Warren Foster (b. October 24, 1904, Brooklyn, New York; d. December 13, 1971, San Clemente, California), was a writer, cartoonist and composer for the animation division of Warner Brothers and later with Hanna-Barbera.

Foster was educated at both Brooklyn Technical High School and the Pratt Institute, joining ASCAP in 1956.

Foster's long career with Warner Brothers began in 1938 as a writer on the Porky Pig short, Porky in Wackyland and ended nearly 171 cartoons later in 1959 with his work on the Tweety Pie short, Tweet Dreams. In fact, Foster was the composer of Tweety's theme song, I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat. He worked, sometimes uncredited, on cartoons considered among the greatest ever, including Porky in Wackyland featuring Porky Pig in 1938, Book Revue and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, each featuring Daffy Duck in 1946, Catty Cornered featuring Sylvester the Cat in 1953 and Bugs and Thugs featuring Bugs Bunny in 1954.

His career took a turn in 1961 at Hanna-Barbera where he would spend the next five years as a writer on a number of notable animated programs beginning with The Yogi Bear Show as well as several episodes of The Flintstones, including his final work on the feature-length The Man Called Flintstone.

Foster is buried at El Toro Memorial Park in Lake Forest, California.

External links[link]

• Warren Foster at the Internet Movie Database
• Find-a-Grave: Warren Foster

This biographical article related to cinema of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article about an American screenwriter is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Dimitri Tiomkin
Born	Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (1894-05-10)May 10, 1894 Kremenchuk, Poltava, Russian Empire (now Ukraine)
Died	November 11, 1979(1979-11-11) (aged 85) London, England
Ethnicity	Jewish
Occupation	Hollywood Film composer
Years active	1929–1979
Notable work(s)	"High Noon," "Giant" Westerns and drama
Influenced by	European classic composers
Spouse	Albertina Rasch (1927-1967 - her death)

Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (May 10, 1894 – November 11, 1979) was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music."^[1] Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact."^[1] Tiomkin received 22 Academy Award nominations and won four Oscars.

Early life and education[link]

With mother, circa 1900

Dimitri Tiomkin (Ukrainian: Дмитро Зиновійович Тьомкін, Dmytro Zynoviyovych Tiomkin, Russian: Дмитрий Зиновьевич Тёмкин, Dmitrij Zinov'evič Tjomkin, sometimes transliterated as Dmitri Tiomkin) was born in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire.

His family was of Jewish descent,^[2] with his father a "distinguished pathologist" and associate of Professor Paul Ehrlich, the inventor and Nobel laureate noted for discovering a cure for syphilis and for his research in autoimmunity, later becoming chemotherapy. His mother was a musician who began teaching the young Tiomkin piano at an early age. Her hope was to have her son become a professional pianist, according to Tiomkin biographer, Christopher Palmer.^[3] Tiomkin described his mother as being "small, blonde, merry and vivacious."^[3]

He was educated at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in Russia, where he studied piano with Felix Blumenfeld, teacher of Vladimir Horowitz, and harmony and counterpoint with Alexander Glazunov, mentor to Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich.^[4]

Music career[link]

Early years[link]

In 1920, while working for the Petrograd Military District Political Administration (PUR), he was one of the lead organizers of two revolutionary mass spectacles, the "Mystery of Liberated Labor," a pseudo-religious mystery play for the May Day festivities, and "The Storming of the Winter Palace" for the celebrations of the third anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.^[5] He supported himself while living in St. Petersburg by playing piano accompaniment for numerous Russian silent films.^[4]

He moved to Berlin after the Russian Revolution to live with his father; the revolution had diminished opportunities for classic musicians in Russia.^[6] In Berlin, from 1921 to 1923, he studied with the pianist Ferruccio Busoni and Busoni's disciples Egon Petri and Michael von Zadora.^[2] He composed light classical and popular music, and made his performing debut as a pianist playing Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Berlin Philharmonic.^[7]

He moved to Paris with his roommate, Michael Kariton, to perform a piano duo repertory together, which they did before the end of 1924. In 1925 the duo received an offer from the New York theatrical producer Morris Gest and went to the United States where they performed together on the Keith/Albee and Orpheum vaudeville circuits in which they accompanied a ballet troupe run by the Austrian ballerina Albertina Rasch. Tiomkin and Rasch's professional relationship evolved into a personal one, and they married in 1927.

