Bugs Bunny is a fictional main character who starred in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated films produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions, which became Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1944.[1] Bugs starred in 163 shorts during the Golden Age of American animation, and made cameos in three others along with a few appearances in non-animated films. He is an anthropomorphic hare or rabbit.
This changed forever in 1940, when director Tex Avery made A Wild Hare , one of the most infamous short cartoons ever made. This film was the second pairing of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, and Fudd's second cartoon. Elmer was previously a wildlife photographer after Bugs in Chuck Jones' Elmer's Candid Camera a year earlier. What Avery did differently was to make Elmer Fudd an incompetent hunter with a gun, and Bugs a timid woodland rabbit...er...until provoked, that is. Instead of running like typical cartoon characters of the day, from Disney's Mickey Mouse to Warner's Porky Pig, Bugs did not fear danger, but simply sat down next to it and calmly asked Eh, What's Up, Doc? It got laughs, so much so that producer Leon Schlesinger demanded more films from the rabbit, and the Wild Hare plot was varied over the next few years to include such memorable films as All this and Rabbit Stew (Avery) and Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (Friz Freleng). -below: A Wild Hare
It would seem that after Tex Avery's departure from Warner's in 1941 the character would be left for dead, but it was clear that the other directors at Warner's, especially Bob Clampett, as well as producer Leon Schlesinger, saw something special in Bugs Bunny, and thus the films continued. In fact, Bob Clampett directed the eigth true Bugs film, a promotion for U.S. government war bonds for World War II. It seems Bugs was already a celebrity after only a few films, and Bob Clampett's wild, energetic and zany interpretation of him could very well be the reason why: while still in his infancy, still this in-your-face Bugs DEMANDED that people pay attention to him.-below: The controversial ending to Bob Clampett's Hare Ribbin (1944)
Friz Freleng's long-running series of Yosemite Sam films, all but two of which starred Bugs, also took off during this period, as Friz put cowboy outlaw Sam in places where he didn't belong just to prove that it would work, in such cartoons as Sahara Hare (1955) and Captain Hareblower (1954).In fact, Bugs Bunny's only Oscar was recieved for a cartoon in which Yosemite Sam played a Black Knight, Knighty Knight Bugs (1958). This isn't too different from John Wayne doing war films, some worked and some didn't, but in Sam's case, when they worked, they really worked. It has long been noted that Freleng did not like Elmer Fudd, so he came up with Sam , who apparently so closely resembled Freleng that no other director used him regularly. Sam also had another unique quality, apparently, his big, loud voice was the most difficult of all for Mel Blanc to perform.
