name	Friz Freleng
birth name	Isadore Freleng
birth date	August 21, 1905
birth place	Kansas City, Missouri, United States
death date	May 26, 1995
death place	Los Angeles, California, United States
restingplace	Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
spouse	Lily Freleng
children	Hope FrelengSybil Freleng
imdb id	0293989
awards	}}

Isadore "Friz" Freleng (August 21, 1905 – May 26, 1995) was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series of cartoons from Warner Bros.

He introduced and/or developed several of the studio's biggest stars, including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Yosemite Sam (to whom he was said to bear more than a passing resemblance) and Speedy Gonzales. The senior director at Warners' Termite Terrace studio, Freleng directed more cartoons than any other director in the studio (a total of 266), and is also the most honored of the Warner directors, having won four Academy Awards. After Warners shut down the animation studio in 1963, Freleng and business partner David DePatie founded DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which produced cartoons (notably ''The Pink Panther Show''), feature film title sequences, and Saturday morning cartoons through the early 1980s.

The nickname "Friz" came from how "frizzy" his hair was at one time.

Early career

Freleng was born in Kansas City, Missouri, where he began his career in animation at United Film Ad Service. There, he made the acquaintance of fellow animators Hugh Harman and Ub Iwerks. In 1923, Iwerks' friend Walt Disney moved to Hollywood, put out a call for his Kansas City colleagues to join him. Freleng, however, held out until 1927, when he finally moved to California and joined the Disney studio. He worked alongside other former Kansas City animators, including Iwerks, Harman, Carmen Maxwell, and Rudolph Ising. While at Disney, Freleng worked on the Alice Comedies and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons for producers Margaret Winkler and Charles Mintz.

Freleng soon teamed up with Harman and Ising to try to create their own studio. The trio produced a pilot film starring a new Mickey Mouse-like character named Bosko. Looking at unemployment if the cartoon failed to generate interest, Freleng moved to New York City to work on Mintz' Krazy Kat cartoons, all the while still trying to sell the Harman-Ising Bosko picture. The cartoon finally sold to Leon Schlesinger, who soon secured Harman and Ising to star Bosko in the ''Looney Tunes'' series he was producing for Warner Bros. Freleng soon moved back to California to work with Harman and Ising once again.

Freleng as director

Early Schlesinger cartoons

Harman and Ising left Schlesinger's studio over disputes about budgets in 1933. Schlesinger was left with no experienced directors, and therefore lured Freleng away from Harman-Ising to successfully fix cartoons directed by Tom Palmer which Warner Bros rejected. The young animator became Schlesinger's top director, and he introduced the studio's first true post-Bosko star, Porky Pig, in the 1935 film ''I Haven't Got a Hat''. The film is notable for being one of the earliest examples of characterization in a cartoon. Porky was a distinctive character, unlike Bosko or his replacement, Buddy.

MGM

In 1937, Freleng left Schlesinger's after accepting an increase in salary to direct for the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio headed by Fred Quimby. To Freleng's chagrin, he found he would be working on ''The Captain and the Kids'', adapted from the popular comic strip ''The Katzenjammer Kids''. The series failed to achieve much success, much as Freleng had predicted: Though skillfully animated, the characters could not compete with the "funny animals" that prevailed at the time.

Back with Schlesinger and Warner Bros.

Freleng happily returned to Warner Bros. when his contract ended in late 1939. One of the first ''Looney Tunes'' shorts directed by Freleng during his second tenure at the studio was ''You Ought to Be in Pictures'', a short which blended animation with live-action footage of the Warner Bros. studio (and of Schlesinger veterans such as story man Michael Maltese and even "Leon" himself). The plot, which centers around Porky Pig being tricked by Daffy Duck into terminating his contract with Schlesinger to attempt a career in features, echoes Freleng's experience in moving to MGM.

Directorial achievements

Schlesinger's hands-off attitude toward his animators allowed Freleng and his fellow directors almost complete creative control and room to experiment with cartoon comedy styles, which allowed the studio to keep pace with the Disney studio's technical superiority. Freleng's style quickly matured, and he became a master of comic timing. Often working alongside layout artist Hawley Pratt, he also introduced or redesigned a number of famous Warner characters, including Yosemite Sam in 1945, the cat-and-bird duo, Sylvester and Tweety in 1947, and Speedy Gonzales in 1955.

Freleng and Chuck Jones would dominate the Warner Bros. studio in the years after World War II, Freleng largely concentrating on the above mentioned characters and Bugs Bunny. Freleng also continued to produce modernized versions of the musical comedies he animated in his early career, such as ''The Three Little Bops'' (1957) and ''Pizzicato Pussycat'' (1955). Freleng won four Oscars during his time at Warner Bros., for the films ''Tweetie Pie'' (1947), ''Speedy Gonzales'' (1955), ''Knighty Knight Bugs'' (1958) and ''Birds Anonymous'' (1957). And other Freleng cartoons such as ''Sandy Claws'' (1955), ''Mexicali Shmoes'' (1959), ''Mouse and Garden'' (1960), and ''The Pied Piper of Guadalupe'' (1961) were Oscar nominees.

Freleng was occasionally the subject of in-jokes in Warner cartoons, with billboards in the background of scenes advertising various products called "Friz" in ''Canary Row'', the "Friz Motel" in ''Racketeer Rabbit'', and "Frizby the Magician" in ''High Diving Hare'' as one of the acts Bugs is pitching.

DePatie-Freleng Enterprises

After the Warner studio closed in 1963, Freleng rented the same space from Warners to create cartoons with his now-former boss, producer Dave DePatie (the final producer hired by Warners to oversee the cartoon division), forming DePatie-Freleng Enterprises. When Warner Bros decided to reopen their cartoon studio in 1964, they did so in name only; DePatie-Freleng produced the cartoons into 1966.

While much of Freleng's post-Warner work is considered of lesser quality than his earlier achievements, the DePatie-Freleng studio's signature achievement was The Pink Panther. DePatie-Freleng was commissioned to create the opening titles for the 1963 film ''The Pink Panther'', for which layout artist and director Hawley Pratt and Freleng created a suave, cool cat character. The Pink Panther cartoon character became so popular that United Artists, distributors of ''The Pink Panther'', had Freleng produce a short cartoon starring the character, ''The Pink Phink'' (1964).

After ''The Pink Phink'' won the 1965 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), Freleng and DePatie responded by producing a whole series of Pink Panther cartoons. Other original cartoon series, among them ''The Inspector'', ''The Ant and the Aardvark'', and ''Hoot Kloot'', soon followed. In 1969, ''The Pink Panther Show'', a Saturday morning anthology program featuring DePatie-Freleng cartoons, debuted on NBC. ''The Pink Panther'' and the other original DePatie-Freleng series would remain in production through 1980, with new cartoons produced for simultaneous Saturday morning broadcast and United Artists theatrical release.

