Bugs Bunny at 80
“What’s up, Doc?”
“What’s up is that it’s your anniversary, Bugs Bunny!”
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the debut of the beloved cartoon character Bugs Bunny. The wise-cracking rabbit with a Brooklyn accent first starred in his own cartoon in the comedy short film A Wild Hare (1940). Bugs is often portrayed eating a raw carrot, so we expect him to celebrate with a carrot cake. As for his party guests? Many of the cartoons centered on Bugs’s conflicts with such characters as Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and Daffy Duck. But, they might set aside their differences to mark the joyous day.
Bugs was developed in 1936 by a group of artists at the film studio Warner Bros., including Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones. The character was named after one of the studio’s story editors. Mel Blanc supplied the rabbit’s voice. Bugs made his cartoon debut in 1938 in Porky’s Hare Hunt, but he did not star in his own cartoon until A Wild Hare two years later. Bugs became one of the most popular cartoon characters of the 1940′s and 1950′s. The last Bugs Bunny cartoon was made in 1964, but several feature-length anthologies of the cartoons were released later, beginning with Bugs Bunny Superstar (1975). Bugs returned to the screen to appear with the basketball star Michael Jordan in Space Jam (1996), a mixture of live action and animation. He also appeared in Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003).