I decided to continue with my "Cartoon" post, I have been doing the background on the "classics". I will add some more modern cartoons in subsequent postings. I had to look at my prior postings, for some reason I was going to run "Sylvester the cat" but I had already done him, so I looked at the pantheon of characters from "Looney Tunes" and decided to go with "Elmer". Now Elmer has a rough reputation, his likeness is used to deride politicians and we in the 2nd Amendment community use the term "Fudds" to describe occasional hunters and others that would sell out our 2nd amendment rights because to them the 2nd Amendment is about hunting only. I often wondered of "elmer" was a subtle dig at the Human Race where the animals win instead.
Elmer J. Fudd/ is a fictional cartoon character and one of the most famous Looney Tunes characters, and the de factoarchenemy of Bugs Bunny. He has one of the more disputed origins in the Warner Bros. cartoon pantheon (second only to Bugs himself). His aim is to hunt Bugs, but he usually ends up seriously injuring himself and other antagonizing characters. He speaks in an unusual way, replacing his Rsand Ls with Ws,
so he always refers to Bugs Bunny as a "wabbit". Elmer's signature
catchphrase is, "Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits", as well
as his trademark laughter, "huh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh".
In 1940, Elmer Fudd's first true appearance: a Chuck Jones short entitled Elmer's Candid Camera. The rabbit drives Elmer insane. Later that year, he appeared in Friz Freleng's Confederate Honey (where he's called Ned Cutler) and The Hardship of Miles Standish where his voice and Egghead-like appearance were still the same. Jones would use this Elmer one more time, in 1941's Elmer's Pet Rabbit; its other title character is labeled as Bugs Bunny, but is also identical to his counterpart in Camera. In the interim, the two starred in A Wild Hare. Bugs appears with a carrot, New York accent,
and "What's Up, Doc?" catchphrase all in place for the first time,
although the voice and physique are as yet somewhat off. Elmer has a
better voice, a trimmer figure (designed by Robert Givens, which would be reused soon later in Jones' Good Night Elmer,
this time without a red nose) and his familiar hunting clothes. He is
much more recognizable as the Elmer Fudd of later cartoons than Bugs is
here. In his earliest appearances, Elmer actually "wikes wabbits",
either attempting to take photos of Bugs, or adopting Bugs as his pet.
The rascally rabbit has the poor Fudd so perplexed that there is little
wonder as to why Elmer would become a hunter and in some cases actually
proclaim, "I hate wittle gway wabbits!" after pumping buckshot down a
rabbit hole.
Elmer's role in these two films, that of would-be hunter, dupe and
foil for Bugs, would remain his main role forever after, and although
Bugs Bunny was called upon to outwit many more worthy opponents, Elmer
somehow remained Bugs' classic nemesis, despite (or because of) his
legendary gullibility, small size, short temper, and shorter attention
span. In Rabbit Fire, he declares himself vegetarian, hunting for sport only.
Elmer was usually cast as a hapless big-game hunter, armed with a double-barreled shotgun
(albeit one which could be fired much more than twice without being
reloaded) and creeping through the woods "hunting wabbits". In a few
cartoons, though, he assumed a completely different persona—a wealthy industrialist type, occupying a luxurious penthouse, or, in one episode involving a role reversal, a sanitarium—which Bugs would of course somehow find his way into. In Dog Gone People, he had an ordinary office job working for demanding boss "Mister Cwabtwee". In another cartoon (Mutt in a Rut) he appeared to work in an office and had a dog he called "Wover Boy", whom he took hunting, though Bugs did not appear.