DePatie-Freleng is credited with the creation of Frito-Lay's Chester Cheetah, on the Food Network show "Deep Fried Treats Unwrapped"; as well as creating the colored opening title sequence to ''I Dream of Jeannie''.

By 1967, DePatie and Freleng had moved their operations to the San Fernando Valley. Their studio was located on Hayvenhurst Avenue in Van Nuys. One of their projects featured Bing Crosby and his family called, ''Goldilocks'' and had songs by the Sherman Brothers. At their new facilities they continued to produce new cartoons until 1980, when they sold DePatie-Freleng to Marvel Comics, who renamed it Marvel Productions.

Later career

Freleng later served as an executive producer on three 1980s ''Looney Tunes'' compilation features, which linked together several of the classic shorts with new animated sequences. The Freleng-produced compilation features were ''The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie'' (1981), ''Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales'' (1982), and ''Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island'' (1983).

In 1986, Freleng stepped down and gave his position at Warner Bros. to his secretary at the time, Kathleen Helppie-Shipley, who ended up being the second-longest producer of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies franchise, only behind Leon Schlesinger.

Death

On May 26, 1995, Friz died of natural causes in Los Angeles, California, aged 89. The WB animated TV series ''Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries'' and the ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon ''From Hare to Eternity'' (which was the last one directed by Chuck Jones) were both dedicated to his memory.

Notes

External links

Category:1906 births Category:1995 deaths Category:People from Kansas City, Missouri Category:Animated film directors Category:American animators Category:Directors of Best Animated Short Academy Award winners Category:Animated film producers

ar:فريز فريلينغ bg:Фриц Фреленг ca:Friz Freleng de:Friz Freleng es:Friz Freleng fr:Friz Freleng it:Friz Freleng nl:Friz Freleng he:פריץ פרילינג hu:Friz Freleng ms:Friz Freleng pt:Friz Freleng fi:Friz Freleng

name	Leon Schlesinger
birth date	May 20, 1884
birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
death date	December 25, 1949
death place	Los Angeles, California
spouse	}}

Leon Schlesinger (May 20, 1884 – December 25, 1949) was an American film producer, most noted for founding Leon Schlesinger Productions, which later became the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio, during the golden age of Hollywood animation.

Early life and career

Schlesinger was born in Philadelphia. After working at a theater as an usher, songbook agent, actor, and manager (including the Palace Theater in Buffalo, New York), he founded Pacific Title and Art in 1919, where most of his business was producing title cards for silent films. As talking pictures ("talkies") gained popularity in 1929 and 1930, Schlesinger looked for ways to capitalize on the new technology and stay in business. Some film historians claim that he helped finance the Warner brothers' first talkie, ''The Jazz Singer''. He then secured a contract with the studio to produce its brand-new ''Looney Tunes'' series, and he signed animators Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising to create these cartoons with their Bosko character as the star.

Schlesinger as businessman

Schlesinger was a shrewd businessman with a keen eye for talent. When Harman and Ising left Warner Bros. with Bosko in 1934, Schlesinger set up his own studio on the Warner Bros. Sunset Boulevard lot at the corner of Van Ness and Fernwood. He wooed animators away from other studios, including some of those who had departed with Harman and Ising including Bob Clampett. One of these was Friz Freleng, whom Schlesinger promoted to oversee production of ''Looney Tunes'' and to develop the sister series, ''Merrie Melodies''. Freleng's talent quickly shone through, and Schlesinger's hiring of Frederick "Tex" Avery, Chuck Jones and Frank Tashlin further increased the quality of the studio's output. He later added Carl Stalling and Mel Blanc and collectively these men created such famous characters as Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny. Schlesinger largely took a "hands off" approach to the animation unit, allowing his directors freedom to create what they wished, provided that the resulting films do well in the theaters. Schlesinger sold Pacific Title & Art in 1935 to concentrate on his animation studio.

Business practices

Schlesinger's hard-nosed business practices cannot be overstated. His animators worked in a dilapidated studio (Avery's unit were briefly assigned to a bungalow they dubbed "Termite Terrace"), and Schlesinger briefly shut down the studio in mid-1941 when unionized employees demanded a pay raise. On another occasion, he boycotted the Academy Awards for what he claimed was preferential treatment for the Walt Disney and MGM cartoon studios. He also farmed some of the ''Looney Tunes'' out to his brother-in-law, Ray Katz, for tax breaks.

Schlesinger was also known (among his animators, at least) for his lisp. One oft-repeated "official" story states that Mel Blanc patterned the voices of both Daffy Duck and Sylvester the cat on Schlesinger. However, in Mel Blanc's autobiography, ''That's Not All Folks!'', he contradicts that conventional belief, writing "It seemed to me that such an extended mandible would hinder his speech, particularly on words containing an ''s'' sound. Thus 'despicable' became 'des''th''picable'." Daffy's slobbery, exaggerated lisp was developed over time, being barely noticeable in the early cartoons. In ''Daffy Duck and Egghead'', Daffy does not lisp at all, except in the separately-drawn set-piece of Daffy singing "The Merry Go Round Broke Down", in which just a slight lisp can be heard.

Animators who worked with Schlesinger also found him conceited and somewhat foppish, wearing too much cologne and dressing like a dandy.

Appearances in shorts

Leon Schlesinger appeared as himself in Freleng's 1940 short ''You Ought to Be in Pictures'', a short that combines live action with animation. In this short, Mel Blanc voices both Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, and all other voices are redubbed by Blanc too, except Schlesinger's. As with other Warner cartoon staffers, Schlesinger appeared in caricature form in such cartoons as ''Hollywood Steps Out'', ''Russian Rhapsody'' and ''Nutty News''.

Later life and career

Schlesinger remained head of the animation studio until 1944 when he sold his assets to Warner Bros. He continued to market the characters and headed Warners' Theater Services unit until his death from a viral infection on Christmas Day, 1949. Schlesinger also produced a number of B-movie Westerns in the 1930s. After Warner Bros. bought Schlesinger's studio, Eddie Selzer assumed Schlesinger's position as producer. Schlesinger was an avid racehorse fan and was a director of the Western Harness Racing Association. A United Press dispatch dated January 10, 1950 reported a director had been found to fill the vacancy caused by his death. He is interred in the Beth Olam Mausoleum inside the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.