While in New York Tiomkin gave a recital at Carnegie Hall which featured music by Maurice Ravel, Alexander Scriabin, Francis Poulenc, and Alexandre Tansman. He and his new wife went on tour to Paris in 1928, where he played the European premiere of George Gershwin's Concerto in F at the Paris Opera, with Gershwin in the audience.

Hollywood (1930)[link]

After the stock market crash in October 1929 reduced work opportunities in New York, Tiomkin and his wife moved on to Hollywood,^[8] where she was hired to supervise dance numbers in MGM movie musicals.^[7] He worked on some minor films, some without being credited under his own name, but his first significant film score project was for Paramount's Alice in Wonderland in 1933.^[9] Although he worked on some smaller film projects, his goal was to become a concert pianist. However, that goal ended abruptly in 1937 when he broke his arm, and he then focused on a career as a film-music composer.^[10]

[edit] Frank Capra in Lost Horizon (1937)

Tiomkin received his first break from Columbia director Frank Capra, who picked him to write and perform the score for his film, Lost Horizon in 1937.^[7] The film won Tiomkin significant recognition in Hollywood, and came out the same year he became a U.S. citizen.^[6][11]

In his autobiography, Please Don't Hate Me! (1959), Tiomkin recalls how the assignment by Capra forced him to first confront a director in a matter of music style:

Army letter thanking Tiomkin

[H]e gave me the job without reservation. I could write the score without interference, and he would hear it when it was done. Lost Horizon offered me a superb chance to do something big. . . . I thought I might be going a little too far in the matter of expense, and went to Frank one day as he sat in the projection room [and explained the score.] . . . . He looked shocked. "No, Dimi, the lama is a simple man. His greatness is in being simple. For his death the music should be simple, nothing more than the muttering rhythm of a drum." "But Frank, death of lama is not ending one man, but is death of idea. Is tragedy applying to whole human race. I must be honest. Music should rise high, high. Should give symbolism of immense loss. Please don't hate me."^[10]

He worked on other Capra films during the following decade, including the comedy, You Can't Take It With You (1938 -AA winner for "Best Picture); Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939- AA winner for "Best Picture"); Meet John Doe (1941); and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). During World War II, he continued his close collaboration with Capra by composing scores for his Why We Fight series, consisting of seven films commissioned by the U.S. government to show American soldiers the reason for the war. They were later released to the general U.S. public to generate support for American involvement.^[6]

Tiomkin credits Capra for broadening his musical horizons by shifting them away from a purely Eurocentric and romantic style to a more American style based on subject matter and story.^[10] After the war Tiomkin became one of the most sought-after composers in Hollywood.

[edit] High Noon (1952)

In 1952 he composed the score to Fred Zinnemann's High Noon, with the theme song, “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'” (“The Ballad of High Noon”). At its opening preview to the press, the film, which starred Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, did badly. Tiomkin writes that "film experts agreed that the picture was a flat failure. . . The producers hesitated to release the picture."^[10] Tiomkin then bought the rights to the song and released it as a single for the popular music market, with singer Frankie Laine. The record became an immediate success worldwide, one of the few hits that year.

Based on the popularity of the song, the studio released the film four months later, with the words sung by country western star Tex Ritter. The film went on to receive seven Academy Award nominations and four wins, including two for Tiomkin: Best Original Music and Best Song.

According to film historian Arthur R. Jarvis, Jr., the score "has been credited with saving the movie."^[6] Another music expert, Mervyn Cooke, agrees, adding that in his opinion "the song's spectacular success was partly responsible for changing the course of film-music history . . ."^[10] Tiomkin became the first composer to receive two Oscars (score and song) for the same dramatic film.

The song's lyrics briefly tell the entire story of the film, a tale of cowardice and conformity in a small Western town.^[12] The score was built entirely around a single western-style ballad. Tiomkin created an unconventional score for the film, and eliminated violins from the ensemble. Along with other instruments, he added a subtle harmonica sound in the background, to give the film a "rustic, deglamorized sound that suits the anti-heroic sentiments" expressed by the story.^[4]

According to Russian film historian Harlow Robinson, building the score around a single folk tune was typical of many Russian classical composers.^[4] Glenda Abramson, a historian of Jewish culture, adds that the song was likely adapted from a Yiddish folk tune, and has compared and found direct similarities in the music notation. She also notes that other widely recognized American songs were likewise adaptations from Jewish folk songs, including Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies," and Harold Arlen's "Paper Moon," among others.^[13] However, Robinson adds that the source of Tiomkin's score, if indeed folk, has not been proven.^[4]

Tiomkin won two more best score Oscars in subsequent years: the John Wayne film The High and the Mighty (1954), and for The Old Man and the Sea (1958). During the ceremonies in 1955, Tiomkin humorously thanked all of the earlier composers who had influenced him in writing this music, including Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and many of the other great names of European classical music.

