Bugs Bunny

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This page along with the other Looney Tunes pages are dedicated to the late Mel Blanc (1908-1989), He will always be a true Looney Tune. This page along with Daffy will also be dedicated to their late creator Tex Avery (1908-1980), He will always be remembered for making Looney Tunes popular.

Bugs Bunny "Eh, what's up, Doc?" Gender: Male Type: Wascawy Wabbit Mischievous Trickster Age: Unknown Species: Anthropomorphic Rabbit Portrayed by: Mel Blanc (1940–1989) Jeff Bergman (1990–1993, 1998, 2003, 2011–present) Greg Burson (1990–2000) Billy West (1996–2006) Joe Alaskey (1997–2011) Samuel Vincent (Baby Looney Tunes; 2002–2005) Eric Bauza (2018–present) Status: Alive Media of origin: Looney Tunes

“Some people call me cocky and brash, but actually I am just self-assured. I'm nonchalant, im­perturbable, contemplative. I play it cool, but I can get hot under the collar. And above all I'm a very 'aware' character. I'm well aware that I am appearing in an animated car­toon....And sometimes I chomp on my carrot for the same reason that a stand-up comic chomps on his cigar. It saves me from rushing from the last joke to the next one too fast. And I sometimes don't act, I react. And I always treat the contest with my pursuers as 'fun and games.' When momentarily I appear to be cornered or in dire danger and I scream, don't be consoined – 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 Bunny is the official mascot of the Warner Bros. company, and the overall main protagonist in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies franchise. Bugs is an anthropomorphic grey hare famous for his relaxed, passive personality, his pronounced Mid-Atlantic accent which Mel Blanc described as being a mixture of Brooklyn and Bronx accents, his depiction as a mischievous trickster, and his catchphrase "Eh, what's up, doc?" usually said while chewing a carrot.

Development

According to Chase Craig, who wrote and drew the first Bugs Bunny comic Sunday pages and the first Bugs comic book, "Bugs was not the creation of any one man; however, he rather represented the creative talents of perhaps five or six directors and many cartoon writers including Charlie Thorson. In those days, the stories were often the work of a group who suggested various gags, bounced them around and finalized them in a joint story conference." A Prototype Bugs rabbit with some of the personality of a finalized Bugs, though looking very different, was originally featured in the film Porky's Hare Hunt, released on April 30, 1938. It was co-directed by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway and an uncredited director Cal Dalton (who was responsible for the initial design of the rabbit). This cartoon has an almost identical plot to Avery's Porky's Duck Hunt (1937), which had introduced Daffy Duck. Porky Pig is again cast as a hunter tracking a silly prey who is more interested in driving his pursuer insane and less interested in escaping. Hare Hunt replaces the little black duck with a small white rabbit. According to Friz Freleng, Hardaway and Dalton had decided to "dress the duck in a rabbit suit". The white rabbit had an oval head and a shapeless body. In characterization, he was "a rural buffoon". Mel Blanc gave the character a voice and laugh much like those he later used for Woody Woodpecker. He was loud, zany with a goofy, guttural laugh. The rabbit character was popular enough with audiences that the Termite Terrace staff decided to use it again.

The rabbit comes back in Prest-O Change-O (1939), directed by Chuck Jones, where he is the pet rabbit of unseen character Sham-Fu the Magician. Two dogs, fleeing the local dogcatcher, enter the rabbit's absent master's house. The rabbit harasses them but is ultimately bested by the bigger of the two dogs. This version of the rabbit was cool, graceful, and controlled. He retained the guttural laugh but was otherwise silent.

The rabbit's third appearance comes in Hare-um Scare-um (1939), directed again by Dalton and Hardaway. This cartoon—the first in which he is depicted as a gray bunny instead of a white one—is also notable as the rabbit's first singing role. Charlie Thorson, lead animator on the film, gave the character a name. He had written "Bug's Bunny" on the model sheet that he drew for Hardaway. In promotional material for the cartoon, 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, on and off, until 1944).

In his autobiography, Blanc claimed that another proposed name for the character was "Happy Rabbit." In the actual cartoons and publicity, however, the name "Happy" only seems to have been used in reference to Bugs Hardaway. In Hare-um Scare-um, a newspaper headline reads, "Happy Hardaway." Animation historian David Gerstein disputes that "Happy Rabbit" was ever used as an official name, arguing that the only usage of the term came from Mel Blanc himself in humorous and fanciful tales he told about the character's development in the 1970s and 1980s; the name "Bugs Bunny" was used as early as August 1939, in the Motion Picture Herald, in a review for the short Hare-um Scare-um.

Thorson had been approached by Tedd Pierce, head of the story department, and asked to design a better look for the rabbit. The decision was influenced by Thorson's experience in designing hares. He had designed Max Hare in Toby Tortoise Returns (Disney, 1936). For Hardaway, Thorson created the model sheet previously mentioned, with six different rabbit poses. Thorson's model sheet is "a comic rendition of the stereotypical fuzzy bunny". He had a pear-shaped body with a protruding rear end. His face was flat and had large expressive eyes. He had an exaggerated long neck, gloved hands with three fingers, oversized feet, and a "smart aleck" grin. The result was influenced by Walt Disney Animation Studios' tendency to draw animals in the style of cute infants. He had an obvious Disney influence, but looked like an awkward merger of the lean and streamlined Max Hare from The Tortoise and the Hare (1935) and the round, soft bunnies from Little Hiawatha (1937).