External links

References

Category:1884 births Category:1949 deaths Category:American film producers Category:Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery Schlesinger,Leon

ar:ليون شليسنجر ca:Leon Schlesinger de:Leon Schlesinger es:Leon Schlesinger fr:Leon Schlesinger it:Leon Schlesinger hu:Leon Schlesinger pl:Leon Schlesinger

Name	Hugh Harman
Birth date	August 31, 1903
Birth place	Pagosa Springs, Colorado, United States
Death date	November 25, 1982
Death place	Chatsworth, California, United States }}

Name	Rudolf Ising
Birth date	August 07, 1903
Birth place	Kansas City, Missouri, United States
Death date	July 18, 1992
Death place	Newport Beach, California, United States }}

Hugh Harman (August 31, 1903 – November 25, 1982) and Rudolf "Rudy" Ising (August 7, 1903 – July 18, 1992) were an American animation team best known for founding the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios. They are particularly celebrated for their 1939 antiwar MGM cartoon ''Peace on Earth'' and won an Oscar for the MGM cartoon ''The Milky Way'' in 1940.

Early history

Harman and Ising first worked in animation in the early 1920s at Walt Disney's studio in Kansas City. When Disney moved operations to California, Harman, Ising, and fellow animator Carmen Maxwell stayed behind to try to start their own studio. Their plans went nowhere, however, and the men soon rejoined Disney to work on his ''Alice Comedies'' and ''Oswald the Lucky Rabbit'' films. It was during this time, that Harman and Ising developed a style of cartoon drawing that would later be closely associated with, and credited to, Disney. In 1925, Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Walt Disney which would later inspire Ub Iwerks to create a new character for Disney called Mickey Mouse.

When producer Charles Mintz ended his association with Disney, Harman and Ising went to work for Mintz, whose brother-in-law, George Winkler, set up a new animation studio to make the ''Oswald'' cartoons. The Oswald cartoons which Harman and Ising produced in 1928 and 1929 already show their distinctive style, which would later characterize their work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon series for Warner Bros. For example, in ''Sick Cylinders'' (1929) there are sequences which were later remade very closely in such Harman and Ising Warner Bros. efforts as ''Sinkin' in the Bathtub'' (1930) and ''Bosko's Holiday'' (1931). The Oswald cartoons that Harman and Ising worked on are completely different from the Oswald cartoons made before and after Disney and can easily be distinguished by anyone familiar with their work.

Warner Bros. and Van Beuren

Harman and Ising had long aspired to start their own studio, and had created and copyrighted the cartoon character Bosko in 1928. After losing their jobs at the Winkler studio, Harman and Ising financed a short Bosko demonstration film called ''Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid'', notable for being the first sound cartoon of the late-1920s "talkie" era with dialogue. The sound cartoon, which featured Bosko at odds with his animator – portrayed in live-action by Rudy Ising – impressed Leon Schlesinger, who paired Harman and Ising with Warner Bros. Schlesinger wanted the Bosko character to star in a new series of "talkie" cartoons he dubbed ''Looney Tunes''. The pair made ''Sinkin' in the Bathtub'' in 1930, and the cartoon did well. Harman took over direction of the ''Looney Tunes'' starring the character, while Ising took a sister series called ''Merrie Melodies'' that consisted of one-shot stories and characters.

The two animators broke off ties with Schlesinger later in 1933 over budget disputes with the miserly producer, and went to the Van Beuren studio, which was making cartoon for RKO Radio Pictures. There, they were offered a contract to produce the Cubby Bear cartoon series. Harman and Ising produced two cartoons for this series which were actually released. These cartoons show their distinctive style and are distinguished from the rest of the series, which was poorly animated. Harman and Ising were in the midst of making a third cartoon when a contractual dispute arose. The pair left Van Beuren, but kept the completed cartoon and finally released it in the 1940s.

MGM

Harman and Ising had maintained the rights to the Bosko character, and they signed a deal with MGM to start a new series of Bosko shorts in 1934. The two maintained the same division of work they had used at Warner Bros.: Harman worked on Bosko shorts, and Ising directed one-shots. They also tried unsuccessfully to create new cartoon stars for their new distributors. Their cartoons, though technically superior to those they had made for Schlesinger, were still music-driven shorts with little to no plot. When the new ''Happy Harmonies'' series ran significantly over-budget in 1937, MGM fired Harman and Ising and established its own in-house studio headed by Fred Quimby.

Harman and Ising still found some work as animation freelancers, directing, for example, the ''Silly Symphony'' series for Disney in 1938. When Disney later reneged on a deal he had made for two other Harman-Ising pictures, the animators sold the cartoons to Quimby at MGM. Quimby later agreed to hire the animators back to the studio. Ising created the character Barney Bear for MGM at this time, basing the sleepy-eyed character partially on himself. In 1939, Harman created his masterpiece, ''Peace on Earth'', a downbeat morality tale about two squirrels discovering the evils of humanity, which was nominated for an Oscar. Despite the success of this and other cartoons, MGM's production under Harman and Ising remained low.

In 1941, Harman left MGM and started a new studio with Disney veteran Mel Shaw. The two took over Ub Iwerks' old studio in Beverly Hills, California, where they created training films for the Army. In 1942, Ising also quit MGM, in his case to join the military.

Later career and legacy

By 1951, Harman and Ising were back together and making industrial and commercial films such as the 1951 film "Good Wrinkles" made for the California prune industry.

In 1960, Harman-Ising produced a pilot episode for a made for TV cartoon series titled ''The Adventures of Sir Gee Whiz on the Other Side of the Moon''. The unsold pilot for the never produced series was profiled on episode 6 of ''Cartoon Dump.'' Rudy Ising was the voice of Sir Gee Whiz.

Harman and Ising are little known, even among some animation fans. Although they contributed to much of what would later be known as the Disney style, they have been dismissed as mere copycats. In reality, Harman and Ising never attempted to imitate Disney; they were attempting to make refined polished cartoons whose quality would shine in comparison to the work of others. Their repeated attempts to make quality cartoons and their refusal to be bound by budgets led to numerous disputes with their producers. Because of this, they were unable to create any enduring characters. Instead, they created studios that would later produce such characters.

Notes

External links

Hugh Harman's obituary in The New York Times

Hugh Harman educational health series

Category:1903 births Category:1982 deaths Category:1992 deaths Category:Articles about multiple people Category:American animators

de:Rudolf Ising es:Harman e Ising fr:Harman-Ising Studio ms:Harman dan Ising

name	Bugs Bunny
first
latest	''The Looney Tunes Show'' (2011)
creator	}}

}}}} | nickname = Bugs | species = Rabbit or hare(see below) | gender = Male | significantother = Lola BunnyHoney Bunny (former) | voice = Mel Blanc, (1938–1989)Jeff Bergman (1990–1993; 2011–)(see below) }}

Bugs Bunny is a fictional animated 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. Bugs starred in 167 shorts during the Golden Age of American animation, and cameoed in many others, including few appearances in non-animated films. He is an anthropomorphic hare or rabbit.

According to ''Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Grey Hare'', he was born on July 27, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York in a warren under Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. In reality, he was created by many animators and staff, including Tex Avery, who directed ''A Wild Hare'', Bugs' debut role, and Robert McKimson, who created the definitive "Bugs Bunny" character design. According to Mel Blanc, the character's original voice actor, Bugs has a Flatbush accent. Bugs has had numerous catchphrases, the most prominent being a casual "Eh... What's up, doc?", usually said while chewing a carrot.