Several episodes featured Elmer differently. One (What's Up, Doc?,
1950) has Bugs Bunny relating his life story to a biographer, and
recalling a time which was a downturn for the movie business. Elmer Fudd
is a well-known entertainer who, looking for a new partner for his act,
sees Bugs Bunny (after passing caricatures of many other famous 1940s
actors (Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Bing Crosby) who, like
Bugs, are also out of work). Elmer and Bugs do a one-joke act
cross-country, with Bugs dressed like a pinhead, and when he does not
know the answer to a joke, Elmer gives it and hits him with a pie in the
face. Bugs begins to tire of this gag and pulls a surprise on Fudd,
answering the joke correctly and bopping Elmer with a mallet,
which prompts the man to point his rifle at Bugs. The bunny asks
nervously: "Eh, what's up doc?", which results in a huge round of
applause from the audience. Bugs tells Elmer they may be on to
something, and Elmer, with the vaudevillian's instinct of sticking with a
gag that catches on, nods that they should re-use it. According to this account, the common Elmer-as-hunter episodes are entirely staged.
One episode where Bugs "lost" in the hunting was Hare Brush (1956). Here, Elmer has been committed to an insane asylum because he believes he is a rabbit (though it is also revealed that he is a millionaire and owns a mansion and a yacht). Bugs Bunny enters Fudd's room and Elmer bribes him with carrots,
then leaves the way the real rabbit entered. Bugs acts surprisingly
(for him) naïve, assuming Elmer just wanted to go outside for a while.
Elmer's psychiatrist arrives, and thinking Fudd's delusion has affected
his appearance, drugs Bugs and conditions him into believing that he
is Elmer Fudd 'after which Bugs starts wearing hunting clothes and
acting like Elmer, hunting the rabbit-costumed Fudd, who is in turn
acting like Bugs. Their hunt is cut short when Bugs is arrested by a
government agent as Elmer Fudd is wanted for tax evasion. After Bugs is hauled away trying to explain that the rabbit is Elmer Fudd, Fudd breaks the fourth wall and tells the audience "I may be a scwewy wabbit, but I'm not going to Alcatwaz" as he hops away as if he had planned the whole thing.
Elmer Fudd has occasionally appeared in other costumes, notably as
Cupid. He tries to convince Bugs about love, but Bugs is reluctant,
thinking to himself "Don't you look like some guy who's always after
me?" and pictures the Elmer in hunter's clothes. The Cupid Elmer plots
to get even with Bugs, using his love arrows to make Bugs fall in love
with an artificial rabbit at a dog track. Elmer also appeared in this form opposite Daffy Duck in The Stupid Cupid (1944).
The Bugs–Elmer partnership was so familiar to audiences that in a late 1950s cartoon, Bugs' Bonnets,
a character study is made of what happens to the relationship between
the two when they each accidentally don a different selection of hats
(Native American wig, pilgrim hat, military helmets, bridal veil and top
hat, to name a few). The result is comic mayhem; a steady game of
one-upmanship that ultimately leads to matrimony.
He nearly always vocalised consonants [r] and [l], pronouncing them as [w] instead (a trait that also characterized Tweety Bird) when he would talk in his slightly raspy voice. This trait was prevalent in the Elmer's Candid Camera and Elmer's Pet Rabbit
cartoons, where the writers would give him exaggerated lines such as,
"My, that weawwy was a dewicious weg of wamb." to further exaggerate his
qualities as a harmless nebbish. That characteristic seemed to fit his
somewhat timid and childlike persona. And it worked. The writers often
gave him lines filled with those letters, such as doing Shakespeare's Romeo as "What wight thwough yonduh window bweaks!" or Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries as "Kiww the wabbit, kiww the wabbit, kiww the wabbit...!" or "The Beautifuw Bwue Danube, by Johann Stwauss", Stage Door Cartoon's line "Oh, you dubbuh-cwossing wabbit! You tweachewous miscweant!" or the name of actress "Owivia deHaviwwand". Elmer's speech impediment is so well known that Google allows the user to change the search engine language to "Elmer Fudd." Comedian Robin Williams
often refers to the impediment as "Fudd syndrome" whenever he
accidentally slips up and replaces an "l" or "r" with a "w" sound in a
word.