Work with noted directors[link]

Along with doing many films for Frank Capra, Tiomkin scored films for a number of other leading directors. He did four films for Alfred Hitchcock Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Strangers on a Train (1951), I Confess (1953) and Dial M for Murder (1954). He was one of few composers, the other main two being Franz Waxman and Bernard Herrmann, who scored multiple films for Hitchcock.

He also worked with Howard Hawks on The Big Sky (1952) and Land of the Pharaohs (1955), with Fred Zinnemann in The Men (1950) and The Sundowners (1960), with John Huston on The Unforgiven (1960), and with Nicholas Ray on 55 Days at Peking (1963).

Film genres[link]

Many of his scores were for Western movies, for which he is best remembered. His first Western was Duel in the Sun (1946), directed by King Vidor. His most well-known Western was High Noon (1952). Among his other Westerns were Giant (1956), Friendly Persuasion (1956), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Rio Bravo (1959), and The Alamo (1960). He received Oscar nominations for both Giant and The Alamo.

Although influenced by Eastern European music traditions, he was self-trained as a film composer and scored many other American successful movies of various genres, from Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) to the military drama, The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955). Among other genres were The Guns of Navarone (1961), Town Without Pity (1961), 55 Days at Peking (1963), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), and The War Wagon (1967).

Tiomkin also wrote scores for four of Alfred Hitchcock's romantic dramas, where he used a lush style relying on solo violins and muted trumpets. He composed the score for the science fiction thriller, The Thing, which is considered to be among the "greatest of all sci-fi scores" ever written, and is considered his "strangest and most experimental score."^[14]

Television[link]

In addition to the cinema he was also active in composing for the small screen, including such memorable television theme songs as Rawhide (1959) and Gunslinger. Although he was also hired to compose the theme for TV's The Wild Wild West (1965), the producers rejected his music and subsequently hired Richard Markowitz as his replacement. A cover version of the theme from Rawhide was performed in the 1980 cult musical film The Blues Brothers, the in-joke that the composer is a Ukrainian-born Jew being lost on the crowd at the cowboy bar.

Tiomkin also made a few appearances as himself on television programs. These include being the mystery challenger on What's My Line? and an appearance on Jack Benny's CBS program in December 1961, in which he attempted to help Jack write a song.^[15]

He also composed the music to the song "Wild Is The Wind". It was originally recorded by Johnny Mathis for the 1957 film Wild Is the Wind. It is mostly well known as jazz singer Nina Simone's standard. The song carried on in a 1976 David Bowie's cover (Bowie being a long time admirer of Simone). In 1981, Bowie released a shorter version as a single. which became a hit in the UK charts. It has since been recorded by several other artists.

Composition styles and significance[link]

Although Tiomkin was a trained classical pianist, he adapted his music training in Russia to the rapidly expanding Hollywood film industry, and self-taught himself how to compose meaningful film scores for almost any story type. Film historian David Wallace notes that despite Tiomkin's indebtedness to Europe's classical composers, he would go on to express more than any other composer, "the American spirit—its frontier spirit, anyway—in film music."^[7] Wallace summarizes the overall effect of his scores on the movie industry:

His trademarks, huge, noisy cues, propulsive adventure themes that seemingly employed every brass instrument ever invented, and melting, emotionally wrought melodies accompanying romantic scenes also became the stock-in trade of just about every film composer since.^[7]

Nonetheless, Tiomkin had no illusions about his talent and the nature of his film work when compared to the classical composers. "I am no Prokofiev, I am no Tchaikovsky. But what I write is good for what I write for. So please, boys, help me."^[4] Upon receiving his Oscar in 1955 for The High and the Mighty, he became the first composer to publicly list and thank the great European masters, including Beethoven, Strauss, and Brahms, among others.