In Jones' Elmer's Candid Camera (1940), the rabbit first meets Elmer Fudd. This time the rabbit looks more like the present-day Bugs, taller and with a similar face—but retaining the more primitive voice. Candid Camera's Elmer character design is also different: taller and chubbier in the face than the modern model, though Arthur Q. Bryan's character voice is already established.

Official debut

While Porky's Hare Hunt was the first Warner Bros. cartoon to feature what would become Bugs Bunny, A Wild Hare, directed by Tex Avery and released on July 27, 1940, is widely considered to be the first official Bugs Bunny cartoon. It is the first film where both Elmer Fudd and Bugs, both redesigned by Bob Givens, are shown in their fully developed forms as hunter and tormentor, respectively; the first in which Mel Blanc uses what became Bugs' standard voice; and the first in which Bugs uses his catchphrase, "What's up, Doc?" A Wild Hare was a huge success in theaters and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cartoon Short Subject.

For the film, Avery asked Givens to remodel the rabbit. The result had a closer resemblance to Max Hare. He had a more elongated body, stood more erect, and looked more poised. If Thorson's rabbit looked like an infant, Givens' version looked like an adolescent. Blanc gave Bugs the voice of a city slicker. The rabbit was as audacious as he had been in Hare-um Scare-um and as cool and collected as in Prest-O Change-O.

Immediately following on A Wild Hare, Bob Clampett's Patient Porky (1940) features a cameo appearance by Bugs, announcing to the audience that 750 rabbits have been born. The gag uses Bugs' Wild Hare visual design, but his goofier pre-Wild Hare voice characterization.

The second full-fledged role for the mature Bugs, Chuck Jones' Elmer's Pet Rabbit (1941), is the first to use Bugs' name on-screen: it appears in a title card, "featuring Bugs Bunny," at the start of the film (which was edited in following the success of A Wild Hare). However, Bugs' voice and personality in this cartoon is noticeably different, and his design was slightly altered as well; Bugs' visual design is based on the earlier version in Candid Camera and A Wild Hare, but with yellow gloves, as seen in Hare-Um Scare-Um, and no buck teeth, has a lower-pitched voice and a more aggressive, arrogant and thuggish personality instead of a fun-loving personality. After Pet Rabbit, however, subsequent Bugs appearances returned to normal: the Wild Hare visual design and personality returned, and Blanc re-used the Wild Hare voice characterization.

Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (1941), directed by Friz Freleng, became the second Bugs Bunny cartoon to receive an Academy Award nomination. The fact that it did not win the award was later spoofed somewhat in What's Cookin' Doc? (1944), in which Bugs demands a recount (claiming to be a victim of "sa-bo-TAH-gee") after losing the Oscar to James Cagney and presents a clip from Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt to prove his point.

World War II

By 1942, Bugs had become the number one star of Merrie Melodies. The series was originally intended only for one-shot characters in films after several early attempts to introduce characters (Foxy, Goopy Geer, and Piggy) failed under Harman–Ising. By the mid-1930s, under Leon Schlesinger, Merrie Melodies started introducing newer characters. Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (1942) shows a slight redesign of Bugs, with less-prominent front teeth and a rounder head. The character was later reworked by Robert McKimson, then an animator in Clampett's unit, for Tortoise Wins by a Hare (1943), with more slanted eyes, longer teeth and a much larger mouth. The redesign at first was only used in the films created by Clampett's unit, but in time it was taken up by the other directors, with Freleng and Frank Tashlin the first. McKimson would used another version of the rabbit by Jean Blanchard until 1949 (as did Art Davis for the one Bugs Bunny film he directed, Bowery Bugs) when he started using the version he had designed for Clampett. Jones came up with his own slight modification, and the voice had slight variations between the units. Bugs also made cameos in Avery's final Warner Bros. cartoon, Crazy Cruise.

Since Bugs' fifth appearance in A Wild Hare, he appeared in color Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies films (making him one of the few recurring characters created for the series in the Schlesinger era prior to the full conversion to color), alongside Egghead, Inki, Sniffles, and Elmer Fudd (who actually co-existed in 1937 along with Egghead as a separate character). While Bugs made a cameo in Porky Pig's Feat (1943), this was his only appearance in a black-and-white Looney Tunes film. He did not star in a Looney Tunes film until that series made its complete conversion to only color cartoons beginning in 1944. Buckaroo Bugs was Bugs' first film in the Looney Tunes series and was also the last Warner Bros. cartoon to credit Schlesinger (as he had retired and sold his studio to Warner Bros. that year).

