Bugs Bunny

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Opinions in the Shorts: Vol. 399

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I did not see the rollover, but my little corner of the world reached reached 400,000 views late Sunday night/early Monday morning … and the next OITS is #400! Thanks to all!

Before I start posting about the recent cruise, my notes suggest I still have a three tidbit posts left about Eastern Europe – so there will be a post this Saturday.

I’ve been a St. Louis Blues (hockey) fan since their first season (1967-68). Needless to say, I’m thrilled that they made the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since the 1969-1970 season. Go Blues!

Last week I mentioned the latest seasonal ice cream flavor from Graeter’s: Malted Pretzel Ball. Here’s the scoop. (Response) It is an ice cream with malted milk balls within it. My one scoop had about 5 balls. Each ball was crunchy with a hint of pretzel. The ice cream itself was very creamy – typically Graeter’s – but the flavor was very basic and not malty. It was good and I’m glad I tried it – but on my next trip to Graeter’s, I will be having something else.

Although John Dickerson and Norah O’Donnell have moved on to different assignments within the network and a new morning team is in place, I still prefer CBS This Morning as my morning news show. I enjoyed the tributes the show did for each of them. I’ve linked the video to each name: John and Norah.

For the record, I did not watch the Game of Thrones finale. Then again, I haven’t the first or any episode.

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For a person who claims to be the most transparent administration in US history and that he has nothing to hide, so Mr. President – Why do you prevent the release of information and block people from testifying?

Given the craziness in current politics, I yield to a great American orator who provides a simple, perfect explanation. Click here for a short explanation if and only if you are curious.

To lead you into this week’s satirical headlines, The Onion explains the top reasons to consider a road-trip for your next family vacation.

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Weekly Headlines from The Onion (combos welcome)

Biologists capture rare photo of two mutually beneficial species exchanging business cards
Breaking News: You still have to go to work in Heaven
Random uncle’s wife crying a bunch throughout Grandma’s funeral
Horrified authorities discover one-day-old funnel cake abandoned in dumpster
Bugs Bunny explains how LeBron helped him get sober for role in Space Jam sequel
Excited archeologists hit mass grave jackpot

(My Combo) Excited Bugs Bunny explains how Heaven works to crying LeBron abandoned in dumpster

Interesting Reads

Social media and political discourse
Bridging the religious-secular divide
Therapeutics and Cannabis
Same-sex marriage across the world
Palestinian cuisine
Murals and the Sudanese revolution
(Photos) World Beard and Moustache Championships

To send you into the weekend, here’s the great Bonnie Raitt. In the words of Garrison Keillor, Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

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On the Greatest Hour

How many of the characters in the line can you name? The words to sing along are below the video.

Overture, curtain, lights!
This is it. The night of nights.
No more rehearsing or nursing a part.
We know every part by heart!

Overture, curtain, lights!
This is it. We’ll hit the heights!
And oh, what heights we’ll hit!
On with the show, this is it!

Tonight what heights we’ll hit!
On with the show, this is it!”

Timeline
The roots to this show started October 11, 1960 (a Tuesday night) when The Bugs Bunny Show premiering on ABC

The show originally composed of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons produced between August 1948 and December 1969

General Foods originally sponsored the show

In August 1962, ABC moved The Bugs Bunny Show to Saturday, but it was moved to Sunday morning in September 1967

In September 1968, moved to CBS which combined it with The Road Runner Show to make The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour

Behind the scenes

  • Directed by Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson
  • Voices by Mel Blanc, June Foray, Stan Freberg, Hal Smith
  • Music Theme by Mack David and Jerry Livingston

Lineup
Here’s the lineup, which are also linked to their post. Which did you visit?

Cultural Influence

Show’s Closing

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On a 2-fer Monday

For us in the northern hemisphere, spring has sprung. On the other hand, blogging has helped me realize there is another hemisphere that operates in the opposite direction. That is as a warm season is approaching one, it is leaving the other.

How was your weekend. Come on now — fess up! Ours included a dinner evening at good friends, an evening of ballroom, some shopping, and working around the new place.