Part of the joke is that Elmer is presumably incapable of pronouncing
his own first name correctly. Occasionally Elmer would properly
pronounce an "r" or "l" sound, depending on whether or not it was vital
for the audience to understand what the word was. (For example, in
1944's The Old Grey Hare,
he clearly pronounces the "r" in the word "picture".) Usually, Elmer
pronounces the "r" and "l" when one of those letters is in the last
syllable of the word (such as "rascal", which he says as "wascal"). This
doesn't occur in one-syllable words like "last" ("wast") or in common
words like "hello" ("hewwo").
Elmer Fudd made appearances in several television specials in the 1970s and 1980s, and some cameo roles in two of the Looney Tunes feature-film compilations.
Elmer would also appear frequently on the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures as a teacher at Acme Looniversity, where he was the idol and favorite teacher of Elmyra Duff,
the slightly deranged animal lover who resembles Elmer in basic head
design, name and lack of intellect. On the other hand, a younger version
of him makes a single appearance in the episode Plucky's Dastardly Deed, and is named "Egghead Jr", the "smartest kid in class".
Elmer also made cameos on Animaniacs, one in Turkey Jerky, another in the Pinky and the Brain short, Don't Tread on Us.
Elmer also had a guest starring appearance on Histeria! in the episode "The Teddy Roosevelt Show", in a sketch where he portrayed Gutzon Borglum. This sketch depicts Elmer/Gutzon's construction of Mount Rushmore, accompanied by Borglum's son Lincoln, portrayed by Loud Kiddington. Elmer made another appearance on Histeria!, this time in his traditional role, during a sketch where the bald eagle trades places with the turkey during Thanksgiving weekend, featured in the episode "Americana".
Fudd also appeared on The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries in the first season episode A Ticket to Crime as detective Sam Fudd; at the end he took off his clothes and turned into Elmer.
Elmer appears as part of the TuneSquad team in Space Jam. In one part of the game he and Yosemite Sam shoot down the teeth of one of the Monstars dressed in black suites while Misirlou is heard in the background.
Elmer took on a more villainous role in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, in which he is a secret agent for the Acme Corporation. In his scene, Elmer chases Bugs and Daffy through the paintings in the Louvre
museum, taking on the different art styles as they do so. At the end,
Elmer forgets to change back to his normal style after jumping out of
the pointillism painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, allowing Bugs to easily disintegrate Elmer by blowing a fan at him.
A four-year-old version of Elmer was featured in the Baby Looney Tunes
episode "A Bully for Bugs", where he kept taking all of Bugs' candy,
and also bullied the rest of his friends. He was also shown with short
blond hair. He appeared in most of the songs.
23 minute cartoon
An even more villainous Elmer appeared in two episodes of Duck Dodgers as The Mother Fudd, an alien who would spread a disease that caused all affected by it to stand around laughing like Elmer (a parody of the Flood in Halo and the Borg in Star Trek).
In Loonatics Unleashed, his descendant, Electro J. Fudd, tried to prove himself the universe's greatest hunter by capturing Ace Bunny, but settled for Danger Duck instead. Elmer himself also makes an appearance in the form of a photo which shows he presumably died at the hands of a giant squirrel.
In December 2009, Elmer made an appearance in a Geico commercial where the director tells him to say rabbits instead of "wabbits". He was again voiced by Billy West.
Elmer Fudd appears in several episodes of The Looney Tunes Show as a television reporter.
On June 8, 2011, Elmer starred in the 3-D short "Daffy's Rhapsody" with Daffy Duck, that short was going to precede the film Happy Feet Two but was instead shown with Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
The search engineGoogle has been translated into many languages, some of them for sheer comedic purposes. One of the novelty languages is "Elmer Fudd." Comedian and actor Robin Williams also performed a famous sketch where he sang the Bruce Springsteen song "Fire" as Elmer Fudd.
One of my favorite cartoons on Saturday morning was the Looney tunes show, for 90 minutes my brother and I would watch the gratuitous violence of the Road Runner and the coyote, FogHorn LegHorn and the dog, and many others. We would eat cereal in front of the TV get cranked on the sugar and make too much noise and get the "Knock it off or else" calls from upstairs from the parents. The good old days where cartoons weren't preachy like now. They have Bugs Bunny driving a Pious er a Prius, Give me a break, We must have a ministry of cartoon morality somewhere in the Fed Leviathan somewhere.