Bugs' popularity soared during World War II because of his free and easy attitude, and he 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 pitted its characters against Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, and the Japanese. Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1944) features Bugs at odds with a group of Japanese soldiers. This cartoon has since been pulled from distribution due to its depiction of Japanese people. One US Navy propaganda film saved from destruction features the voice of Mel Blanc in "Tokyo Woes" (1945) about the propaganda radio host Tokyo Rose. He also faces off against Hermann Göring and Hitler in Herr Meets Hare (1945), 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 Super-Rabbit (1943), 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. Additionally, Bugs appeared on the nose of B-24J #42-110157, in both the 855th Bomb Squadron of the 491st Bombardment Group (Heavy) and later in the 786th BS of the 466th BG(H), both being part of the 8th Air Force operating out of England.

In 1944, Bugs Bunny made a cameo appearance in Jasper Goes Hunting, a Puppetoons film produced by rival studio Paramount Pictures. In this cameo (animated by McKimson, with Blanc providing the usual voice), Bugs (after being threatened at gunpoint) pops out of a rabbit hole, saying his usual catchphrase; after hearing the orchestra play the wrong theme song, he realizes "Hey, I'm in the wrong picture!" and then goes back in the hole. Bugs also made a cameo in the Private Snafu short Gas, in which he is found stowed away in the titular private's belongings; his only spoken line is his usual catchphrase.

Although it was usually Porky Pig who brought the Looney Tunes films to a close with his stuttering, "That's all, folks!", Bugs replaced him at the end of Hare Tonic and Baseball Bugs, bursting through a drum just as Porky did, but munching on a carrot and saying, in his Bronx/Brooklyn accent, "And that's the end!"

Post-World War II era

After World War II, Bugs continued to appear in numerous Warner Bros. cartoons, making his last "Golden Age" appearance in False Hare (1964). He starred in over 167 theatrical short films, most of which were directed by Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, and Chuck Jones. Freleng's Knighty Knight Bugs (1958), in which a medieval Bugs trades blows with Yosemite Sam and his fire-breathing dragon (which has a cold), won an Academy Award for Best Cartoon Short Subject (becoming the first and only Bugs Bunny cartoon to win said award). Three of Jones' films—Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning and Duck! Rabbit, Duck!—compose what is often referred to as the "Rabbit Season/Duck Season" trilogy and were the origins of the rivalry between Bugs and Daffy Duck. Jones' classic What's Opera, Doc? (1957), casts Bugs and Elmer Fudd in a parody of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. It was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1992, becoming 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 cartoons with newly animated wraparounds. Throughout its run, the series was highly successful, and helped cement Warner Bros. Animation as a mainstay of Saturday-morning cartoons. 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 cartoon simply presented on its own, title and all, though some clips from the new bridging material were sometimes used as filler.

Later years

Bugs did not appear in any of the post-1964 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies films produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises or Seven Arts Productions, nor did he appear in Filmation's Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies. He did, however, have two cameo appearances in the 1974 Joe Adamson short A Political Cartoon; one at the beginning of the short, and another in which he is interviewed at a pet store. Bugs was animated in this short by Mark Kausler. He did not appear in new material on-screen again until Bugs and Daffy's Carnival of the Animals aired in 1976.

From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, Bugs was featured in various animated specials for network television, such as Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet, Bugs Bunny's Easter Special, Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales, and Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over. Bugs also starred in several theatrical compilation features during this time, including the United Artists distributed documentary Bugs Bunny: Superstar (1975) and Warner Bros.' own releases: The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979), The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie (1981), Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales (1982), and Daffy Duck's Quackbusters (1988).

In the 1988 live-action/animated comedy Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Bugs appeared 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. Roger Rabbit was also one of the final productions in which Mel Blanc voiced Bugs (as well as the other Looney Tunes characters) before his death in 1989.

Bugs later appeared in another animated production featuring numerous characters from rival studios: the 1990 drug prevention TV special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue. This special is notable for being the first time that someone other than Blanc voiced Bugs and Daffy (both characters were voiced by Jeff Bergman for this). Bugs also made guest appearances in the early 1990s television series Tiny Toon Adventures, as the principal of Acme Looniversity and the mentor of Babs and Buster Bunny. He made further cameos in Warner Bros.' subsequent animated TV shows Taz-Mania, Animaniacs, and Histeria!

Bugs returned to the silver screen in Box-Office Bunny (1991). This was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon since 1964 to be released in theaters and it was created for Bugs' 50th anniversary celebration. It was followed by (Blooper) Bunny, a cartoon 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.

In 1996, Bugs and the other Looney Tunes characters appeared in the live-action/animated film, Space Jam, directed by Joe Pytka and starring NBA superstar Michael Jordan. The film also introduced the character Lola Bunny, who becomes Bugs' new love interest. Space Jam received mixed 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, though it did receive more positive reviews from critics.

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."

21st century

A younger version of Bugs is the main character of Baby Looney Tunes, which debuted on Kids' WB in 2001. 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 rapier wit.