He is the most prominent of the Looney Tunes characters as his calm, flippant insouciance endeared him to American audiences during and after World War II. He is also a mascot of the Looney Tunes, as well as Warner Bros. in general.

History

Happy Rabbit

thumb|left|550px|A depiction of Bugs Bunny's evolution through the years.A rabbit (named as "Happy Rabbit") with some of the personality of Bugs, though looking very different, first appears in the cartoon short ''Porky's Hare Hunt'', released on April 30, 1938. Co-directed by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway and an uncredited Cal Dalton (who was responsible for the initial design of Happy), this short has an almost identical plot to Tex Avery's 1937 cartoon ''Porky's Duck Hunt'', which had introduced Daffy Duck. Porky Pig is again cast as a hunter tracking a silly prey less interested in escape than in driving his pursuer insane. The latter short replaces the little black duck with a small white rabbit. Happy introduces himself with the odd expression "Jiggers, fellers", and Mel Blanc gave Happy a voice and laugh almost like that he would later use for Woody Woodpecker. This cartoon also first uses the famous Groucho Marx line, "Of course you realize, this means war!" This rabbit was so popular with its audience that the Schlesinger staff decided to use it again.

Happy appears again in 1939's ''Prest-O Change-O'', 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. Happy harasses them, but is ultimately bested by the bigger of the two dogs.

His third appearance is in another 1939 cartoon, ''Hare-um Scare-um'', directed by Dalton and Hardaway. This short, the first where he is depicted as a gray bunny instead of a white one, is also notable for Happy's first singing role. Charlie Thorson, lead animator on the short, gave the character a name. He had written "Bugs' Bunny" on the model sheet that he drew for Hardaway, implying that he considered the rabbit model sheet to be Hardaway's property. In promotional material for the short, 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 at the very beginning). In his later years, Mel Blanc stated that a proposed name was "Happy Rabbit". Oddly, "Happy" was only used in reference to Bugs Hardaway. In the cartoon ''Hare-um Scare-um'', a newspaper headline reads, "Happy Hardaway".

In Chuck Jones' ''Elmer's Candid Camera'' Happy first meets Elmer Fudd. This rabbit looks more like the present-day Bugs, taller and with a similar face. This rabbit, however, speaks with a rural drawl. The early version of Elmer is also different from the present-day one, much fatter and taller, although Arthur Q. Bryan's voice is the same as it would be later. In Robert Clampett's 1940 ''Patient Porky'', a similar rabbit appears to trick the audience into thinking that 750 rabbits have been born.

Bugs Bunny emerges

''A Wild Hare'', directed by Tex Avery and released on July 27, 1940, is the first cartoon where both Elmer Fudd and Bugs are shown in their fully developed forms as hunter and tormentor. In this cartoon Mel Blanc first uses what would become Bugs' standard voice; this cartoon also marks the first time that Bugs uses his catchphrase, "What's up, Doc?" Animation historian Joe Adamson counts ''A Wild Hare'' as the first "official" Bugs Bunny short.

Bugs's second appearance, in Jones' ''Elmer's Pet Rabbit'', introduces the audience to the name Bugs Bunny, which until then had only been used among the Termite Terrace employees. It was also the first short where he received billing under his now-famous name, but the card, "featuring Bugs Bunny", was just slapped on the end of the completed short's opening titles when ''A Wild Hare'' proved an unexpected success. The rabbit here is in look and voice identical to the one in Jones' earlier ''Elmer's Candid Camera''.

Bugs in his ''Wild Hare'' likeness appeared in five more shorts during 1941. ''Tortoise Beats Hare'', directed by Tex Avery, features the first appearance of Cecil Turtle; ''Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt'', is the first Bugs Bunny short directed by Friz Freleng; ''All This and Rabbit Stew'', directed by Avery, has Bugs tracked by a little African-American hunter (based heavily on racial stereotypes); ''The Heckling Hare'' was the final Bugs short Avery worked on before being fired (Avery and producer Schlesinger vehemently disagreed over the ending gag of The Heckling Hare, and Avery refused to compromise his creative principles) and leaving for MGM; and ''Wabbit Twouble'', the first Bugs short directed by Robert Clampett. ''Wabbit Twouble'' was also the first of five Bugs shorts to feature a chubbier remodel of Elmer Fudd, a short-lived attempt to have Fudd more closely resemble his voice actor, comedian Arthur Q. Bryan.

World War II

By 1942, Bugs had become the number one star of ''Merrie Melodies''. The series had originally been intended only for one-shot characters in shorts after several early attempts to introduce characters (Foxy, Goopy Geer and Piggy) failed under Harman–Ising. (In 1937, under Schlesinger, it had started introducing newer characters.) Bugs' 1942 shorts included Friz Freleng's ''The Wabbit Who Came to Supper'', and the Robert Clampett shorts ''The Wacky Wabbit'' and ''Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid'' (which introduced Beaky Buzzard). ''Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid'' 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 Robert Clampett's unit. The redesign at first was only used in the shorts 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 cartoon 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.

Other 1942 Bugs shorts included Chuck Jones' ''Hold the Lion, Please'', Freleng's ''Fresh Hare'' and ''The Hare-Brained Hypnotist'' (which restores Elmer Fudd to his previous size), and Jones' ''Case of the Missing Hare''. Bugs also made cameos in Tex Avery's final Warner Bros. short, ''Crazy Cruise'', and stars in the two-minute United States war bonds commercial film ''Any Bonds Today''.

Bugs became more popular during World War II because of his free and easy attitude, and 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 put its characters against Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and the Japanese. The 1944 short ''Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips'' 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 Herman Goering and Hitler in ''Herr Meets Hare'', which introduced his well-known reference to Albuquerque as he mistakenly winds up in the Black Forest of 'Joimany' instead of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Since Bugs' debut in ''A Wild Hare'', he had appeared only in color ''Merrie Melodie'' cartoons (making him one of the few recurring characters created for that series in the Leon Schlesinger era prior to the full conversion to color), alongside Elmer's prototype Egghead, Inki, Sniffles, and Elmer himself—who was heard but not seen in the 1942 ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon ''Nutty News'', and made his first formal appearance in that series in 1943's ''To Duck or Not to Duck''. While he made a cameo appearance in the 1943 Porky and Daffy cartoon ''Porky Pig's Feat'' this was his only appearance in a black-and-white ''Looney Tune'' cartoon. He did not star in a cartoon in the ''Looney Tunes'' series until that series made its complete conversion to only color cartoons beginning with 1944 releases. ''Buckaroo Bugs'' was Bugs' first cartoon in the ''Looney Tunes'' series, and was also the last Warner Bros. cartoon to credit Leon Schlesinger.