Well I decided to go with Bugs Bunny today, Some consider him the top billing of the Looney Tunes stable of cartoon stars. Bugs Bunny has been around in various forms since the prewar era. Cartoons were popular, movie fare, people would go to the movies as a bit of escapism. Remember we were still in the great depression and movies gave us a break from that. This is part of the reason for "The Golden Age" of the movies...for the sheer escapism, for a while you could laugh, cry and get a bit of relief from the grind of the era. Many people remember this stuff later during the more affluent times, they remember how the movies kept them going and the nostalgia was real.
Bugs Bunny was created during this time,Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character, created by the staff of Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and voiced originally by the "Man of a Thousand Voices," Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring roles in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated short films, produced by Warner Bros. during the golden age of American animation. His popularity during this era led to his becoming an American cultural icon, as well as a corporate mascot of Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray hare or rabbit who is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality, a pronounced New York accent, his portrayal as a trickster, and his catch phrase "Eh... What's up, doc?", usually said while chewing a carrot.
Though Warner Bros. had been experimenting with a rabbit character in
cartoons as early as the late 1930s, the definitive character of Bugs
Bunny is widely considered to have made his debut in director Tex Avery's Oscar-nominated film A Wild Hare (1940).
Since his debut, Bugs has appeared in various short films, feature
films, compilations, TV series, music records, comic books, video games,
award shows, amusement park rides and commercials. He has also appeared in more films than any other cartoon character, is the ninth most-portrayed film personality in the world, and has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
A bunny rabbit with some of the personality of Bugs, though looking very different, first appears in the film Porky's Hare Hunt, released on April 30, 1938. It was co-directed by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway and an uncredited Cal Dalton (who was responsible for the initial design of the rabbit). This cartoon has an almost identical plot to Tex Avery's Porky's Duck Hunt (1937), which had introduced Daffy Duck. Porky Pig
is again cast as a hunter tracking a silly prey who is more interested
in driving his pursuer insane and less interested in escaping. Hare Hunt
replaces the little black duck with a small white rabbit. The rabbit
introduces himself with the odd expression "Jiggers, fellers," and Mel Blanc gave the character a voice and laugh much like those he would later use for Woody Woodpecker. Hare Hunt also gives its rabbit the famous Groucho Marx line, "Of course you realize, this means war!" The rabbit character was popular enough with audiences that the Termite Terrace staff decided to use it again. According to Friz Freleng, Hardaway and Dalton had decided to dress the duck in a rabbit suit. The white rabbit had an oval head and a shapeless body. In characterization, he was "a rural buffoon". He was loud, zany with a goofy, guttural laugh. Blanc provided him with a hayseed voice
original 8 minute cartoon
The rabbit returns in Prest-O Change-O (1939), 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. This version of the rabbit was
cool, graceful, and controlled. He retained the guttural laugh but was
otherwise silent.
a 7 minute cartoon in COLOR
The rabbit's third appearance comes in Hare-um Scare-um
(1939), directed again by Dalton and Hardaway. This cartoon—the first
in which he is depicted as a gray bunny instead of a white one—is also
notable as the rabbit's first singing role. Charlie Thorson,
lead animator on the film, gave the character a name. He had written
"Bugs' Bunny" on the model sheet that he drew for Hardaway.
