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 t his 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 p roperty 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 e merges 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 c ard 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 resem ble 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 p romotion 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 Warne r 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 app earance 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 mas cot 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 catchphrase Bugs then says I must be in the wrong picture and then goes back in the hole He also appeared fleetingly in the 1947 Arthur Davis cartoon The Goofy Gophers The post war era A scene from Bewitched Bunny 1954 A slight variation of how the character was drawn in the 1950s can be seen in the frame from Bewitched Bunny 1954 The inner pinkish parts of the ears have been reduced becoming more v shaped at the top end and the ovalness of the eyes also replaced with a more top v shaped look His cheeks protrude out more and body is more compacted when compared how he was drawn in the 1940s arising to the distinct look of how he is drawn today Since then Bugs has appeared in numerous cartoon shorts in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series making his last appearance in the theatrical cartoons in 1964 with False Hare He was directed by Friz Freleng Robert McKimson Arthur Davis and Chuck Jones and appeared in feature films including Who Framed Roger Rabbit which featured the first ever meeting between Bugs and his box office rival Mickey Mouse Space Jam which co starred Michael Jordan and the 2003 movie Looney Tunes Back in Action The Bugs Bunny short Knighty Knight Bugs 1958 in which a medieval Bugs Bunny traded blows with Yosemite Sam and his fire breathing dragon which has a cold won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject Cartoons of 1958 Three of Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny shorts Rabbit Fire Rabbit Seasoning and Duck Rabbit Duck comprise what is often referred to as the Duck Season Rabbit Season trilogy and are considered among the director s best works Jones 1957 classic What s Opera Doc features Bugs and Elmer parodying Wagner s Der Ring des Nibelungen and has been deemed culturally significant by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry It was the first cartoon short to receive this honor Bugs appeared in the 1957 short Show Biz Bugs with Daffy Duck which features a controversial finish in which Daffy Duck in an attempt to wow the partisan audience did a dangerous magical act in which he in sequence drank gasoline swallowed nitroglycerine gunpowder and uranium 238 in a greenish solution jumped up and down to shake well and finally swallowed a match that detonated the whole improbable m ixture That incident caused some TV stations and in the 1990s the cable network TNT to edit out the dangerous act fearing that young kids might try to imitate it In the fall of 1960 The Bugs Bunny Show a television program which packaged many of the post 1948 Warners shorts with newly animated wraparounds debuted on ABC The show was originally aired in prime time After two seasons it was moved to reruns on Saturday mornings The Bugs Bunny Show changed format and exact title frequently the packaging was completely different with each short simply presented on its own title and all though some clips from the new bridging material was used as filler but it remained on network television for 40 years After the classic cartoon era When Mel Blanc died in 1989 Jeff Bergman Joe Alaskey and Billy West became the new voices to Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes taking turns doing the voices at various times Bugs has also made appearances in animated specials for network telev ision mostly composed of classic cartoons with bridging material added including How Bugs Bunny Won the West and The Bugs Bunny Mystery Special 1980 s Bugs Bunny s Busting Out All Over however contained no vintage clips and featured the first new Bugs Bunny cartoons in 16 years It opened with Portrait Of The Artist As a Young Bunny which features a flashback of Bugs as a child thwarting a young Elmer Fudd while its third and closing short was Spaced Out Bunny with Bugs being kidnapped by Marvin the Martian to be a playmate for Hugo an Abominable Snowman like character a new Wile E Coyote and Road Runner short filled out the half hour Also there have been various compilation films including the independently produced Bugs Bunny
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