Among his most notable civilian shorts during this period are Bob Clampett's ''Tortoise Wins by a Hare'' (a sequel to 1941's ''Tortoise Beats Hare''); ''A Corny Concerto'' (a spoof of Disney's ''Fantasia''); ''Falling Hare''; ''What's Cookin' Doc?''; Chuck Jones' ''Superman'' parody ''Super-Rabbit''; and Freleng's ''Little Red Riding Rabbit''. The 1944 short ''Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears'' introduces Jones' The Three Bears characters.

At the end of the cartoon ''Super-Rabbit'', Bugs appears wearing a United States Marine Corps dress blue uniform. As a result, the Marine Corps made Bugs an honorary Marine Master Sergeant. From 1943 to 1946, Bugs was the official mascot of Kingman Army Airfield, Kingman, Arizona, where thousands of aerial gunners were trained during World War II. Some notable trainees included Clark Gable and Charles Bronson. Bugs also served as the mascot for 530 Squadron of the 380th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force, U.S. Air Force, which was attached to the Royal Australian Air Force and operated out of Australia's Northern Territory from 1943 to 1945, flying B-24 Liberator bombers. Bugs riding an air delivered torpedo served as the squadron logo for Marine Torpedo/Bomber Squadron 242 in the Second World War.

In 1944, Bugs Bunny made a cameo appearance in ''Jasper Goes Hunting'', a short produced by rival studio Paramount Pictures. In this cameo (animated by Robert McKimson, with Mel Blanc providing the voice), Bugs pops out of a rabbit hole, saying his usual catchphrase; Bugs then says, "I must be in the wrong picture" and then goes back in the hole. He also appears in the 1947 Arthur Davis cartoon ''The Goofy Gophers''

The post-war era

After World War II Bugs appeared in numerous cartoon shorts in the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series, making his last appearance in the theatrical cartoons in 1964 with ''False Hare''. He was directed by Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, Arthur Davis and Chuck Jones and appeared in feature films, including ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' (which features the first-ever meeting between Bugs and his box-office rival Mickey Mouse), ''Space Jam'', and the 2003 movie ''Looney Tunes: Back in Action.''

The Bugs Bunny short ''Knighty Knight Bugs'' (1958), in which a medieval Bugs Bunny trades blows with Yosemite Sam and his fire-breathing dragon (which has a cold), won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) of 1958. Three of Chuck Jones' Bugs Bunny shorts — ''Rabbit Fire'', ''Rabbit Seasoning'', and ''Duck! Rabbit, Duck!'' — comprise what is often referred to as the "Duck Season/Rabbit Season" trilogy. Jones' 1957 classic, ''What's Opera, Doc?'', cast Bugs and Elmer in a parody of Richard Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''. It has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, 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 shorts 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 short simply presented on its own, title and all, though some clips from the new bridging material were sometimes used as filler.

After the classic cartoon era

After Mel Blanc died in 1989, Jeff Bergman, Greg Burson, Billy West, and Joe Alaskey became the new voices of Bugs Bunny and many of the other Looney Tunes, each taking turns doing Bugs' voice for various projects over the years.

Bugs has made appearances in animated specials for network television, mostly composed of classic cartoons with bridging material added, including ''How Bugs Bunny Won the West'', and ''The Bugs Bunny Mystery Special''. ''Bugs Bunny's Busting Out All Over'' (1980) contained no vintage clips and featured the first new Bugs Bunny cartoons in 16 years. It opened with "Portrait Of The Artist As a Young Bunny", which features a flashback of Bugs as a child thwarting a young Elmer Fudd, while its third and closing short was "Spaced Out Bunny", with Bugs being kidnapped by Marvin the Martian to be a playmate for Hugo, an Abominable Snowman-like character. (A new Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner short filled out the half hour.) Compilation films included the independently produced ''Bugs Bunny: Superstar'', using the vintage shorts then owned by United Artists; as well as Warner Bros. efforts ''The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie'', ''The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie'', ''Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island'', ''Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales'' and ''Daffy Duck's Quackbusters''. He also made guest appearances in episodes of the 1990s television program ''Tiny Toon Adventures'' as the principal of Acme Looniversity and the mentor of Babs and Buster Bunny, and would later make occasional guest cameos on spinoffs ''Taz-Mania'' and ''Animaniacs''. He appears in the beginning of ''Gremlins 2: The New Batch'', where he tries to ride the opening Warner Bros logo, but is interrupted by Daffy Duck.

Bugs has had several comic book series over the years. Western Publishing had the license for all the Warner Brothers cartoons, and produced Bugs Bunny comics first for Dell Comics, then later for their own Gold Key Comics. Dell published 58 issues and several specials from 1952 to 1962. Gold Key continued for another 133 issues. DC Comics, the sister/subsidiary company of Warner Bros., has published several comics titles since 1994 that Bugs has appeared in. Notable among these was the 2000 four-issue miniseries ''Superman & Bugs Bunny'', written by Mark Evanier and drawn by Joe Staton. This depicted a crossover between DC's superheroes and the Warner cartoon characters.

Like SpongeBob for Nickelodeon and Mickey Mouse (a Disney character), Bugs has served as the mascot for Warner Bros. Entertainment and its various divisions. He and Mickey are the first cartoon characters to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In the 1988 animated/live action movie ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', Bugs was shown 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. For the same reasons, Bugs never calls Mickey by his name, only referring to him as "Doc," while Mickey calls him "Bugs."

Bugs Bunny was featured in ''The Earth Day Special'' showing his displeasure on how man started mistreating the environment. He was voiced by Jeff Bergman who also voiced Porky Pig and Tweety.

Bugs Bunny came back to the silver screen in ''Box Office Bunny'' in 1990. This was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon short since 1964 to be released to theaters, and it was created for the Bugs Bunny 50th anniversary celebration. It was followed in 1991 by ''(Blooper) Bunny,'' a short that has gained a cult following among some animation fans for its edgy humor.

Bugs made an appearance in the 1990 drug prevention video ''Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.'' This special is notable for being the first time that somebody other than Mel Blanc voiced Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. (In this video, both characters were voiced by Jeff Bergman.)

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."

A younger version of Bugs is the main character of ''Baby Looney Tunes,'' which debuted on Cartoon Network in 2002. In the action comedy ''Loonatics Unleashed'', his definite descendant Ace Bunny is the leader of the Loonatics team and seems to have inherited his ancestor's Brooklyn accent and comic wit. Strangely, Bugs was one of the few Looney Tunes characters who never appeared in the 2003 Duck Dodgers series.

Bugs has appeared in numerous video games, including the ''Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle'' series, ''Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout'', ''Bugs Bunny: Rabbit Rampage'' and the similar ''Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble'', ''Looney Tunes B-Ball'', ''Space Jam'', ''Looney Tunes Racing'', ''Looney Tunes: Space Race'', ''Bugs Bunny Lost in Time'', and its sequel, ''Bugs Bunny and Taz Time Busters'', and ''Looney Tunes: Back in Action'' and the new video game ''Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal''.