In 2011, Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang returned to television in the Cartoon Network sitcom, The Looney Tunes Show. The characters feature new designs by artist Jessica Borutski. Among the changes to Bugs' appearance were the simplification and enlargement of his feet, as well as a change to his fur from gray to a shade of mauve (though in the second season, his fur was changed back to gray). In the series, Bugs and Daffy Duck are portrayed as best friends as opposed to their usual pairing as friendly rivals. At the same time, Bugs is more vocally exasperated by Daffy's antics in the series (sometimes to the point of anger), compared to his usual level-headed personality from the original cartoons. Bugs and Daffy are friends with Porky Pig in the series, although Bugs tends to be a better friend to Porky than Daffy is. Bugs also dates Lola Bunny in the show despite the fact that he finds her to be "crazy" and a bit too talkative at first (he later learns to accept her personality quirks, similar to his tolerance for Daffy). Unlike the original cartoons, Bugs lives in a regular home which he shares with Daffy, Taz (whom he treats as a pet dog) and Speedy Gonzales, in the middle of a cul-de-sac with their neighbors Yosemite Sam, Granny, and Witch Hazel.

In 2015, Bugs starred in the direct-to-video film Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run, and later returned to television yet again as the star of Cartoon Network and Boomerang's comedy series New Looney Tunes (formerly Wabbit).

In 2020, Bugs began appearing on the HBO Max streaming series Looney Tunes Cartoons. His design for this series primarily resembles his Bob Clampett days, complete with yellow gloves and his signature carrot. His personality is a combination of Freleng's trickery, Clampett's defiance, and Jones’ resilience, while also maintaining his confident, insolent, smooth-talking demeanor. Bugs is voiced by Eric Bauza, who is also the current voice of Daffy Duck and Tweety, among others. Bugs made his return to movie theaters in the 2021 Space Jam sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy, this time starring NBA superstar LeBron James. In 2022, a new pre-school animated series titled Bugs Bunny Builders aired on HBO Max and Cartoonito. He is again voiced by Eric Bauza.

Bugs has also appeared in numerous video games, including the Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle series, Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout, Bugs Bunny: Rabbit Rampage, Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble, Looney Tunes B-Ball, Looney Tunes Racing, Looney Tunes: Space Race, Bugs Bunny Lost in Time, Bugs Bunny and Taz Time Busters, Loons: The Fight for Fame, Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal, Scooby Doo and Looney Tunes: Cartoon Universe, Looney Tunes Dash, Looney Tunes World of Mayhem and MultiVersus.

Openings & Closings of Shorts

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 to 1945 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 dat's de end". Also, at the end of "Box Office Bunny", right after Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd run out through the "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!".

Some old, damaged TV prints of pre-1948 shorts such as "The Up-Standing Sitter" had a print where Bugs Bunny came out of the drum, with the 1937-38 Merrie Melodies closing music, he didn't say anything albeit his mouth still moves (due to the dubbing over of the audio) and the music did not even finish.

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.).

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. Coney is yet another term for rabbit, explaining Bugs' frequent fondness for Coney Island.

In Nike commercials with Michael Jordan, Bugs is referred to as "Hare Jordan."

Personality and catchphrases

"Some people call me cocky and brash, but actually I am just self-assured. I'm nonchalant, im­perturbable, contemplative. I play it cool, but I can get hot under the collar. And above all I'm a very 'aware' character. I'm well aware that I am appearing in an animated car­toon....And sometimes I chomp on my carrot for the same reason that a stand-up comic chomps on his cigar. It saves me from rushing from the last joke to the next one too fast. And I sometimes don't act, I react. And I always treat the contest with my pursuers as 'fun and games.' When momentarily I appear to be cornered or in dire danger and I scream, don't be consoined – 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."

Bugs Bunny is characterized as being clever and capable of outsmarting almost anyone who antagonizes him, including Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Tasmanian Devil, Marvin the Martian, Wile E. Coyote, Gossamer, Witch Hazel, Rocky and Mugsy, The Crusher, Beaky Buzzard, Willoughby, Count Bloodcount, Daffy Duck and a host of others. The only one to consistently beat Bugs was Cecil Turtle, who defeated Bugs in three consecutive shorts based on the premise of the Aesop fable The Tortoise and the Hare until The Looney Tunes Show episodes "Customer Service" and "The Shell Game", where Bugs was able to defeat a villainous Cecil. In a rare villain turn, Bugs turns to a life of crime in 1949's Rebel Rabbit, taking on the entire United States government by vandalizing monuments in an effort to prove he is worth more than the two-cent bounty on his head; while he succeeds in raising the bounty to $1,000,000, the full force of the military ends up capturing Bugs and sending him to Alcatraz.

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 has 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 realize, this means war." – a line borrowed from Groucho Marx in Duck Soup and used again in the next Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera (1935)), admitting his own deviousness toward his antagonists ("Ain't I a stinker?" – a line borrowed from Lou Costello), etc. This style was used and established by Tex Avery.

Bugs usually tries to placate his 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 in a devastating manner. As mentioned earlier, this line was taken from Groucho Marx. Bugs paid 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, the Gremlin in Falling Hare, and the unnamed mouse in Rhapsody Rabbit), his overconfidence becomes a disadvantage and sometimes even leads to his undoing.

