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Today is Bugs Bunny’s 83rd birthday — it was on this day in history, July 27, 1940, Bugs Bunny debuted in “A Wild Hare,” a short animated film released by Warner Brothers.
The cotton-tailed friend has become known in pop culture for his iconic question: “What’s up, Doc?”
The basic plot of “A Wild Hare” chronicles Elmer Fudd’s fruitless pursuit of the much smarter Bugs Bunny.
Elmer Fudd peers down rabbit holes, taunts Bugs with carrots and tries (unsuccessfully) to catch him.
“Finally, the frustrated Elmer, driven to distraction by the rabbit’s antics, walks away sobbing … Bugs then begins to play his carrot like a fife, playing the tune ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me,’ and marches with one stiff leg toward his rabbit hole,” according to the Looney Tunes Fandom site.
The short film was nominated for an Academy Award for “Best Short Subject: Cartoons,” according to the Warner Brothers official website.
Bugs Bunny was conceived at Leon Schlesinger’s animation unit at Warner Brothers studios, noted Britannica.com.
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The creative unit boasted a variety of top names in animation, including Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, and Friz Freleng, as well as renowned voice artist Mel Blanc and musician Carl Stalling, the same source indicated.
There had been earlier variations of Bug Bunny, the affable and wisecracking rabbit, who was voiced by Mel Blanc.
Bugs Bunny first made an appearance in the 1938 “Porky’s Hare Hunt,” although the character’s speech patterns and look were quite different, Variety reported.
Over the next few years, Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons featured other cartoon rabbits, multiple sources noted.
But it was in 1940 with the short film “A Wild Hare” that Bugs Bunny looked like himself and sounded like himself — and, significantly, according to Variety, it was the first time he uttered the immortal words, “What’s up, Doc?”
Only Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse rivals Bugs Bunny as the most popular cartoon character of all time, Britannica.com said.
From time to time, Bugs Bunny appeared with other animated protagonists such as Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, and most frequently his nemeses were Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam, the same source recounted.
Classic Bugs Bunny cartoons include “Hare Tonic” (1945), “The Big Snooze” (1946), “Hair-Raising Hare” (1946), “Buccaneer Bunny” (1948), “Mississippi Hare” (1949), “Mutiny on the Bunny” (1950), “What’s Up, Doc?” (1950), “The Rabbit of Seville” (1950) and the Oscar-winning “Knighty-Knight Bugs” (1958).
The animated stand-out “What’s Opera, Doc?” (1957), which featured Bugs and Elmer Fudd in the roles of Brunhild and Siegfried, created a tweaked adaptation of Richard Wagner’s “The Ring of the Nibelung” — acclaimed as the first cartoon short to be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1992, noted Britannica.com.
In 1987, many decades after his debut, “The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show” was ABC’s No. 1 kids’ TV show, under the headline “Wabbit Wins Watings Wace,” according to Variety.
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Bugs Bunny has garnered other achievements over the years.
He has appeared in over 150 films, earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — and was the first animated character to get his face on a postage stamp.
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TV Guide also ranked him No. 1 atop a list of the 50 greatest cartoon characters, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
The cartoon trickster also appeared in the feature films “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (1988), “Space Jam” (1996) starring Michael Jordan, and “Space Jam: A New Legacy” (2021).