On August 13, 2010, Warner Bros. Pictures announced that they are planning a live-action/CG-animated combo feature film based on the Looney Tunes character.

Return to television

Bugs Bunny and the rest of the ''Looney Tunes'' gang returned to Cartoon Network in 2011 in a brand new show called ''The Looney Tunes Show'', with Jeff Bergman returning to voice both Bugs and Daffy Duck. This series will also feature the characters singing original songs as well. The show debuted on May 3, 2011. A large difference between Bugs and Daffy's friendship in the show is that, whereas Bugs would hardly mind Daffy's flaws in the original cartoons, in the show Bugs is often and openly annoyed at Daffy's antics, sometimes to the point of aggression when Daffy becomes too obnoxious. He also dated Lola Bunny once, but found her to be "crazy" and a bit too talkative. Unlike the original cartoons, Bugs lives in a regular home, which he shares with Daffy. To earn income, Bugs earns money for having invented the Carrot Peeler.

Bugs also appeared in the ''MAD'' episode "Hops", where he appeared at the party.

Personality and catchphrases

– it's actually a big put-on. Let's face it Doc. I've read the script and I al­ready know how it turns out. |Bob Clampett on Bugs Bunny, written in first person.}} Bugs has feuded with Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Willoughby the Dog, Marvin the Martian, Beaky Buzzard, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tasmanian Devil, Cecil Turtle, Charlie Dog, Witch Hazel, Rocky and Mugsy, Wile E. Coyote, the Crusher, Gremlin, Big Bad Wolf, 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."), 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, in World War II, the Gremlin of ''Falling Hare''), his overconfidence becomes a disadvantage. Most of Bugs' antagonists are extremely dim-witted, and Bugs is easily able to outwit and torment them, though on occasion they will manage to get the best of Bugs. Daffy Duck, who is considerably more intelligent, is unaffected by Bugs' usual schemes, and the two usually end up fighting a battle of wits, though Bugs is still the superior.

During the 1940s, Bugs was immature and wild, but starting in the 1950s his personality matured and his attitude was less frenetic. Though often shown as highly mischievous and violent, Bugs is never actually malicious, and only acts as such in self-defense against his aggressors; the only two cartoons where Bugs ever served as an antagonist were Buckaroo Bugs and Duck Amuck; the latter cartoon depicts him as far more sadistic than usual, as he becomes the cartoonist and abuses his newfound divine powers to torture Daffy.

Bugs Bunny's nonchalant carrot-chewing standing position, as explained by Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Bob Clampett, originated in a scene in the film ''It Happened One Night'', in which Clark Gable's character 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.

The carrot-chewing scenes are generally followed by Bugs Bunny's most well-known catchphrase, "What's up, Doc?", which was written by director Tex Avery for his first Bugs Bunny short, 1940s ''A Wild Hare''. 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 short 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 films and 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 lightsaber-wielding Marvin the Martian saying "What's up, Darth?"

Several Chuck Jones shorts 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'', 1953), the Himalayas (''The Abominable Snow Rabbit'', 1960) and Antarctica (''Frigid Hare'', 1949) 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 1948's ''My Bunny Lies over the Sea'', 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 shorts of this ilk also featured Daffy Duck travelling with Bugs ("Since when is Pismo Beach inside a cave?!").

Bugs Bunny has some similarities to figures from mythology and folklore, such as Br'er Rabbit, Nanabozho, or Anansi, and might be seen as a modern trickster (for example, he repeatedly uses cross-dressing mischievously). Unlike most cartoon characters, however, Bugs Bunny is rarely defeated in his own games of trickery. One exception to this is the short ''Hare Brush'', in which Elmer Fudd ultimately carries the day at the end; however, critics note that in this short, Elmer and Bugs assume each other's personalities—through mental illness and hypnosis, respectively—and it is only by becoming Bugs that Elmer can win. However, Bugs was beaten at his own game. In the short ''Duck Amuck'' he torments Daffy Duck as the unseen animator, ending with his line, "Ain't I a stinker?" Bugs feels the same wrath of an unseen animator in the short ''Rabbit Rampage'' where he is in turn tormented by Elmer Fudd. At the end of the clip Elmer gleefully exclaims, 'Well, I finally got even with that scwewy wabbit!"

Although it was usually Porky Pig who brought the WB cartoons to a close with his stuttering, "That's all, folks!", Bugs would occasionally appear, bursting through a drum just as Porky did, but munching a carrot and saying in his Bronx-Brooklyn accent, "And dat's de end!"

The name "Bugs" or "Bugsy" as an old-fashioned nickname means "crazy" (or "loopy"). Several famous people from the first half of the twentieth century had that nickname. It is now out of fashion as a nickname, but survives in 1950s–1960s expressions like "you're bugging me", as in "you're driving me crazy".

Bugs wears white gloves, which he is rarely seen without, although he may remove one and use it for slapping an opponent to predicate a duel. Another glove-less example is the episode ''Long-Haired Hare'', where Bugs pretends to be the famed conductor Leopold Stokowski and instructs opera star "Giovanni Jones" to sing and to hold a high note. As Giovanni Jones is turning red with the strain, Bugs slips his left hand out of its glove, leaving the glove hovering in the air in order to command Jones to continue to hold the high note. Bugs then nips down to the mail drop to order, and then to receive, a pair of ear defenders. Bugs puts on the ear defenders and then zips back into the amphitheater and reinserts his hand into his glove as singer Jones is writhing on the stage, still holding that same high note.

Bugs Bunny is also a master of disguise: he can wear any disguise that he wants to confuse his enemies: in ''Bowery Bugs'' he uses diverse disguises: fakir, gentleman, woman, baker and finally policeman. This ability of disguise makes Bugs famous because we can recognize him while at the same time realizing that his enemies are stumped. Bugs has a certain preference for the female disguise: Taz, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam were fooled by this sexy bunny (woman) and in ''Hare Trimmed'', Sam discovers the real face of "Granny" (Bugs's disguise) in the church where they attempt to get married. For all the gullible victims of all these disguises, however, for some reason, Daffy Duck and Cecil Turtle are among those who are never fooled.

Bugs Bunny may also have some mystical potential. In ''Knight-mare Hare'' he was able to return to his bunny form (after being transformed into a donkey) by removing his donkey form as if it were a suit. Merlin of Monroe (the wizard) was unable to do the same thing. Later Bugs Bunny defeated the Count Blood Count in a magical spell duel. However, the story was a dream and Bugs Bunny's victory over Count Blood Count was a result of his intellect, not innate magical power.

Rabbit or hare?

