to be Hardaway’s property. In promotional material for the short (such as a surviving 1939 presskit), the name on the model sheet was altered to become the rabbit’s own name: “Bugs” Bunny (quotation marks only used at the very beginning), evidently named in honor of “Bugs” Hardaway.

In Chuck Jones’ Elmer’s Candid Camera the rabbit first encounters Elmer Fudd. This rabbit has more of a physical resemblance to the present-day Bugs, being taller and having a more similar face. The voice for this rabbit, however, was not similar to the well-known Brooklyn-Bronx accent, but spoke in a rural drawl. In Robert Clampett’s 1940 Patient Porky, a similar rabbit appears to trick the audience into thinking that 750 rabbits have been born (however the design is of the earlier white rabbit).

In his later years, Mel Blanc stated that a proposed name was “Happy Rabbit”. Ironically, the only time the name “Happy” was used was in reference to Bugs Hardaway. In the cartoon Hare-um Scare-um, the newspaper headline reads, “Happy Hardaway”.

Bugs Bunny emerges

The official debut of Bugs Bunny in A Wild Hare (1940)

Bugs’ appearance in A Wild Hare, directed by Tex Avery and released on July 27, 1940, is considered the first appearance of both Elmer and Bugs in their fully developed forms. It was in this cartoon that he first emerged from his rabbit hole to ask Elmer Fudd, now a hunter rather than a photographer, “What’s up, Doc?” Animation historian Joe Adamson counts A Wild Hare as the first “official” Bugs Bunny short. It is also the first cartoon where Mel Blanc uses a recognizable version of the voice of Bugs that would eventually become the standard.

Bugs’ second appearance in Jones’ Elmer’s Pet Rabbit finally introduced the audience to the name Bugs Bunny, which up until then had only been used among the Termite Terrace employees. However, the rabbit here is absolutely identical to the one in Jones’ earlier Elmer’s Candid Camera, both visually and vocally. It was also the first short where he received billing under his now-famous name, but the card, “featuring Bugs Bunny”, was just slapped on the end of the completed short’s opening titles when A Wild Hare proved an unexpected success. He would soon become the most prominent of the Looney Tunes characters as his calm, flippant insouciance endeared him to American audiences during and after World War II.

Bugs would appear in five more shorts during 1941: Tortoise Beats Hare, directed by Tex Avery and featuring the first appearance of Cecil Turtle; Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt, the first Bugs Bunny short to be directed by Friz Freleng; All This and Rabbit Stew, directed by Avery and featuring a young African-American hunter (based heavily on racial stereotypes) as Bugs’ antagonist; The Heckling Hare, the final Bugs short Avery worked on before being fired and leaving for MGM; and Wabbit Twouble, the first Bugs short directed by Robert Clampett. Wabbit Twouble was also the first of five Bugs shorts to feature a chubbier remodel of Elmer Fudd, a short-lived attempt to have Fudd more closely resemble his voice actor, comedian Arthur Q. Bryan.

World War II

By 1942, Bugs had become the number one star of the Merrie Melodies series, which had originally been intended only for one-shot characters in shorts after several early attempts to introduce characters failed under Harman-Ising, but had started introducing newer characters in 1937 under Schlesinger. Bugs’ 1942 shorts included Friz Freleng’s The Wabbit Who Came to Supper, and the Robert Clampett shorts The Wacky Wabbit and Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (which introduced Beaky Buzzard). Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid also marks a slight redesign of Bugs, making his front teeth less prominent and his head rounder. The man responsible for this redesign was Robert McKimson, at the time working as an animator under Robert Clampett. The redesign at first was only used in the shorts created by Clampett’s production team but in time, it would be adopted by the other directors, with Freleng and Frank Tashlin the first to adopt this design. Upon his own promotion to director, McKimson created yet another version with more slanted eyes, longer teeth and a much larger mouth, which he (and, for the one Bugs Bunny cartoon he directed, Art Davis) used until 1949, when he started using the version he had designed for Clampett. Jones would come up with his own slight modification, and the voice as well would vary mildly between the units.

An alternate version of Bugs used by Robert McKimson and Art Davis between 1946 and 1949.

Other 1942 Bugs shorts included Chuck Jones’ Hold the Lion, Please, Freleng’s Fresh Hare and The Hare-Brained Hypnotist (which restored Elmer Fudd to his previous size), and Jones’ Case of the Missing Hare. He also made cameo appearances in Tex Avery’s final Warner Bros. short, Crazy Cruise, and starred in the two-minute United States war bonds commercial film Any Bonds Today.

Bugs was popular during World War II because of his free and easy attitude, and began receiving special star billing in his cartoons by 1943. By that time, Warner Bros. was the most profitable cartoon studio in the United States. Like other cartoon studios, such as Disney and Famous Studios had been doing, Warners put Bugs in opposition to the period’s biggest enemies: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and the Japanese. The 1944 short Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips features Bugs at odds with a group of Japanese soldiers. This cartoon has since been pulled from distribution due to its racial stereotypes.

Since Bugs’ debut in A Wild Hare, he had appeared only in color Merrie Melodie cartoons (making him one of the few recurring characters created for that series in the Leon Schlesinger era prior to the full conversion to color, alongside Elmer’s prototype Egghead, Inki, Sniffles, and Elmer himself – who was heard but not seen in the 1942 Looney Tunes cartoon Nutty News, and made his first formal appearance in that series in 1943′s To Duck or Not To Duck). While he did make a cameo appearance in the 1943 Porky and Daffy cartoon Porky Pig’s Feat marking his only appearance in a black-and-white Looney Tune cartoon, he did not star in a cartoon in the Looney Tunes series until that series made its complete conversion to only color cartoons beginning with 1944 releases. Buckaroo Bugs was Bugs’ first cartoon in the Looney Tunes series, and was also the last WB cartoon to credit Leon Schlesinger.

Among his most notable civilian shorts during this period are Bob Clampett’s Tortoise Wins by a Hare (the sequel to Tortoise Beats Hare from 1941), A Corny Concerto (a spoof of Disney’s Fantasia), Falling Hare, and What’s Cookin’ Doc?; and Chuck Jones’ Superman parody Super-Rabbit, and Freleng’s Little Red Riding Rabbit. The 1944 short Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears introduced Jones’ The Three Bears characters.

In the cartoon Super-Rabbit, Bugs was seen in the end wearing a USMC dress uniform. As a result, the United States Marine Corps made Bugs an honorary Marine Master Sergeant.

A scene from George Pal’s Jasper Goes Hunting (1944).

From 1943-1946, Bugs was the official “mascot” of Kingman Army Air Field, Kingman, Arizona, where thousands of aerial gunners were trained during World War II. Some notable trainees included Clark Gable and Charles Bronson. Bugs also served as the mascot for 530 Squadron of the 380th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force, USAF, which was attached to the Royal Australian Air Force and operated out of Australia’s Northern Territory from 1943 to 1945, flying B-24 Liberator bombers.

In 1944, Bugs Bunny actually made a cameo appearance in Jasper Goes Hunting, a short produced by rival studio Paramount Pictures. In this cameo (animated by Robert McKimson, with Mel Blanc providing the voice), Bugs pops out of a rabbit hole, saying his usual