Music historian Christopher Palmer states that Tiomkin's "genius lay in coming up with themes and finding vivid ways of creating sonic color appropriate to the story and visual image, not in his ability to combine the themes into a complex symphonic structure that could stand on its own."^[4] In addition he speculates how a Russian-born pianist like Tiomkin, who was educated at a respected Russian music conservatory, could have become so successful in the American film industry:^[16]

He came from a Big Country, too, and in America's vastness, particularly its vast all-embracingness of sky and plain, he must have seen a reflection of the steppes of his native Ukraine. So the cowboy becomes a mirror image of the Cossacks: both are primitives and innocents, etched on and dwarfed by a landscape of soul-stirring immensity and rugged masculine beauty. And as an exile himself, Tiomkin would have identified with the cowboys, pioneers and early settlers who people the world of the Western . . . . [T]hose like Tiomkin who blazed a trail in Hollywood were actually winning the West all over again.^[16]

Tiomkin himself alluded to this relationship in his autobiography:

A steppe is a steppe is a steppe. . . . The problems of the cowboy and the Cossack are very similar. they share a love of nature and a love of animals. Their courage and their philosophical attitudes are similar, and the steppes of Russia are much like the prairies of America.^[4]

Techniques of composing[link]

Tiomkin's methods of composing a film score have been analyzed and described by music experts. Musicologist Dave Epstein, for one, has explained that after reading the script, Tiomkin would then outlines the film's major themes and movements. After the film itself has been filmed, he then made a detailed study of the timing of scenes, using a stopwatch to arrange precise synchronization of the music with the scenes. He would complete the final score after assembling all the musicians and orchestra, rehearse a number of times, and then record the final soundtrack.^[14]

Tiomkin also paid careful attention to the voices of the actors when composing. According to Epstein, he "found that in addition to the timbre of the voice, the pitch of the speaking voice must be very carefully considered. . . " To accomplish this, Tiomkin would go to the set during filming and would carefully listen to each of the actors. He would also talk with them individually, noting the pitch and color of their voice. Tiomkin explains why he took the extra time with actors:

The music has the function of helping describe the characters. It helps paint the portraits. . . . [giving an example] It was my job to soften her face, to make her look more Continental, more refined. We did it with the music which accompanied her every appearance on the screen, by developing a delicate, graceful theme.^[14]

Death[link]

Dimitri Tiomkin died in London, England, UK, in 1979 and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Legacy[link]

Dimitri Tiomkin, although born in Ukraine and trained in Russia, has been credited with composing the most memorable film songs ever produced by Hollywood. During the 1950s he was the highest paid film composer, composing nearly a picture each month, achieving his greatest fame during the 1950s and 1960s. Between 1948 and 1958, his "golden decade," he composed 57 film scores. During the single year of 1952, he composed 9 film scores, including High Noon, for which he won two Academy Awards. In the same decade, he won two more Oscars and his film scores were nominated nine times.^[14]

Beginning with Lost Horizon in 1937, through his retirement from movies in 1979 over four decades later, and up until modern times, he is recognized as being the only Russian to have become a Hollywood film composer. Other Russian-born composers, such as Irving Berlin, wrote their scores for Broadway plays, many of which were later adapted to film.^[17][18][19]

Tiomkin was the first film score composer to write both the title theme song and the score.^[14] That technique was exemplified in many of his westerns, including High Noon and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, where the main theme song became a common thread running through the entire film.^[14] For the film Red River, for example, his biographer Christopher Palmer describes how the music immediately sets the epic and heroic tone for the film:

"The unison horn-call is indeed an invocation: the gates of history are flung wide and the main theme, high and wide as the huge vault of the sky, rides forth in full choral-orchestral splendour."^[14]

Because of this stylistic contribution to westerns, along with other film genres, using title and ongoing theme songs, he had the greatest impact on Hollywood films in the following decades up until the present.^[14] With many of his songs being used in the title of films, Tiomkin created what composer Irwin Bazelon called "title song mania." In subsequent decades, studios often attempted to create their own hit songs to both sell as a soundtrack and to enhance the movie experience, with a typical example being the film score for Titanic.^[14]

He was known to use "source music" in his scores, which some experts claim were often based on Russian folk songs. Much of his film music, especially for westerns, was used to create an atmosphere of "broad, sweeping landscapes," with a prominent use of chorus.^[20]:example During a TV interview, he credited his love of the European classic composers along with his ability to adapt American folk music styles to creating grand American theme music.^[21]