The animators throughout Bugs' history have treated the terms rabbit and hare as synonymous. Taxonomically, they are not synonymous, being somewhat similar but observably different types of lagomorphs. Hares have much longer ears than rabbits, so Bugs might seem to be of the hare family, yet rabbits live in burrows, as Bugs is seen to do. Many more of the cartoon titles include the word "hare" rather than "rabbit," as "hare" lends itself easily to puns ("hair," "air," etc.) although Elmer Fudd has always referred to Bugs as a "wabbit".

Within the cartoons, although the term "hare" comes up sometimes, again typically as a pun—for example, Bugs drinking "hare tonic" to "stop falling hare" or being doused with "hare restorer" to bring him back from invisibility—Bugs as well as his antagonists most often refer to the character as a "rabbit." The word "bunny" is of no help in answering this question, as it is a synonym for both young hares and young rabbits.

In Nike commercials with Michael Jordan, Bugs had been referred to as "''Hare'' Jordan."

The opening and closing

In the opening of many of the Bugs Bunny cartoons, the ''Merrie Melodies'' and ''Looney Tunes'' irises contain Bugs Bunny's head after the Warner Bros. shield (generally from 1944 and 1949 onward). Others have Bugs Bunny relaxing on top of the Warner Bros. shield: He chews on his carrot, looks angrily at the camera and pulls down the next logo (''Merrie Melodies'' or ''Looney Tunes'') like a window shade (generally on cartoons between 1945 until early 1949). Then he lifts it back up, to now be seen lying on his own name, which then fades into the title of the specific short. In some other cases, the title card sometimes fades to him, already on his name and chewing his carrot then fade to the name of the short. At the finish of ''Hare Tonic'' and ''Baseball Bugs'', Bugs breaks out of a drum (like ''Porky Pig'') and says, "And that's the end". Also, at the end of ''Box Office Bunny'', right after Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd run out through the Looney Tunes "That's All Folks!" sequence, Bugs later comes in through the rings and says, "And that's all, folks!". He did the ending for the last time at the end of ''Space Jam'' but this time saying "Well, that's all, folks!".

Voice actors

The following are the many voice actors who have voiced the character Bugs Bunny over the last seventy-one years:

;Mel Blanc :Mel Blanc voiced the character for 49 years, from Bugs' debut in ''A Wild Hare'' (1940) until Blanc's death in 1989. Blanc described the voice as a combination of Bronx and Brooklyn accents; however, Tex Avery claimed that he asked Blanc to give the character not a New York accent ''per se'', but a voice like that of actor Frank McHugh, who frequently appeared in supporting roles in the 1930s and whose voice might be described as New York Irish. In Bugs' second cartoon ''Elmer's Pet Rabbit'', Blanc created a completely new voice for Bugs, which sounded like a Jimmy Stewart impression, but the directors decided the previous voice was better. Though his best-known character was the carrot-chomping rabbit, munching on the carrots interrupted the dialogue. Various substitutes, such as celery, were tried, but none of them ''sounded'' like a carrot. So for the sake of expedience, he would munch and then spit the carrot bits into a spittoon rather than swallowing them, and continue with the dialogue. One often-repeated story, possibly originating from ''Bugs Bunny: Superstar'', is that Blanc was allergic to carrots and ''had'' to spit them out to minimize any allergic reaction — but his autobiography makes no such claim. In fact, in a 1984 interview with Tim Lawson, co-author of ''The Magic Behind The Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors'' (University Press of Mississippi, 2004), Blanc emphatically denied being allergic to carrots.

;Jeff Bergman :Jeff Bergman was the first to voice Bugs Bunny (and several other Looney Tunes characters) after Blanc died in 1989. He got the job by impressing Warner Bros. higher-ups with a tape of himself re-creating the voices of several of Blanc's characters, including Bugs. He had rigged the tape player so that he could use a switch to instantly toggle back and forth between the original recording of Blanc and Bergman's recording of the same lines. Upon doing this, it was almost impossible for the producers to tell which voice was Blanc's and which voice was Bergman; thus his vocal ability was established and his career launched.

:Bergman first voiced Bugs during the 1990 Academy Awards and then in ''Box Office Bunny'', a 4-minute ''Looney Tunes'' short released in 1990 to commemorate Bugs' fiftieth anniversary. Bergman would next voice Bugs in the 1991 short ''(Blooper) Bunny'', a Greg Ford-directed cartoon produced to coincide with Bugs' 51st and a half anniversary. However, the short never received its intended theatrical release and was shelved for years, until Cartoon Network rediscovered it and broadcast it on their channel several years later. ''(Blooper) Bunny'' has since garnered a cult following among animation fans for its use of edgy humor. Other works for which Bergman provided Bugs' voice include ''Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers'' (an obvious parody of the 1950s sci-fi classic ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers''), ''Tiny Toon Adventures'' (a popular television program of the early nineties that featured the classic ''Looney Tunes'' characters as mentors to their younger counterparts) in the first season, and ''Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue'' (a television special exposing children to dangers of illegal drugs). Bergman would continue to do the voice of Bugs Bunny until 1993, apparently due to him having difficulty moving to Los Angeles at the time. In 2011, Bergman has returned to voice Bugs for Cartoon Network's new series, ''The Looney Tunes Show''.

;Greg Burson :Greg Burson first voiced Bugs Bunny in later episodes of ''Tiny Toon Adventures''. He was then given the responsibility of voicing Bugs in 1995's ''Carrotblanca'', a well-received 8-minute ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon originally shown in cinemas alongside ''The Amazing Panda Adventure'' (US) and ''The Pebble and the Penguin'' (non-US); it has since been released on video packaged with older ''Looney Tunes'' cartoons and was even included in the special edition DVD release of ''Casablanca'', of which it is both a parody and an homage. Burson next voiced Bugs in the 1996 short ''From Hare to Eternity''; the film is notable for being dedicated to the memory of the then-just deceased Friz Freleng, and for being the final ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon that Chuck Jones directed. Burson also provided Bugs' voice in ''The Bugs and Daffy Show'', which ran on Cartoon Network from 1996 to 2003. He died in 2008.

;Billy West :Billy West has been in television since the late 1980s. His first role was for the 1988 revived version of Bob Clampett's ''Beany and Cecil''. West's breakthrough role then came almost immediately, as the voice of Stimpy and later Ren in John Kricfalusi's ''Ren & Stimpy''. West has since been the voice talent for close to 120 different characters, including some of the most iconic animated figures in television history. Perhaps West's most notable film work came in the 1996 film ''Space Jam''. Starring alongside Michael Jordan, West provided the voice of both Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. West would go on to reprise the roles of Bugs in subsequent ''Looney Tunes'' productions, including his cameos on ''Histeria!'', also he made a cameo appearance on ''Kid vs. Kat'' in "Class Act", the Kids' WB! promotional spots, and the 2006 Christmas-themed special ''Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas'' and the DVD compilations "Reality Check" and "Stranger Than Fiction", along with several ''Looney Tunes''-centric CDs, cartoons, and video games.