In promotional material for the cartoon, including 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, on and off, until
1944). In his autobiography, Blanc claimed that another proposed name for the character was "Happy Rabbit." In the actual cartoons and publicity, however, the name "Happy" only seems to have been used in reference to Bugs Hardaway. In Hare-um Scare-um, a newspaper headline reads, "Happy Hardaway."
another 8 minute cartoon
Thorson had been approached by Tedd Pierce,
head of the story department, and asked to design a better rabbit. The
decision was influenced by Thorson's experience in designing hares. He
had designed Max Hare in Toby Tortoise Returns
(1936). For Hardaway, Thorson created the model sheet previously
mentioned, with six different rabbit poses. Thorson's model sheet is "a
comic rendition of the stereotypical fuzzy bunny". He had a pear-shaped
body with a protruding rear end. His face was flat and had large
expressive eyes. He had an exaggerated long neck, gloved hands with
three fingers, oversized feet, and a "smart aleck" grin. The end result
was influenced by Walt Disney Animation Studios' tendency to draw animals in the style of cute infants. He had an obvious Disney influence, but looked like an awkward merger of the lean and streamlined Max Hare from The Tortoise and the Hare (1935), and the round, soft bunnies from Little Hiawatha (1937).
In Jones' Elmer's Candid Camera (1940) the rabbit first meets Elmer Fudd.
This time the rabbit looks more like the present-day Bugs, taller and
with a similar face—but retaining the more primitive voice. Candid Camera's Elmer character design is also different: taller and chubbier in the face than the modern model, though Arthur Q. Bryan's character voice is already established.
While Porky's Hare Hunt was the first Warner Bros. cartoon to feature a Bugs Bunny-like rabbit, A Wild Hare, directed by Tex Avery and released on July 27, 1940, is widely considered to be the first official Bugs Bunny cartoon. It is the first film where both Elmer Fudd and Bugs (both redesigned by Bob Givens) are shown in their fully developed forms as hunter and tormentor, respectively; the first in which Mel Blanc uses what would become Bugs' standard voice; and the first in which Bugs uses his catchphrase, "What's up, Doc?"A Wild Hare was a huge success in theaters and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cartoon Short Subject.
For the film Avery asked Givens to remodel the rabbit. The result had
a closer resemblance to Max Hare. He had a more elongated body, stood
more erect, and looked more poised. If Thorson's rabbit looked like an
infant, Givens' version looked like an adolescent. Blanc gave Bugs the voice of a city slicker. The rabbit was as audacious as he had been in Hare-um Scare-um and as cool and collected as in Prest-O Change-O.
Immediately following on A Wild Hare, Bob Clampett's Patient Porky (1940) features a cameo appearance by Bugs, announcing to the audience that 750 rabbits have been born. The gag uses Bugs' Wild Hare visual design, but his goofier pre-Wild Hare voice characterization.
The second full-fledged role for the mature Bugs, Chuck Jones' Elmer's Pet Rabbit
(1941), is the first to use Bugs' name on-screen: it appears in a title
card, "featuring Bugs Bunny," at the start of the film (which was
edited in following the success of A Wild Hare). However, Bugs'
voice and personality in this cartoon is noticeably different, and his
design was slightly altered as well; Bugs' visual design is based on the
prototype rabbit in Candid Camera, but with yellow gloves and no
buck teeth, has a lower-pitched voice and a more aggressive, arrogant
and thuggish personality. After Pet Rabbit, however, subsequent Bugs appearances returned to normal: the Wild Hare visual design returned, and Blanc re-used the Wild Hare voice characterization. The Wild Hare personality also returned as well. Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (1941), directed by Friz Freleng, became the second Bugs Bunny cartoon to receive an Academy Award nomination. The fact that it didn't win the award was later spoofed somewhat in What's Cookin' Doc? (1944), in which Bugs demands a recount (claiming to be a victim of "sa-bo-TAH-gee") after losing the Oscar to Jimmy Cagney and presents a clip from Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt to prove his point.
By 1942, Bugs had become the number one star of Merrie Melodies.