This Week’s Celebrations

  • (Week) Cartoon Appreciation Week, Tourism Week, Drinking Water Week, Flexible Work Arrangement Week, Hug Holiday Week, Raisin Week, Post Card Week, Public Service Recognition Week, Astronomy Week, Red Me Week, Clear Air Week, Herb Week, Family Reading Week, Safe Kids Week, Jewish Heritage Week, Wildflower Week, Detect a Water Leak Week, Food Allergy Awareness Week, Nurses Week, Alcohol & Drug Related Birth Defects Awareness Week, Anxiety & Depression Week, Family Week, Dystonia Awareness Week, Be Kind to Animals Week, Children’s Mental Health Week
  • (Mon) Cinco de Mayo, Cartoonists Day, Totally Chipotle Day, Ferret Day, Chocolate Custard Day, Hoagie Day, Midwives Day, Melanoma Monday, Childhood Stroke Awareness Day, Library Legislation Day
  • (Tues) No Diet Day, Nurses Day, O. Henry Pun Day, Asthma Day, Crepes Suzette Day, Childhood Depression Awareness Day
  • (Wed) Great American Grump Out Day, Bike to School Day, Paste Up Day, Roast of Lamb Day, Occupational Safety & Health Day
  • (Thurs) No Socks Day, VE Day, Red Cross/Red Crescent Day, Have a Coke Day, Ovarian Cancer Day, Free Trade Day, Animal Disaster Preparedness Day, Coconut Cream Pie Day, Time of Remembrance & Reconciliation for Those Losing Lives during WW II, Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day

The decision for your Monday Morning Entertainment has me torn between Cinco de Mayo and Cartoon Appreciation Week. Given the dilemma, maybe it is best to provide two offerings for you.  First, here’s one of my favorite Bugs Bunny scenes.

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Secondly, a merengue is a great dance for Cinco de Mayo. Enjoy … and have a good week!

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On the Greatest

Thanks to Rich for the above
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Notables
Bugs Bunny is a cultural icon

According to NPR, 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

A Wild Hare (1940) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film

Since his debut, Bugs only appeared only in color Merrie Melodies films

Bugs only appearance in a black-and-white Looney Tunes film is a cameo in Porky Pig’s Feat (1943)

Bugs did not star in a Looney Tunes film until that series made its complete conversion to only color cartoons (1944)

The first cartoon character honored on a U.S. postage stamp

On December 10, 1985, Bugs received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Ranked #1 in TV Guide’s 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time (2002)

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. (A TV Guide editor on CNN)

Bugs cartoons are listed 34 times on The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes list of cartoons

Bugs also received an Oscar nomination for Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt (1942)

Because Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt didn’t win, What’s Cookin’ Doc? (1944) spoofed the Academy in which Bugs demands a recount by claiming “sa-bo-TAH-gee”

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Knighty Knight Bugs (1958) with a medieval Bugs trades battling Yosemite Sam and his fire-breathing dragon (which has a cold), won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film

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Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit, Duck! compose the “Rabbit Season/Duck Season” trilogy and are famous for originating the “historic” rivalry between Bugs and Daffy Duck

What’s Opera, Doc? (1957), casts Bugs and Elmer Fudd in a parody of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, and the US Library of Congress (in 1992) deemed it “culturally significant”, thus selecting it for preservation in the National Film Registry

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Personal
Born July 27, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York below Ebbets Field (home of the Brooklyn Dodgers)

Characteristics include clever, trickster, flippant, and personable until you mess with me attitude (and this scene is one of my all-time favorites)
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A known traveler, but frequently making the wrong turn in Albuquerque

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Antagonists include Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Willoughby the Dog, Marvin the Martian, Beaky Buzzard, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig,Tasmanian Devil, Gossamer, Cecil Turtle, Witch Hazel, Rocky and Mugsy, Wile E. Coyote, the Crusher, Gremlin, Count Blood Count and a host of others

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Bugs’ carrot-chewing standing position, is based a Clark Gable scene with Claudette Colbert in a scene from It Happened One Night

Bugs occasionally communicates with the audience to explain something to the audience, such as

  • Be with you in a minute, folks!
  • Feisty, ain’t they?
  • That happens to him all during the picture, folks.
  • Gee, ain’t I a stinker?
  • Of course you know, this means war!