Bugs' nonchalant carrot-chewing standing position, as explained by Freleng, Jones and Bob Clampett, originated in a scene from the film It Happened One Night (1934), in which Clark Gable's character Peter Warne 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. Coincidentally, the film also features a minor character, Oscar Shapely, who addresses Peter Warne as "Doc", and Warne mentions an imaginary person named "Bugs Dooley" to frighten Shapely.

"'What's up Doc?' is a very simple thing. It's only funny because it's in a situation. It was an all Bugs Bunny line. It wasn't funny. If you put it in human terms; you come home late one night from work, you walk up to the gate in the yard, you walk through the gate and up into the front room, the door is partly open and there's some guy shooting under your living room. So what do you do? You run if you have any sense, the least you can do is call the cops. But what if you come up and tap him on the shoulder and look over and say 'What's up Doc?' You're interested in what he's doing. That's ridiculous. That's not what you say at a time like that. So that's why it's funny, I think. In other words it's asking a perfectly legitimate question in a perfectly illogical situation."

The carrot-chewing scenes are generally followed by Bugs' most well-known catchphrase, "What's up, Doc?", which was written by director Tex Avery for his first Bugs Bunny film, A Wild Hare (1940). Avery explained later that it was a common expression in his native Texas and that he did not think much of the phrase. Back then "doc" meant the same as "dude" does today. When the cartoon 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 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 blaster-wielding Marvin the Martian saying "What's up, Darth?"

Several Chuck Jones films 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 Barcelona, Spain (Bully for Bugs), the Himalayas (The Abominable Snow Rabbit), and Antarctica (Frigid Hare) all because he "knew (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 is behind enemy lines. The confused response to his "left toin" comment also followed a pattern. For example, when he tunnels into Scotland in My Bunny Lies over the Sea (1948), while thinking he is heading for the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California, it provides another chance for an ethnic joke: "Therrre arrre no La Brrrea Tarrr Pits in Scotland!" (to which Bugs responds, "Scotland!? Eh...what's up, Mac-doc?"). A couple of late-1950s/early-1960s cartoons of this ilk also featured Daffy Duck travelling with Bugs ("Hey, wait a minute! Since when is Pismo Beach inside a cave?").

Voice actors

The following are the various vocal artists who have voiced Bugs Bunny over the last 80-plus years for both Warner Bros. official productions and others:

Mel Blanc

Mel Blanc voiced the character for 52 years, from Bugs' debut in the 1938 short Porky's Hare Hunt until Blanc's death in 1989. Blanc described the voice he did for Bugs in A Wild Hare 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' seventh 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 Blanc's 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, Blanc munched and then spit the carrot bits into a spittoon, rather than swallowing them, and continued with the dialogue. One often-repeated story, which dates back to the 1940s, 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 Voice Actors, Blanc emphatically denied being allergic to carrots.