The series was originally intended only for one-shot characters in
films after several early attempts to introduce characters (Foxy, Goopy Geer and Piggy) failed under Harman–Ising. By the mid-1930s, under Leon Schlesinger, Merrie Melodies started introducing newer characters. Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (1942) shows a slight redesign of Bugs, with less-prominent front teeth and a rounder head. The character was reworked by Robert McKimson,
then an animator in Clampett's unit. The redesign at first was only
used in the films created by Clampett's unit, but in time it would be
taken up by the other directors, with Freleng and Frank Tashlin
the first. When McKimson was himself promoted to director, he created
yet another version, with more slanted eyes, longer teeth and a much
larger mouth. He used this version until 1949 (as did Art Davis
for the one Bugs Bunny film he directed) when he started using the
version he had designed for Clampett. Jones would come up with his own
slight modification, and the voice had slight variations between the
units. Bugs also made cameos in Avery's final Warner Bros. cartoon, Crazy Cruise.
Since Bugs' debut in A Wild Hare, he appeared only in color Merrie Melodies
films (making him one of the few recurring characters created for that
series in the Schlesinger era prior to the full conversion to color),
alongside Elmer predecessor Egghead, Inki, Sniffles, and Elmer himself. While Bugs made a cameo in Porky Pig's Feat (1943), this was his only appearance in a black-and-white Looney Tunes film. He did not star in a Looney Tunes film until that series made its complete conversion to only color cartoons beginning in 1944. Buckaroo Bugs was Bugs' first film in the Looney Tunes
series, and was also the last Warner Bros. cartoon to credit
Schlesinger (as he had retired and sold his studio to Warner Bros. that
year).
Bugs' popularity soared during World War II
because of his free and easy attitude, and he began receiving special
star billing in his cartoons by 1943. By that time Warner Bros. had
become the most profitable cartoon studio in the United States. In company with cartoon studios such as Disney and Famous Studios, Warners pitted its characters against Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and the Japanese. Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips
(1944) features Bugs at odds with a group of Japanese soldiers. This
cartoon has since been pulled from distribution due to its racial
stereotypes of Japanese people. He also faces off against Hermann Göring and Hitler in Herr Meets Hare (1945), which introduced
In 1944, Bugs Bunny made a cameo appearance in Jasper Goes Hunting, a Puppetoons film produced by rival studio Paramount Pictures.
In this cameo (animated by McKimson, with Blanc providing the usual
voice), Bugs (after being threatened at gunpoint) pops out of a rabbit
hole, saying his usual catchphrase; after hearing the orchestra play the
wrong theme song, he realizes "Hey, I'm in the wrong picture!" and then
goes back in the hole. Bugs also made a cameo in the Private Snafu short Gas, in which he is found stowed away in the titular private's belongings; his only spoken line is his usual catchphrase.
After World War II, Bugs continued to appear in numerous Warner Bros. cartoons, making his last "Golden Age" appearance in False Hare
(1964). He starred in over 167 theatrical short films, most of which
were directed by Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson and Chuck Jones.
Freleng's Knighty Knight Bugs (1958), in which a medieval Bugs trades blows with Yosemite Sam and his fire-breathing dragon (which has a cold), won an Academy Award for Best Cartoon Short Subject (becoming the first Bugs Bunny cartoon to win said award). Three of Jones' films — Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit, Duck!
— compose what is often referred to as the "Rabbit Season/Duck Season"
trilogy and are famous for originating the "historic" rivalry between
Bugs and Daffy Duck. Jones' classic What's Opera, Doc? (1957), casts Bugs and Elmer Fudd in a parody of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. It was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1992, becoming the first cartoon short to receive this honor.
In the fall of 1960, ABC debuted the prime-time television program The Bugs Bunny Show.
This show packaged many of the post-1948 Warners cartoons with newly
animated wraparounds. After two seasons, it was moved from its evening
slot to reruns on Saturday mornings. The Bugs Bunny Show changed
format and exact title frequently, but remained on network television
for 40 years. The packaging was later completely different, with each
cartoon simply presented on its own, title and all, though some clips
from the new bridging material were sometimes used as filler.
In the 1988 animated/live action movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Bugs appeared as one of the inhabitants of Toontown. However, since the film was being produced by Disney,
Warner Bros. would only allow the use of their biggest star if he got
an equal amount of screen time as Disney's biggest star, Mickey Mouse. Because of this, both characters are always together in frame when onscreen. Roger Rabbit was also one of the final productions in which Mel Blanc voiced Bugs (as well as the other Looney Tunes characters) before his death in 1989.