A number of Tiomkin's film scores were released on LP soundtrack albums, including Giant and The Alamo. Some of the recordings, which usually featured Tiomkin conducting his own music, have been reissued on CD. The theme song to High Noon has been recorded by many artists, with one German CD producer, Bear Family Records, producing a CD with 25 different artists performing that one song.^[22]

In 1999, the U.S. Postal Service added his image to their "Legends of American Music" stamp series. The series began with the issuance of the Elvis Presley in 1993, and Tiomkin's image was added as part of their "Hollywood Composers" selection.^[23]

In 1976, RCA Victor released Lost Horizon: The Classic Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin (US catalogue #ARL1-1669, UK catalogue #GL 43445) with Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Featuring highlights from various Tiomkin scores, the album was later reissued by RCA on CD with Dolby Surround Sound.

The American Film Institute ranked Tiomkin's score for High Noon #10 on their list of the greatest film scores. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list:

• The Alamo (1960)
• Dial M for Murder (1954)
• Duel in the Sun (1946)
• Friendly Persuasion (1956)
• The Guns of Navarone (1961)
• Lost Horizon (1937)

Awards and nominations[link]

Academy Awards[link]

• 1972 - nominated for "Best Music, Scoring Adaptation and Original Song" Score for Chaikovsky (1969)
• 1965 - nominated for "Best Music, Score - Substantially Original" for: The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
• 1964 - nominated for "Best Music, Original Song" and "Best Music, Score - Substantially Original" for 55 Days at Peking (1963)
• 1962 - nominated for "Best Music, Original Song" for Town Without Pity (1961) and for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Guns of Navarone (1961)
• 1961 - nominated for "Best Music, Original Song" and for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Alamo (1960)
• 1961 - nominated for "Best Music, Original Song" for The Young Land (1959)
• 1959 - won an Oscar for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Old Man and the Sea (1958)
• 1958 - nominated for "Best Music, Original Song" for Wild Is the Wind (1957)
• 1957 - nominated for "Best Music, Original Song" for Friendly Persuasion, "Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture" for "Giant" (1956)
• 1955 - nominated for "Best Music, Original Song" for The High and the Mighty (1954) and won an Oscar for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for the same movie
• 1953 - won (with Ned Washington) an Oscar for "Best Music, Original Song" for High Noon (1952) for "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'", sung by Tex Ritter
• 1953 - won an Oscar for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for High Noon (1952)
• 1950 - nominated for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for Champion (1949)
• 1945 - nominated for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944)
• 1944 - nominated for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Moon and Sixpence (1943)
• 1943 - nominated for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Corsican Brothers (1941)
• 1940 - nominated for "Best Music, Scoring" for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Golden Globes[link]

• 1965 for "Best Original Score" for The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
• 1962 for "Best Motion Picture Score" for The Guns of Navarone (1961) AND for "Best Motion Picture Song" for Town Without Pity (1961)
• 1961 for "Best Original Score" for The Alamo (1960)
• 1957 he received the "Special Award" as "Recognition for film music"
• 1955 he received the "Special Award" "For creative musical contribution to Motion Picture"
• 1953 for "Best Motion Picture Score" for High Noon (1952)

