At the end of the 1930s, animation was at its peak. It was called the “Golden Age” by many film enthusiasts, where classic characters like Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat, and Popeye emerged and became huge successes on cinema screens, often being shown before the main feature. With this in mind, Warner Bros. also decided to invest heavily in this area. In 1938, through the genius of Tex Avery (one of the greatest animation creators of all time, responsible for creating: Daffy Duck, Droopy, Chilly Willy, among others), Happy Rabbit was born, a white rabbit with a crazy personality, almost identical to that of Daffy Duck (who was created a year earlier).
In addition, Happy Rabbit appeared in a few cartoons in 1938 and 1939, with his creation being influenced by the rabbit Max Hare, created by Disney studios and the protagonist of some shorts from the “Silly Symphonies” series. The character soon gained the voice of Mel Blanc, a legend in American voice acting, who voiced Bugs Bunny (and most of the Looney Tunes characters) for five decades. Blanc’s voice was a mix of accents from the New York neighborhoods of the Bronx and Brooklyn. A fun fact: at the beginning, the rabbit had a repetitive and annoying laugh, which ended up being transferred to Woody Woodpecker, a character that Blanc also voiced, a few years later.
Over time, the design and personality of the character changed; Bugs Bunny became more sarcastic and ironic, yet his appearance was softened, becoming kinder and less wild. One of the inspirations was actor and film director Groucho Marx, from whom Bugs took the sharp tone and also the way of holding his carrot, just like Groucho held his famous cigar. His name was changed to Bugs Bunny, as a tribute to one of the artists who worked on his new look, Ben “Bugs” Hardaway.
On July 27, 1940, the character officially debuted alongside Elmer Fudd, one of his most famous antagonists, in the pursuit of hunting the “little bunny“. It was the short “A Wild Hare,” where the character also spoke his most famous catchphrase for the first time: “What’s Up, Doc?”
With the great success of this animation, the directors of the Warner Bros. animation division decided to make the rabbit a regular character in the company’s animated shorts. Soon, World War II would take the world’s attention, and this event would serve as a “springboard” for several animated characters, who played a valuable role: distracting the American public, slightly diverting attention from the war climate, and boosting the morale of the population.
For instance, in some episodes, the rabbit (like many other characters from that time) was shown fighting Nazi and Japanese soldiers, demoralizing enemy figures, including Hitler himself. This is the case of “Herr Mets Hare“, a 1945 cartoon where Bugs Bunny tricks a Nazi soldier by impersonating Hitler and ends up encountering the actual Axis commander, as well as impersonating Joseph Stalin.
In his various episodes, Bugs Bunny was always accompanied by characters such as Elmer Fudd, Yosimite Sam, Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, and other classic figures from the Warner Bros. universe. One of his most acclaimed films is “What’s Opera, Doc?”, from 1957. In this parody of Wagner’s opera “The Ring of the Nibelungs,” Elmer Fudd plays the demigod Siegfried, falling in love with Bugs Bunny’s version dressed as Brünnhilde.
The production achieved a status never before reached by a work of this medium, being the first cartoon to be considered “culturally significant” by the Library of Congress and selected to be preserved in the National Film Registry, an entity in the United States that preserves works important to the cultural identity of the population.
However, in 1960, the rabbit’s cartoons migrated to TV, when the network ABC acquired the rights to dozens of animations produced specifically for the cinema and began airing them in the show “The Bugs Bunny Show“, which lasted exactly 40 years in the channel’s programming, undergoing numerous changes in time, title, and format, but always featuring the star’s cartoons. With that, the character took the definitive step to become one of the biggest icons in animation history.
In the next special article, I will dive into the world of Baby Looney Tunes and Looney Tunes, with the participation of numerous other protagonists and antagonists from the Warner Bros. universe.
Do you remember this classic show? 🙂