Others

• Ben Hardaway (as an early iteration of Bugs; one line in Porky's Hare Hunt)
• Bob Clampett (vocal effects and additional lines in A Corny Concerto and Falling Hare)
• Gilbert Mack (Golden Records records, Bugs Bunny Songfest)
• Dave Barry (Golden Records records, Bugs Bunny Easter Song and Mr. Easter Rabbit, Bugs Bunny Songfest)
• Daws Butler (imitating Groucho Marx and Ed Norton in Wideo Wabbit)
• Ricky Nelson (singing "Gee Whiz, Whilikins, Golly Gee" in an episode of The Bugs Bunny Show)
• Jerry Hausner (additional lines in Devil's Feud Cake, The Bugs Bunny Show and some commercials)
• Larry Storch (1973 ABC Saturday Mornings promotion)
• Mike Sammes (Bugs Bunny Comes to London)
• Richard Andrews (Bugs Bunny Exercise and Adventure Album)
• Noel Blanc (one line in Rabbitcadabbra, You Rang? answering machine messages, Chevrolet Monte Carlo 400 with the Looney Tunes)
• Bob Bergen (ABC Family Fun Fair)
• Darrell Hammond ("Wappin'")
• Jeff Bergman (62nd Academy Awards, Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, The Earth Day Special, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Tiny Toon Adventures, Box Office Bunny, Bugs Bunny's Overtures to Disaster, (Blooper) Bunny, Bugs Bunny's Lunar Tunes, Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers, Bugs Bunny's Creature Features, Special Delivery Symphony, Pride of the Martians, The Looney Tunes Show, Scooby Doo & Looney Tunes Cartoon Universe: Adventure, Looney Tunes Dash, Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run, Wun Wabbit Wun, New Looney Tunes, Daffy Duck Dance Off, Ani-Mayhem, Meet Bugs (and Daffy), Space Jam: A New Legacy, Tiny Toons Looniversity, various commercials)
• Keith Scott (Bugs Bunny's 50th Anniversary bumper, Bugs Bunny demonstration animatronic, Looney Tunes Musical Revue, Spectacular Light and Sound Show Illuminanza, Looney Tunes: We Got the Beat!, Looney Tunes on Ice, Looney Tunes LIVE! Classroom Capers, Christmas Moments with Looney Tunes, The Looney Tunes Radio Show, Looney Rock, Looney Tunes Christmas Carols, various commercials)
• Greg Burson (1990 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball, Yakety Yak, Take It Back, Looney Tunes River Ride, Tiny Toon Adventures, Yosemite Sam and the Gold River Adventure!, The Toonite Show Starring Bugs Bunny, Taz-Mania, Bugs Bunny: Rabbit Rampage, Animaniacs, The Bugs Bunny Wacky World Games, Acme Animation Factory, Have Yourself a Looney Tunes Christmas, Looney Tunes B-Ball, 67th Academy Awards, Carrotblanca, Bugs 'n' Daffy intro, From Hare to Eternity, Warner Bros. Kids Club, Bugs Bunny's Learning Adventures, Looney Tunes: What's Up Rock?!, Looney Tunes: Back in Action animation test, various commercials)
• John Blackman (Hey Hey It's Saturday)
• John Willyard (1992 Six Flags Great Adventure commercial)
• Marcus Deon Thomas ("Dynamite")
• Mendi Segal (Bugs & Friends Sing the Beatles, The Looney West)
• Billy West (Space Jam, Bugs & Friends Sing Elvis, Histeria!, Warner Bros. Sing-Along: Quest for Camelot, Warner Bros. Sing-Along: Looney Tunes, The Looney Tunes Rockin' Road Show, The Looney Tunes Kwazy Christmas, screaming in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, speaking voice in Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas, A Looney Tunes Sing-A-Long Christmas, various video games, webtoons, and commercials)
• Joe Alaskey (Chasers Anonymous, Gatorade commercial, Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Looney Tunes: Back in Action (video game), Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas, Looney Tunes webtoons, Daffy Duck for President, Aflac commercial, Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal, Justice League: The New Frontier, Looney Tunes: Cartoon Conductor, Looney Tunes: Laff Riot pilot, Looney Tunes Dance Off, TomTom Looney Tunes GPS, Looney Tunes ClickN READ Phonics)
• Samuel Vincent (Baby Looney Tunes, Baby Looney Tunes' Eggs-traordinary Adventure)
• Robert Smigel (Saturday Night Live Season 28, Ep. 14)
• Eric Goldberg (Looney Tunes: Back in Action (additional lines), Looney Tunes: Back in Action interview)
• Seth MacFarlane (Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, Family Guy)
• Bill Farmer (Robot Chicken)
• James Arnold Taylor (Drawn Together)
• Kevin Shinick (Mad)
• Gary Martin (Looney Tunes All-Stars promotions, Looney Tunes Take-Over Weekend promotion, Looney Tunes Marathon promotion)
• Eric Bauza (Looney Tunes World of Mayhem, Looney Tunes Cartoons, Bugs Bunny in The Golden Carrot, Space Jam: A New Legacy (as Big Chungus), Space Jam: A New Legacy live show, Bugs and Daffy's Thanksgiving Road Trip, MultiVersus, Bugs Bunny Builders, ACME Fools)

Comics

Comic books

Bugs Bunny was continuously featured in comic books for more than 40 years, from 1941 to 1983, and has appeared sporadically since then. Bugs first appeared in comic books in 1941, in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics #1, published by Dell Comics. Bugs was a recurring star in that book all through its 153-issue run, which lasted until July 1954. Western Publishing (and its Dell imprint) published 245 issues of a Bugs Bunny comic book from Dec. 1952/Jan. 1953 to 1983. The company also published 81 issues of the joint title Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny from December 1970 to 1983. During the 1950s Dell also published a number of Bugs Bunny spinoff titles.

Creators on those series included Chase Craig, Helen Houghton, Eleanor Packer, Lloyd Turner, Michael Maltese, John Liggera, Tony Strobl, Veve Risto, Cecil Beard, Pete Alvorado, Carl Fallberg, Cal Howard, Vic Lockman, Lynn Karp, Pete Llanuza, Pete Hansen, Jack Carey, Del Connell, Kellog Adams, Jack Manning, Mark Evanier, Tom McKimson, Joe Messerli, Carlos Garzon, Donald F. Glut, Sealtiel Alatriste, Sandro Costa, and Massimo Fechi.

The German publisher Condor published a 76-issues Bugs Bunny series (translated and reprinted from the American comics) in the mid-1970s. The Danish publisher Egmont Ehapa produced a weekly reprint series in the mid-1990s.

Comic strip

The Bugs Bunny comic strip ran for almost 50 years, from January 10, 1943, to December 30, 1990, syndicated by the Newspaper Enterprise Association. It started out as a Sunday page and added a daily strip on November 1, 1948.

The strip originated with Chase Craig, who did the first five weeks before leaving for military service in World War II. Roger Armstrong illustrated the strip from 1942 to 1944. The creators most associated with the strip are writers Albert Stoffel (1947–1979) & Carl Fallberg (1950–1969), and artist Ralph Heimdahl, who worked on it from 1947 to 1979. Other creators associated with the Bugs Bunny strip include Jack Hamm, Carl Buettner, Phil Evans, Carl Barks (1952), Tom McKimson, Arnold Drake, Frank Hill, Brett Koth, and Shawn Keller.