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} "Dimitri Tiomkin" Findagrave.com
2. ^ ^{a b} Stevens, Lewis. Composers of Classical Music of Jewish Descent, Vallentine Mitchell Publ. (2003) p. 50
3. ^ ^{a b} Palmer, Christopher. Dimitri Tiomkin, T.E. Books, (1984) p. 13
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Robinson, Harlow. Russians in Hollywood, Hollywood's Russians: Biography of an Image, Northeastern Univ. Press (2007) pp. 130-133
5. ^ James Von Geldern, Bolshevik Festivals (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993), 157, Katerina Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1995), 135-36
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Browne, Pat. The Guide to United States Popular Culture, Univ. of Wisconsin Press (2001) p. 846
7. ^ ^{a b c d e} Wallace, David; Miller, Ann. Hollywoodland, Macmillan, (2002) pp. 193-194
8. ^ Warren M. Sherk (2003), "Biography: Dimitri Tiomkin" at "Dimitri Tiomkin: The Official Web Site." Accessed September 4, 2010.
9. ^ Allen Hughes, "Dimitri Tiomkin Dies; Wrote Film Scores", The New York Times, November 14, 1979.
10. ^ ^{a b c d e} Cooke, Mervyn. The Hollywood Film Music Reader, Oxford Univ. Press (2010) pp. 117-136
11. ^ Dominic Power, "Tiomkin, Dimitri" at the "film reference" web site. Accessed September 7, 2010.
12. ^ Roger L. Hall, A Guide to Film Music: Songs and Scores (Stoughton, PineTree Press, 3rd ed, 2007), 24.
13. ^ Abramson, Glenda. Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture: Vol 1, Routledge (2005) p. 187
14. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Hall, Roger. Soundtrack Magazine, Vol. 21, #84 (2002)
15. ^ http://us.imdb.de/name/nm0006323/filmoseries
16. ^ ^{a b} Palmer, Christopher. The Composer in Hollywood, Marlon Boyars Publ. (1990) p. 314
17. ^ Thomas, Tony. Film Score: The View from the Podium, A.S. Barnes Publ. (1979) p. 166
18. ^ Most, Andrea. Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical, Harvard Univ. Press (2004) p. 243
19. ^ Brook, Vincent. You Should See Yourself: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture, Rutgers Univ. Press (2006) p. 86
20. ^ Duel in the Sun prelude on YouTube, title song
21. ^ TV interview with Tiomkin on YouTube
22. ^ "High Noon", German CD
23. ^ U.S. stamp image, 1999

External links[link]

• Official site
• Dimitri Tiomkin at the Internet Movie Database
• Find-A-Grave for Dimitri Tiomkin
• Dimitri Tiomkin
• Dimitri Tiomkin's HIGH NOON

Multimedia links[link]

• TV interview with song performances on YouTube
• Audio clips, 40 film samples
• Dimitri Tiomkin - Greatest Hits on YouTube, audio score compilation by Berny Debney, 10 minutes
• Lost Horizon theme on YouTube
• High Noon changes Hollywood model on YouTube
• Giant theme on YouTube
• Red River film clip on YouTube
• Town Without Pity theme on YouTube
• Rio Bravo sung by Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson on YouTube
• The Alamo title song on YouTube
• Guns of Navarone theme on YouTube
• Gunfight at the O.K. Corral opening theme on YouTube
• Tiomkin on Jack Benny Show, 1961 on YouTube

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2011)

Bugs Bunny is an American animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons.^[1] Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray hare or rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality, a pronounced Brooklyn accent, and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most notably the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of theatrical short films. His popularity there led to his becoming a corporate mascot of the Warner Bros. company. Bugs has appeared in more films than any other cartoon character and is the ninth most portrayed film personality in the world.^[2]

According to Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Grey Hare, Bugs 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.

History[link]

Bugs' precursor[link]

A 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 the rabbit), 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. The rabbit introduces himself with the odd expression "Jiggers, fellers", and Mel Blanc gave the character 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.

The rabbit 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. The rabbit 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 the rabbit'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.^[3][4] 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).^[5] In his later years, Mel Blanc stated that a proposed name was "Happy Rabbit."^[6] Oddly, "Happy" was only used in reference to Bugs Hardaway. In the cartoon Hare-um Scare-um, a newspaper headline reads, "Happy Hardaway".^[7]

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. However, this rabbit, 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[link]

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, respectively. 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.^[8] The short was a huge success in theaters and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.^[9]

Bugs's second appearance, in Jones' 1941 short 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. However, Bugs' voice in this cartoon is noticibly different, and his design was slightly altered as well. For the next several cartoons produced afterwards, Bugs' original design from A Wild Hare would be re-used. Mel Blanc would also re-use the voice he had created in A Wild Hare for Bugs' subsequent appearances.

World War II[link]

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.) The 1942 short 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.^[3] Bugs also made cameos in Tex Avery's final Warner Bros. short, Crazy Cruise.^[10]

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 predecessor Egghead, Inki, Sniffles, and Elmer himself. 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.

Bugs' popularity soared 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 the 1945 short 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. Bugs also appeared in the 1942 two-minute U.S. war bonds commercial film Any Bonds Today, along with Porky and Elmer.