;Joe Alaskey :Joe Alaskey, like Jeff Bergman, is well-known for his ability to successfully impersonate many ''Looney Tunes'' characters. In fact, Alaskey voiced Yosemite Sam in ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', as original voice actor Mel Blanc had found it too hard on his vocal cords (which makes Sam one of the few voices created by Blanc to be voiced by someone else during his lifetime). Alaskey's first performance as Bugs Bunny came in the 2003 feature film ''Looney Tunes: Back in Action'', although he had tested performing the role in a few earlier projects, such as ''Tweety's High-Flying Adventure''. While still best known for providing the voice of Daffy Duck, Alaskey has also gone on to do Bugs' voice in several subsequent productions, including ''Daffy Duck for President'' (which was released on ''The Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2'' and dedicated to then-just deceased Chuck Jones) and several recent video games and Looney Tunes cartoons, including ''Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas''.

;Samuel Vincent :Samuel Vincent served as the voice of Bugs in the Cartoon Network TV series ''Baby Looney Tunes''.

;Noel Blanc :Noel Blanc, Mel Blanc's son, voiced Bugs for the ''Tiny Toons'' special ''It's a Wonderful Tiny Toon Christmas Special''. The elder Blanc claimed in his later years that Noel substituted for Mel in various cartoon studios, including doing Bugs at Warner Bros., while he was recovering from a near-fatal car wreck. Noel can also be seen doing Bugs' voice with his father in the documentary on the making of the film ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit''.

Cameos

Bugs Bunny has had cameo appearances in ten cartoons, including two ''Private SNAFU'' shorts.

''Daffy Doodles'' (1946)

''Patient Porky'' (1940)

''Crazy Cruise'' (1942)

''Porky Pig's Feat'' (1943, Bugs's only appearance in a black-and-white Looney Tunes short)

''Jasper Goes Hunting'' (1944, for Paramount)

''Odor-able Kitty'' (1945)

''The Goofy Gophers'' (1947, with a sped-up voice)

''The Lion's Busy'' (1950)

''Duck Amuck'' (1953)

''Justice League: The New Frontier'' (2008, voiced by Joe Alaskey, as one of the forms of The Martian Manhunter)

Current popularity

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." Additionally, in ''Animal Planet'''s ''50 Greatest Movie Animals'' (2004), Bugs was named #3, behind Mickey Mouse and Toto. In 2005 Bugs Bunny was voted the 10th greatest cartoon in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Cartoons behind ''The Simpsons'', ''Tom and Jerry'', ''South Park'', ''Toy Story'', ''Family Guy'', ''Shrek'', ''The Lion King'', ''Spirited Away'' and ''The Incredibles''.

Bugs has also had an effect on "live" movie acting. During an interview for ''Inside the Actors Studio'', comedian Dave Chappelle cited him as one of his earliest influences, praising voice actor Mel Blanc.

According to Time Warner, Bugs Bunny became the current official mascot for Six Flags theme parks beginning with their 45th anniversary.

Awards

Academy Awards

''Knighty Knight Bugs'' (1958)

Academy Award nominations

''A Wild Hare'' (1940)

''Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt'' (1941)

See also

''Looney Tunes''

''Merrie Melodies''

''List of Bugs Bunny cartoons''

''List of Looney Tunes feature-length films''

''The Golden Age of American animation''

References

Bibliography

External links

Warner Bros. Studios

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name	Little Red
background	group_or_band
origin	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
genre	Pop, rock
years active	2005 – present
label	Liberation Music
associated acts	The GreasersThe HondasThe Cuckoos
website	Little Red Music
current members	Adrian BeltrameDominic ByrneQuang DinhTom HartneyTaka Honda
past members	}}

Little Red is a rock band from Melbourne, Australia most famous for their 2010 single, ''Rock It'' consisting of Adrian Beltrame (guitar, vocals), Dominic Byrne (guitar, vocals), Quang Dinh (bass, vocals), Tom Hartney (vocals, keyboards, tambourine and harmonica) and Taka Honda (drums).

Biography

The band was formed in 2005 and were featured on Triple J Unearthed. The band won the 2008 Australia-wide 'Garage to V' competition held by Virgin Mobile to win a slot at all shows of the Australian V Festival in 2008, while the band has also performed at the Falls Festival, Meredith Music Festival, the Big Day Out, the Pyramid Rock Festival and the Laneway Festival.

Little Red's songs "Waiting", "Coca-Cola" and "Witch Doctor" have all received regular play on Australian nation-wide radio station Triple J, while "Coca-Cola" was also included on the official soundtrack of Australian TV series ''Underbelly'', and was voted #47 on the 2008 Triple J Hottest 100.

The band independently released in Australia an album entitled ''Listen to Little Red'' on 28 June 2008, which debuted at number 29 on the ARIA Charts. The album was licensed for release outside of Australia by the UK independent Lucky Number Music and was released on November 16, 2009 in the UK and early 2010 internationally.

In September, 2010, the band released a second album, ''Midnight Remember'', featuring their latest single, "Rock It" which gained a gold accreditation and second place in Triple J's Hottest 100 of 2010, with the album's second single "Slow Motion" securing 79th position.

On April 21, 2011 they released a music video to "All Mine," also from Midnight Remember on youtube, through the Liberation Music record label's account.

Touring

Headlined their 'All Mine' National Tour featuring Worlds End Press & Passport For Amy 2011

Toured with Blondie and The Pretenders, Evening On The Green 2010

Big Day Out 2011

Pyramid Rock 2010/2011

Splendour in the Grass July/August 2010

Toured with Kasabian in July 2010

Headline tour of Australia supported by Ground Components in April/May 2009

Headline tour of Australia - University Tour - in October 2008

Toured with Vampire Weekend on their national Australian tour in August 2008

Headline tour of Australia - album tour - in August/September 2008 supported by The Holidays and Andy Bull

Toured with The Panics on their national album tour in May 2008

Toured with Spoon in January 2008

Toured with Operator Please on their national Australian tour in April 2008

Toured with Art of Fighting in September 2007

Discography

Albums

''Listen to Little Red'' — Hooch Hound/Shock (28 June 2008) AUS #29 — Lucky Number/Lucky Number Music (2009) ''Midnight Remember'' — Liberation (September 2010) AUS #5

EPs

''Get Ready! EP''

Singles

"Coca Cola"/"It's Alright" — Neon Gold/Lucky Number/Lucky Number Music (2009)

"Waiting"/"Wait Is Over" — Neon Gold/Lucky Number/Lucky Number Music (2009)

"Rock It" (2010) AUS #19

"Slow Motion" (2010)

"All Mine" (2011)

References

External links

Little Red video interview @ VFestival

Category:Australian rock music groups Category:Victoria (Australia) musical groups Category:Musical groups established in 2005