Design

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 "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. Bugs dressed as a female hunter, a temptress, the beautiful Brunhlide, a sexy lady and many others to fool Elmer Fudd and he also kissed him in his nose twice (Bugs and Elmer also happily got married in the end of "Rabbit of Seville" [Elmer as the bride and Bugs as the groom], as well as in "Bugs' Bonnets"). For all the gullible victims off all these disguises, however, for some reason, Daffy Duck and Cecil Turtle were 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. In "Transylvania 6-5000", Bugs Bunny defeated the Count Blood Count in a magical spell duel. However, the Merlin story was a dream and Bugs' victory over Count Blood Count was a result of his intellect, not innate magical power.

Why He's A Stinker (in a good way)

1. He is one of the most iconic cartoon characters ever created apart from characters such as SpongeBob and Homer Simpson. He is also possibly one of the most famous fictional characters out there. He is even popular enough to rival Mickey Mouse and in terms of popularity and surpassed the popularity of every other classic cartoon character produced in the 1940s and 1950s.
2. He is a comedic karmic trickster who usually has a specific revenge term and doesn't try to push things too far when he ridicules his tormentors (unlike a certain brown mouse who has).
3. Speaking of which, he may seem incredibly lucky and flawless on the surface, but he has had his moments of showing how comically flawed or at times vulnerable to the point viewers find him likable and interesting enough to be someone the audience should root for or just enough for the viewers to sympathize with him as well.
4. His famous catchphrases such as "What's up, doc?", "Ain't I a stinker?" and "Of course you realize, this means war" never get old, and are one-liners that are considered to be classic favourites.
5. His habit of eating carrots also never gets old. 'EVER.' In fact, it actually started the famous trend of myths that rabbits can eat carrots.
6. He can easily entertain viewers with his cartoon antics and fourth-wall awareness, but then again, it's a typical cartoon thing.
7. He is greatly voiced by Mel Blanc and many more.
   • Not only that, but he hilariously speaks with a very thick Brooklyn accent.
8. He even has his own shows; The Bugs Bunny Show and Wabbit (a.k.a. New Looney Tunes (Season 1))
9. He became the spokesperson for many products such as Kool-Aid, Post Cereal, and Tang.
10. His design is drawn smoothly with nice outlines.
11. Similar to how Mickey Mouse is the face and mascot Disney, he is even the face and mascot of Warner Bros. Entertainment, having appeared regularly on the Warner Bros. company logos multiple times.
12. He is so amazing that he even shared an iconic and famous crossover scene with Mickey Mouse in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Don't believe us, check it out for yourself
13. Eric Bauza also did a wonderful job voicing him, alongside other Looney Tunes characters he voiced.
14. Just like Mickey Mouse, unlike Spongebob Squarepants and Homer Simpson, he has never had a flanderized period

"Stinker" (in a bad way) Qualities

1. He was kind of racist in some earlier 1940s shorts, like "All This and Rabbit Stew" and "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips", mainly due to his antagonists being depicted as racial stereotypes.
2. Much like other characters, he has also suffered from mild flanderization like they usually have. Where Bugs Bunny went from being an energetic prankster to becoming a lot more of a calm and reserved person.
   • However, it’s flanderization isn’t as bad as that of Daffy’s.
3. He had an ugly and rather off-putting appearance in 1939 (ex. "Hare-um Scare-um"), whereas after Bugs first appeared in "Porky's Hare Hunt" when Bugs had different redesigns and a wackier personality at the time. There was a point when Bugs had really long buck-toothed teeth, big eyes, yellow gloves and almost constantly made an extremely deranged sounding chortling laugh that appears to be similar to Daffy Duck's loony chortling when he hops around; but came across as either creepy or kinda annoying. (It doesn't help that Bugs acts quite similar to Daffy's "screwball" behavior in "Hare-um Scare-um".)
4. He kind of acted like a sadistic bully to Elmer Fudd in some early cartoons like Wabbit Twouble, Elmer's Pet Rabbit, The Wabbit Who Came to Supper and The Wacky Wabbit but fortunately, Chuck Jones improved his character on Hold the Lion, Please where he made a rule that Bugs should only fight against characters who are mean-spirited/antagonistic to him or start the conflict.
   • Speaking of which, in Tortoise Beats Hare (his first pairing with Cecil Turtle), he kind of acted like a bully to Cecil Turtle and arrogantly challenges him to a race under a $10 bet, all because of this petty reason that he got enraged over the "Tortoise Beats Hare" title card, but at least he got what's coming to him when he lost the race and the $10 bet to Cecil Turtle despite the turtle cheating in the race with his lookalike cousins. Thankfully this was fixed in subsequent Bugs vs Cecil pairings produced since Chuck Jones' Hold the Lion, Please by making Bugs' rivalry with Cecil more sympathetic (albeit at the cost of making Cecil a despicable cheater and Bugs coming off as a Butt-Monkey who always loses unfairly to Cecil in the end).
   • In Buckaroo Bugs, he is seriously miscast as a villainous carrot-stealing bandit, almost as bad as Daffy Duck's infamous miscasting as a Yosemite Sam-esque villain in the mid-to-late-1960s Looney Tunes cartoons, where he not only who robs carrots from victory gardens, yet he bullies and torments the dim-witted heroic cowboy Red Hot Ryder who attempts to bring him to justice. Thankfully, this is fixed in subsequent Western-themed Bugs Bunny cartoons since Hare Trigger where the roles are reversed with Bugs as the heroic cowboy and Yosemite Sam as the villainous bandit.
   • In Shishkabugs, while nowhere near as bad as the Spoiled King in this episode, he comes off as bland on this cartoon and keeps attempting to get Yosemite Sam executed for his failure to cook hasenheffer out of him. In fact, when Bugs first appears in this cartoon, it is revealed that he's practically a moocher who keeps "borrowing" cups of carrots from the kitchen Yosemite Sam works in, which isn't a good first impression for Bugs in this cartoon.
   • In Hare-Breadth Hurry, he comes off as a sadistic jerk towards Wile E. Coyote when he stands in for the Road Runner due to him constantly breaking the Road Runner cartoons' number one rule of the Road Runner not allowed to harm Wile E. Coyote aside from beeping at him, so much that it can even makes the Road Runner's flanderized persona from "The Larriva Eleven" look like a saint in comparison.
   • In The Iceman Ducketh, while nowhere as bad as Daffy in that episode, he comes across as bland and keeps humiliating Daffy in numerous scenes, though justified because of Daffy wanting to kill Bugs for fur.
   • Excluding the above-mentioned cartoons, even after Chuck Jones made him more sympathetic beginning with Hold the Lion, Please, he can sometimes have too much fun outwitting his antagonists to the point of being somewhat sadistic, especially in the 1940s cartoons (particularly in the World War II-themed cartoons such as "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" and the Bob Clampett-directed ones such as "Hare Ribbin" and "The Old Grey Hare" for example) as well as in some of the later adaptations such as New Looney Tunes and Looney Tunes Cartoons.
   • In October 2018, Bugs Bunny was replaced with Mr. Whiskers to look more natural due to one of Paramount's films PAW Patrol: The Movie, showing the clouds above the mountain disappearing when the ViacomCBS byline fades in their logo due to the film using logical extreme animation. However, unlike the other two CNTwo Shows (The Loud House and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy), Phineas and Ferb uses the regular extreme animation used in Brandy & Mr. Whiskers and New Looney Tunes. However, according to IMDB, some regular extreme animation shows like Wayside and The Powerpuff Girls have the colours from the animation enhanced.