At the end of the 1943 short 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.^[11] 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.^[12] 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, "Hey, I'm in the wrong picture!" and then goes back in the hole.^[13]

The post-war era[link]

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. The short Knighty Knight Bugs (1958), in which a medieval Bugs trades blows with Yosemite Sam and his fire-breathing dragon (which has a cold), won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1959.^[14] 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.^[15]

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[link]

Bugs Bunny did not appear in any of the post-1964 Looney Tunes shorts produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises or Format Films, nor did he appear in the lone Looney Tunes production produced by Filmation. He would not appear in new material on-screen again until How Bugs Bunny Won the West aired in 1978.

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.

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.

Bugs Bunny's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Like SpongeBob SquarePants for Nickelodeon and Mickey Mouse for Disney, Bugs has served as the mascot for Warner Bros. 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 made an appearance in the 1990 drug prevention special 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 special, both characters were voiced by Jeff Bergman.) Bugs was also featured in The Earth Day Special showing his displeasure on how man started mistreating the environment.

Bugs returned to the silver screen in Box Office Bunny in 1990 (1991 in the U.S.). This was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon short since 1964 to be released in theaters, and it was created for the Bugs Bunny 50th anniversary celebration. It was followed by (Blooper) Bunny, a short that was shelved from theaters, but later premiered on Cartoon Network in 1997 and has since gained a cult following among animation fans for its edgy humor.^[16]

In 1996, Bugs and other Looney Tunes characters appeared in the live-action/animated film, Space Jam. In the film, the Looney Tunes are in danger of being enslaved by a group of aliens. Due to the aliens' small stature, the Looney Tunes challenge the aliens to a basketball game, but the aliens (known as the Nerdlucks) steal the talent of the best NBA players such as Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing and become hulking, talented players known as the Monstars. Because of this, Bugs (voiced by Billy West) calls upon the help of the greatest basketball player in the world, Michael Jordan, who is initially reluctant to help due to his having retired from the NBA to play baseball for the MLB. The film also introduced the character of Lola Bunny. The film received mostly mixed to negative reviews from critics, but was a box office success grossing over $230 million worldwide. The success of Space Jam led to the development of another live-action/animated film, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, released in 2003 and directed by Joe Dante. Unlike Space Jam, Back in Action was a box-office bomb, but received more positive reviews from film critics. The film marked the first time Joe Alaskey provided Bugs' voice.

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."^[17]

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: Acme Arsenal.

[edit] The Looney Tunes Show

Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang returned to television in 2011 in the Cartoon Network sitcom 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. 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 dates Lola Bunny , but he found her to be "crazy" and a bit too talkative. Though later on as the series progressed they did rekindle their relationship. Unlike the original cartoons, Bugs lives in a regular home, which he shares with Daffy. However, in one episode, his old home (a hole in the ground) was seen. Bugs' income comes from having invented the carrot peeler.

Return to film[link]

On August 13, 2010, Warner Bros. Pictures announced that they were planning a live-action/CG-animated combo feature film based on the Looney Tunes character.^[18]

Personality and catchphrases[link]

Bugs Bunny is characterized as being clever and capable of outsmarting anyone who antagonizes him, including Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Willoughby the Dog, Marvin the Martian, Beaky Buzzard, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tasmanian Devil, Cecil Turtle, Witch Hazel, Rocky and Mugsy, Wile E. Coyote, the Crusher, Gremlin, 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.^[20] 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 arguably more intelligent but less clever, is unaffected by Bugs' usual schemes, which usually results in the two trying to outsmart the other with Bugs always triumphing in the end. However, there are only three antagonists that successfully defeated Bugs in the end of the cartoon, such as the Gremlin from Falling Hare, the unnamed mouse from Rhapsody Rabbit, and the fly from Baton Bunny.

During the 1940s, Bugs starts off immature and wild, but starting in the 1950s his personality matured and his attitude was more refined. Though often shown as highly clever, 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 animator 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.^[21]

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.^[22] 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, like famous gangster, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, who disliked the 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?[link]

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."^[23][24]

Openings and closings of shorts[link]

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[link]

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

Mel Blanc

Mel Blanc was the original voice of Bugs Bunny and would voice the character for nearly five decades.