Bugs later appeared in another animated production featuring numerous
characters from rival studios; the 1990 drug prevention TV special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.
This special is notable for being the first time that someone other
than Blanc voiced Bugs and Daffy (both characters were voiced by Jeff Bergman for this). Bugs also made guest appearances in the early 1990s television series Tiny Toon Adventures, as the principal of Acme Looniversity and the mentor of Buster Bunny. He made further cameos in Warner Bros.' subsequent animated TV shows Taz-Mania, Animaniacs and Histeria!
Bugs returned to the silver screen in Box-Office Bunny
(1990). This was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon since 1964 to be released
in theaters and it was created for Bugs' 50th anniversary celebration.
It was followed by (Blooper) Bunny, a cartoon that was shelved from theaters, but later premiered on Cartoon Network in 1997 and has since gained a cult following among animation fans for its edgy humor.
In 1996, Bugs and the other Looney Tunes characters appeared in the live-action/animated film, Space Jam, directed by Joe Pytka and starring NBA superstar Michael Jordan. The film also introduced the character Lola Bunny, who becomes Bugs' new love interest. Space Jam received mixed reviews from critics, but was a box office success (grossing over $230 million worldwide). The success of Space Jam led to the development of another live-action/animated film,
Looney Tunes: Back in Action, released in 2003 and directed by Joe Dante. Unlike Space Jam, Back in Action was a box-office bomb, though it did receive more positive reviews from critics. In 1997, Bugs appeared on a U.S. postage stamp,
the first cartoon to be so honored, beating the iconic Mickey Mouse.
The stamp is number seven on the list of the ten most popular U.S.
stamps, as calculated by the number of stamps purchased but not used.
The introduction of Bugs onto a stamp was controversial at the time, as
it was seen as a step toward the 'commercialization' of stamp art. The
postal service rejected many designs, and went with a postal-themed
drawing. Avery Dennison printed the Bugs Bunny stamp sheet, which
featured "a special ten-stamp design and was the first self-adhesive souvenir sheet issued by the U.S. Postal Service."
Bugs Bunny is characterized as being clever and capable of outsmarting anyone who antagonizes him, including Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian, Beaky Buzzard, Willoughby the dog, Porky Pig, Tasmanian Devil, Cecil Turtle, Witch Hazel, Rocky and Mugsy, Wile E. Coyote, the Crusher, Gremlin, Count Blood Count and a host of others. Bugs almost always wins these conflicts, a plot pattern which recurs in Looney Tunes films directed by Chuck Jones.
Concerned that viewers would lose sympathy for an aggressive
protagonist who always won, Jones arranged for Bugs to be bullied,
cheated, or threatened by the antagonists
while minding his own business, justifying his subsequent antics as
retaliation or self-defense. He's also been known to break the fourth wall
by "communicating" with the audience, either by explaining the
situation (e.g. "Be with you in a minute, folks!"), describing someone
to the audience (e.g. "Feisty, ain't they?"), clueing in on the story
(e.g. "That happens to him all during the picture, folks."), explaining
that one of his antagonists' actions have pushed him to the breaking
point ("Of course you know, this means war."), admitting his own
deviousness toward his antagonists ("Gee, ain't I a stinker?"), etc.
Bugs will usually try to placate the antagonist and avoid conflict,
but when an antagonist pushes him too far, Bugs may address the audience
and invoke his catchphrase "Of course you realize this means war!" before he retaliates, and the retaliation will be devastating. This line was taken from Groucho Marx and others in the 1933 film Duck Soup and was also used in the 1935 Marx film A Night at the Opera. Bugs would pay homage to Groucho in other ways, such as occasionally adopting his stooped walk or leering eyebrow-raising (in Hair-Raising Hare, for example) or sometimes with a direct impersonation (as in Slick Hare). Other directors, such as Friz Freleng, characterized Bugs as altruistic. When Bugs meets other successful characters (such as Cecil Turtle in Tortoise Beats Hare, or the Gremlin in Falling Hare), his overconfidence becomes a disadvantage.