The origin of a classic Bugs Bunny line

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Background
Happy Rabbit, though different looking and a forerunner to Bugs, first appears in Porky’s Hare Hunt (1938)

Created by the animators and staff of Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) with staff including Tex Avery, Robert McKimson, and Mel Blanc

Mel Blanc originated the Bugs Bunny’s voice

Debuted in A Wild Hare (July 27, 1940) featuring Elmer Fudd and Bugs in a hunter-tormentor relationship

A Wild Hare also debuted Bugs’ most famous catchphrase: “What’s Up Doc?”

First use of Bugs Bunny’s name on-screen is in Elmer’s Pet Rabbit (1941)

“Bugs” Bunny (quotation marks only used, on and off, until 1944)

168 cartoon shorts, most of which were directed by Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson and Chuck Jones

Buckaroo Bugs was Bugs’ first film in the Looney Tunes series

Last Golden Age appearance in False Hare (1964)

12 episodes have been banned because of political correctness

An interview Martha Goldman Sigall (at age 92 in June 2009) who worked at Leon Schlesinger’s Studios in 1939 when the studio created Bugs Bunny

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Beyond Cartoons
In the fall of 1960, ABC debuted the prime-time television program The Bugs Bunny Show

The Bugs Bunny Show (through different formats and titles) appeared on network television for 40 years

Bugs featured in various network television specials in the 1970s and 80s

Films include Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Box Office Bunny, and Space Jam

Because of an equal-time agreement between Warner Brothers and Disney, Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse always appeared together in Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit introduced Bugs’ girlfriend, Lola Bunny (see a tribute)

Bugs has also appeared in numerous video games
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Memorable Lines
My favorite when referring to politicians

A few other … do you remember any of these?

  • Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive.
  • OOH! Look at four-legged airplane!
  • Carrots are devine… You get a dozen for a dime, It’s maaaa-gic!
  • Eeeeeeh, watch me paste that pathetic palooka with a powerful, pachydermous, percussionpitch.
  • Don’t think it hasn’t been a little slice of heaven…’cause it hasn’t!
  • Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?
  • Do you happen to know what the penalty is for shooting a fricaseeing rabbit without a fricaseeing rabbit license?
  • I wonder what the poor bunnies are doing this season?
  • Oh, well, we almost had a romantic ending!
  • My, I’ll bet you monsters lead innnnteresting lives.
  • Here I go with the timid little woodland creature bit again. It’s shameful, but…ehhh, it’s a living.
  • I bet you say that to all the wabbits.
  • For shame, doc. Hunting rabbits with an elephant gun. Why don’t you shoot yourself an elephant?
  • I know this defies the law of gravity, but I never studied law!
  • Eh, what’s up, doc?

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On a Martian

“One who was quiet and soft-spoken, but whose actions were incredibly destructive and legitimately dangerous” (Chuck Jones’ description)

“A bowling ball wearing a spittoon” (Bugs Bunny’s description)

Home: Mars

Mission: To blow up the Earth because it blocks his view of Venus

Trying for more than two millennia

Wears a Roman soldier’s uniform, with old-fashioned basketball shoes

Created by Chuck Jones

Debuted July 24, 1948 in Haredevil Hare

Spacecraft: The Martian Maggot

Favorite Weapons: Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator and the ACME Disintegration Pistol

Commanding Officer: General E.M.C. Squared

Often accompanied by his dog “K-9”

Other Accomplices: Instant Martians (activated by adding drops of water) and his niece Marcia

Unnamed in the original, but called Commander of Flying Saucer X-2 in The Hasty Hair (1952)

According to Don Markstein’s Toonopedia, Marvin got his name in The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979)

First voiced by Mel Blanc, who gave him a nasal-like voice, but later adopted an accent

Notable Quotes
Where’s the kaboom?
There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!”
Isn’t that lovely?
This makes me very angry, very angry indeed
Click for sounds quotes by Marvin

Consistently foiled by Bugs Bunny, but also battled Daffy Duck in Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (trailer below)

Also appeared in Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniascs, Space Jam, Futurama, Drawn Together, Looney Tunes Back in Action, A Looney Tunes Christmas, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, South Park, The Simpsons, Weird Science, ABC Evening News, MetLife commercial, video games (Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo, and PlayStation), and on the launch patch for the Spirit Mars Rover.

Enjoy Hasty Hare (1952)