75 years ago today a certain wascally wabbit made his film debut. Even though the Warner Brothers' cartoon department had been experimenting with a rabbit character since 1938's Porky's Hare Hunt. That cartoon was directed by Cal Dalton and Ben Hardaway. Even though that rabbit character had little to tie him to Bugs Bunny, the later rabbit's name would come from co-director Ben Hardaway's nickname Bugs.
The first actually Bugs Bunny cartoon would be 1940's A Wild Hare. This film would be directed by Tex Avery. Bugs' first words would be "What's Up Doc". Tex Avery came from Taylor, Texas, and according to him "Doc" was a common slang term used there when he was growing up, so he used it heavily for that reason. Bugs' voice was provided by Mel Blanc, who claims that he got the voice because he was told that this would be a tough character, so he decided to combine the two toughest voices in Americia, and therefore combined a Brooklyn accent with a Bronx accent. Though Tex would claim that Bugs was based off of Max Hare in Disney's Tortoise and the Hare, though there is very little of an obvious connection. The highlight of A Wild Hare was Robert Mckimson's fantastic animation of Bugs' fake death. He would later animate a very similar scene for 1944's Old Grey Hare, directed by Bob Clampett. Tex was not very happy with the finished film, and felt that he should have put more laughs in than he did. However audiences loved the cartoon, and demanded more of the rabbit character, who would get his name in his next film, 1941's Elmer's Pet Rabbit, directed by Chuck Jones.
-Michael J. Ruhland