Mel Blanc voiced the character for 49 years, from Bugs' 1940 debut in A Wild Hare 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.^[3] 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.^[6] 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 Mel 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, the television special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, and the first season of Tiny Toon Adventures. Bergman also voiced Bugs in the 1990s Looney Tunes shorts Box Office Bunny, (Blooper) Bunny, and Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers. In 2011, Bergman returned to voice Bugs after an almost 20-year absence 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 Looney Tunes short 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 short 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 voiced Bugs in the Animaniacs episodes "Video Revue," "Warner's 65th Anniversary," and "Back in Style," as well as in The Bugs and Daffy Show, which ran on Cartoon Network during the 1990s. 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 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 and Foghorn Leghorn in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as original voice actor Mel Blanc had found it too hard on his vocal cords (which makes Sam and Foghorn two 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 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 the 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 Toon Adventures 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 Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Legacy and influence[link]

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.^[25][26] 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."^[27] 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. According to Time Warner, Bugs Bunny became the current official mascot for Six Flags theme parks beginning with their 45th anniversary. During an interview for Inside the Actors Studio, comedian Dave Chappelle cited him as one of his earliest influences, praising voice actor Mel Blanc.

Awards[link]

Academy Awards[link]

• Knighty Knight Bugs (1958)

Academy Award nominations[link]

• A Wild Hare (1940)
• Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (1941)

See also[link]

	Animation portal
	United States portal
	Film portal
	Biography portal

• Looney Tunes
• Merrie Melodies
• List of Bugs Bunny cartoons
• List of Looney Tunes feature films
• Golden Age of American animation

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Adamson, Joe (1990). Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Grey Hare. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-1855-7. 
• Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2. 
• Blanc, Mel; Bashe, Philip (1989). That's Not All, Folks!. Clayton South, VIC, Australia: Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-39089-5. 
• Jones, Chuck (1989). Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-12348-9. 
• Maltin, Leonard (1987). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (Revised ed.). New York: Plume Book. ISBN 0-452-25993-2. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bugs Bunny

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bugs Bunny

• Bugs Bunny at the Internet Movie Database
• Bugs Bunny at Toonopedia
• Warner Bros. Studios

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010)

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (August 2009)

Warren Wiebe (July 18, 1953 – October 25, 1998) was an American vocalist and session artist from San Diego.

History[link]

After playing bass with several bands, Warren Wiebe was discovered by David Foster and Burt Bacharach in Los Angeles in 1987. He did the duet "Listen to Me" with Celine Dion for the movie of the same name. It was never officially released.

He was one of several lead vocalists who contributed to the 1991 charity record "Voices That Care".

He is also famous for performing the song "Human Touch", a ballad which was used as one of the ending theme songs for the 1996 anime After War Gundam X. The song is one of a very small number of anime theme songs that not only was performed with English lyrics but was composed by non-Japanese songwriters. An avid ice hockey fan, he was also known for his stirring performances of the national anthems prior to Los Angeles Kings games. He did many demos with David Foster including "When I Fall in Love" for the film Sleepless in Seattle and when Celine heard his singing she wanted him instead of Clive Griffin to sing on the track. In addition he sang on the All-4-One hit "I Swear" and did backing vocals for many artists.

Referred to by Quincy Jones as the "Soulful Rain Man", he battled mental health issues and took his own life on October 25, 1998.

Much of his early work has been released posthumously, but there has not to date been an album of his work.

Guest singles[link]

Music videos[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Memorial page approved by Wiebe's family
• Warren Wiebe on MySpace

This article about a United States singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

David Foster
Foster speaking during a ceremony for Andrea Bocelli at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 2010.
Background information
Birth name	David Walter Foster
Born	(1949-11-01) November 1, 1949 (age 62) Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Genres	Pop, pop rock, Classical, Gospel, R&B
Occupations	Music executive, Record producer, musician, composer, songwriter, arranger
Instruments	Piano, keyboards, French horn, synthesizer
Years active	1971–present
Labels	Verve Records Reprise, 143, Atlantic
Associated acts	Skylark, Attitudes, Airplay, Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks
Website	Official website

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2012)

David Walter Foster, OC, OBC (born November 1, 1949), is a Canadian musician, record producer, composer, singer, songwriter, and arranger,^[1] noted for discovering singers such as Michael Bublé, Josh Groban, and Charice Pempengco; and for producing some of the most successful artists in the world, such as Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Céline Dion, Andrea Bocelli, Toni Braxton, Madonna, Air Supply and Michael Jackson. Foster has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. David Foster is the current Chairman of Verve Music Group. ^[2]