Legacy

Bugs Bunny is considered one of the greatest, most iconic and popular cartoon characters of all time. He is ranked No.1 on The 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time list from 2002 TV guide, followed by Homer Simpson, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Beavis and Butt-head, The Grinch, and many others. He has been described by many as having a beautiful design, recognisable voice, and skilled entertainment. He starred in the most Merrie Melodies shorts during the Golden Age of American Animation, and has received 2 Academy Award Nominations, and only 1 of them won (Knighty Knight Bugs). During WW2, he received special star billing in his cartoons by 1943, and the Marine Corps made Bugs an honorary Marine master sergeant. During 1943-1946, Bugs Bunny was also the Mascot of Kingman Army Airfield, Kingman Arizona, where thousands of aerial gunners trained. He has even had his own closing on "That's all Folks", check it out.

Like Mickey Mouse for Disney, Bugs Bunny has served as the mascot for Warner Bros. and its various divisions. According to Guinness World Records, Bugs has appeared in more films (both short and feature-length) than any other cartoon character, and is the ninth most portrayed film personality in the world. On December 10, 1985, Bugs became the second cartoon character (after Mickey) to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

He also has been a pitchman for companies including Kool-Aid and Nike. His Nike commercials with Michael Jordan as "Hare Jordan" for the Air Jordan VII and VIII became precursors to Space Jam. As a result, he has spent time as an honorary member of Jordan Brand, including having Jordan's Jumpman logo done in his image. In 2015, as part of the 30th anniversary of Jordan Brand, Nike released a mid-top Bugs Bunny version of the Air Jordan I, named the "Air Jordan Mid 1 Hare", along with a women's equivalent inspired by Lola Bunny called the "Air Jordan Mid 1 Lola", along with a commercial featuring Bugs and Ahmad Rashad.

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." Some have noted that comedian Eric Andre is the nearest contemporary comedic equivalent to Bugs. They attribute this to, "their ability to constantly flip the script on their unwitting counterparts."

Trivia

• He was the second cartoon character to win a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, after Mickey Mouse (the 1818th star, who was added on December 10, 1985). Everyone loves his short films especially Looney Tunes, and he has been entertaining audiences since the '30s and he is still iconic to this day!
• He was created by Ben Hardaway (the man behind Woody Woodpecker) in 1938 for "Porky's Hare Hunt" and "Hare-Um Scare-Um" and was named after his middle name, Bugs. But it wouldn’t be until Tex Avery made me who he is today in 1940 on the Academy Award nominated short "A Wild Hare", and directors such as Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, and Friz Freleng helped develop his personality.
• He has spawned several memes such as Big Chungus and King Bugs.
  • Not only that, but his most popular meme Big Chungus proudly received an official trademark from Warner Bros. Entertainment.

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