Bugs' nonchalant carrot-chewing standing position, as explained by Freleng, Jones and Bob Clampett, originated in a scene from the 1934 film It Happened One Night, in which Clark Gable's character Peter Warne leans against a fence, eating carrots rapidly and talking with his mouth full to Claudette Colbert's
character. This scene was well known while the film was popular, and
viewers at the time likely recognized Bugs Bunny's behavior as satire.
Coincidentally, the film also features a minor character, Oscar
Shapely, who addresses Peter Warne as "Doc", and Warne mentions an
imaginary person named "Bugs Dooley" to frighten Shapely.
The carrot-chewing scenes are generally followed by Bugs' most
well-known catchphrase, "What's up, Doc?", which was written by director
Tex Avery for his first Bugs Bunny film, A Wild Hare
(1940). Avery explained later that it was a common expression in his
native Texas and that he did not think much of the phrase. When the
cartoon was first screened in theaters, the "What's up, Doc?" scene
generated a tremendously positive audience reaction.
As a result, the scene became a recurring element in subsequent
cartoons. The phrase was sometimes modified for a situation. For
example, Bugs says "What's up, dogs?" to the antagonists in A Hare Grows in Manhattan, "What's up, Duke?" to the knight in Knight-mare Hare and "What's up, prune-face?" to the aged Elmer in The Old Grey Hare. He might also greet Daffy with "What's up, Duck?" He used one variation, "What's all the hub-bub, bub?" only once, in Falling Hare. Another variation is used in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, when he greets a blaster-wielding Marvin the Martian saying "What's up, Darth?"
Several Chuck Jones films in the late 1940s and 1950s depict Bugs
travelling via cross-country (and, in some cases, intercontinental)
tunnel-digging, ending up in places as varied as Mexico (Bully for Bugs), the Himalayas (The Abominable Snow Rabbit) and Antarctica (Frigid Hare) all because he "shoulda taken that left toin at Albukoikee." He first utters that phrase in Herr Meets Hare (1945), when he emerges in the Black Forest, a cartoon seldom seen today due to its blatantly topical subject matter. When Hermann Göring
says to Bugs, "There is no Las Vegas in 'Chermany'" and takes a potshot
at Bugs, Bugs dives into his hole and says, "Joimany! Yipe!", as Bugs
realizes he's behind enemy lines. The confused response to his "left
toin" comment also followed a pattern. For example, when he tunnels into
Scotland in My Bunny Lies over the Sea (1948), while thinking he's heading for the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California,
it provides another chance for an ethnic stereotype: "Therrre's no La
Brrrea Tarrr Pits in Scotland!" (to which Bugs responds, "Uh...what's
up, Mac-doc?"). A couple of late-1950s/early-1960s cartoons of this ilk
also featured Daffy Duck travelling with Bugs ("Since when is Pismo Beach inside a cave?!")
"Whats Opera Doc" played at the Hollywood bowl, this cartoon is ruled as a cultural significant event by the U.S. Library of Congress and submitted into the National Film registry
Like Mickey Mouse for Disney, Bugs Bunny has served as the mascot for Warner Bros. and its various divisions. According to Guinness World Records, Bugs has appeared in more films (both short and feature-length) than any other cartoon character and is the ninth most-portrayed film personality in the world. On December 10, 1985, Bugs became the second cartoon character (after Mickey) to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
In 2002, TV Guide
compiled a list of the 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time as
part of the magazine's 50th anniversary. Bugs Bunny was given the honor
of number 1. In a CNN broadcast on July 31, 2002, a TV Guide
editor talked about the group that created the list. The editor also
explained why Bugs pulled top billing: "His stock...has never gone
down...Bugs is the best example...of the smart-aleck American comic. He
not only is a great cartoon character, he's a great comedian. He was
written well. He was drawn beautifully. He has thrilled and made many
generations laugh. He is tops."
