Bugs Bunny is 75 years old today and you may be wondering how they figure that. Well, the cartoon A Wild Hare was released 75 years ago today. That was arguably the first Bugs cartoon — arguable because the Warner Brothers cartoon studio had made several earlier cartoons with an irreverent rabbit who baited and thwarted hunters who came after him. The rabbit in A Wild Hare clearly evolved out of those rabbits and there are still a few animation historians around who insist that one of them — usually Elmer's Candid Camera or Hare-um Scare-um is more deserving of that distinction.
It's not an argument that leads anywhere…so the date A Wild Hare was released is as good as any. The experts also can't concur on how the rabbit got the name Bugs — which was not mentioned until the cartoon after A Wild Hare. The naming seems to have had something to do with the fact that Porky's Hare Hunt — the W.B. cartoon that started the evolutionary process — was co-directed by Ben Hardaway and his nickname was "Bugs."
But enough history. On Friday, I recorded a phone interview for CBS radio about the wabbit that is running today. I was asked why people like Bugs Bunny and I have no idea what I said. I should have said something like this: Because he's always funny, usually fearless and he always comes out on top unless it's an opera.
Bugs was kind of an early role model for me. Popeye was funny too but Popeye had a grand total of one way to solve a problem: After getting battered and beaten, he'd haul out and gobble down a can of spinach he could have consumed three minutes earlier and he'd then punch the hell out of his opponents. That was entertaining but even at age six, I knew that I was never going to solve a single problem in my life with my fists. (The first time I ate spinach, it made me so sick I decided that getting pounded into a pulp by Bluto couldn't be as bad as that. This was before I learned about my food allergies.)
Ah, but what Bugs did…that looked possible to me. Also, I could eat carrots.
Bugs didn't take his foes seriously. He ridiculed them and except for a few cartoons that struck me even then as horribly, horribly wrong, he triumphed by outsmarting Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam or even some more threatening antagonists. That, I thought I might be able to do and I've spent most of my life trying. Once in a while, I like to think I actually succeed.
I don't recall being as happy at getting any assignment in my life as when my editor at Western Publishing, Chase Craig, asked me to take a whack at writing some Bugs Bunny comics. I'd been doing mostly Disney titles for him and none of those characters seemed particularly aggressive or clever to me. Bugs was clever. It was a lot more fun to hear his voice in my head as I wrote and I just felt better. To the extent we identify with the players in our stories, I identified with Bugs and felt more effectual and braver and smarter.
They say Mickey Mouse became a sensation during the Great Depression because audiences reveled in his spunk and determination. That's what I got out of Bugs Bunny: Spunk and determination…oh, and also funny. Let's not forget funny. It's silly to ask how a character with all that could be around for 75 years. How could he not?