He’s a trickster god in gray fur. If you grew up anywhere near a television in the last eighty years, you know the crunch of that carrot. You know the "What's up, doc?" line. But looking back at cartoons of Bugs Bunny, it’s kinda wild how much of his persona was built on pure, unadulterated sass and a weirdly complex understanding of psychological warfare. He isn't just a kid's character. He’s a cultural icon who survived the transition from movie theater shorts to Saturday morning TV, and somehow, he’s still relevant in the era of TikTok memes.
Most people think of Bugs as this untouchable winner. He always gets the best of Elmer Fudd. He makes Yosemite Sam look like a total amateur. But the magic of these shorts wasn't just in the winning; it was in the "Brooklyn-esque" attitude crafted by legends like Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Bob Clampett. These guys weren't just making doodles. They were timing comedy with the precision of a Swiss watch.
The Weird Evolution of the Wabbit
Bugs didn't just appear out of thin air as the smooth-talking rabbit we know today. He was a bit of a freak at first. In the late 1930s, particularly in 1938’s Porky’s Hare Hunt, he was a hyperactive, white, screwball rabbit. He acted more like Woody Woodpecker—laughing manically and bouncing off the walls. It honestly wasn't that great. It felt derivative.
Then came 1940. A Wild Hare.
This is where the real cartoons of Bugs Bunny began. Director Tex Avery leaned into the idea of a rabbit who was completely unfazed by a shotgun being pointed at his face. That’s the secret sauce. The moment Bugs leans against the barrel and asks Elmer what's up, the power dynamic of animation changed forever. He wasn't the victim. He was the master of ceremonies. Mel Blanc’s voice—a mix of Bronx and Brooklyn accents—solidified that "wise guy" persona that made him an instant hit with adults during World War II.
The Chuck Jones Influence vs. Bob Clampett
If you ask an animation nerd about the "best" version of Bugs, you're going to start a fight. Bob Clampett liked his Bugs wild, stretchy, and incredibly fast-paced. His cartoons feel like they’re vibrating. But Chuck Jones? Jones turned Bugs into an intellectual. In a Jones cartoon, Bugs only fights back if he’s been provoked. It’s the "Of course you realize, this means war" rule.
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This distinction matters because it gave the character depth. He wasn't just a bully. He was a guy who wanted to be left alone to eat his carrots, but the world—or a bald guy with a hunting license—kept bothering him. We relate to that. We all want to be the person who stays cool while everyone else is losing their minds.
Why These Shorts Rank as High Art
It’s easy to dismiss old animation as "just for kids," but look at What’s Opera, Doc? from 1957. It is legitimately one of the most culturally significant pieces of media in American history. It was the first cartoon short to be inducted into the National Film Registry. Think about that for a second. It beat out thousands of live-action films for that honor.
The sheer scale of it is ridiculous. Michael Maltese, the writer, and Chuck Jones condensed the entirety of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle into seven minutes of slapstick. They used 104 separate backgrounds. For a seven-minute short, that is an insane amount of work. It’s beautiful, it’s tragic, and it features a rabbit in a golden wig riding a fat horse. It’s high-brow and low-brow smashed together so perfectly that it still works today.
Then you have Rabbit of Seville. The timing of the "Barber of Seville" overture with Elmer Fudd’s scalp being massaged by Bugs’ feet is a masterclass in rhythm. Most modern content creators would kill for that kind of comedic timing. It wasn’t computer-generated; it was hand-drawn on cels, frame by painstaking frame.
The Mel Blanc Factor
We have to talk about the man of a thousand voices. Mel Blanc didn't just "do" a voice for Bugs. He gave him an identity. Legend has it that Blanc was actually allergic to carrots, but he insisted on chewing them during recording sessions because no other sound effect captured that specific "snap" correctly. He’d have to spit the carrot into a bin between lines. That’s dedication to the craft. Without Blanc’s specific delivery—the way he could make Bugs sound bored, terrified, and arrogant all in the same breath—the character might have faded away in the 50s.
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The Controversy and the "Censored Eleven"
Look, not every part of the history of cartoons of Bugs Bunny is sunshine and rainbows. If you’re looking at the full catalog, you’re going to run into some ugly stuff. During the 1930s and 40s, Warner Bros., like every other studio, produced shorts containing incredibly offensive racial stereotypes.
These are often referred to in collector circles as the "Censored Eleven" (though that specific list refers to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts generally). Some Bugs shorts, like All This and Rabbit Stew, are rightfully locked away in vaults because they represent a history of racism that doesn't fly anymore.
Modern collectors and historians, like Jerry Beck, argue that we shouldn't pretend these don't exist, but we shouldn't broadcast them to kids either. It’s a nuanced conversation. Warner Bros. has handled this in recent years by releasing some "Collector’s Choice" Blu-rays with disclaimers, explaining that while the cartoons are a product of their time and are wrong, removing them would be like saying those prejudices never existed. It’s a messy, necessary part of the rabbit's history.
Bugs Bunny in the Modern Age
How does a character from the 1940s survive the internet?
He becomes a meme. Big Chungus is probably the weirdest thing to happen to Bugs in the last decade. It started as a tiny frame from the 1941 short Wabbit Twouble where Bugs mocks a portly Elmer Fudd. Decades later, the internet grabbed that one second of footage and turned it into a digital deity.
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Warner Bros. actually leaned into it. They put Big Chungus in the Looney Tunes World of Mayhem mobile game and even gave him a cameo in Space Jam: A New Legacy. It shows that the character is flexible. He can be a WWII mascot, a 90s basketball star, or a weird internet joke.
The 2020s Reboot
HBO Max (now just Max) launched Looney Tunes Cartoons a few years ago, and honestly? They’re great. They went back to the rubber-hose style of the early years. They brought back the violence—the dynamite, the anvils, the falling pianos—which had been watered down in the 80s and 90s. They realized that Bugs Bunny is at his best when he’s a little bit of a jerk. If he’s too nice, he’s boring.
How to Actually Watch the Best Stuff
If you're looking to dive back into cartoons of Bugs Bunny, don't just watch whatever random clips are on YouTube. The compression is terrible and half of them are cropped weirdly.
- Seek out the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection" or "Platinum Collection." These were curated by actual film historians. The restorations are crisp, and you can see the brushstrokes on the backgrounds.
- Focus on the "Director Eras." If you want witty, psychological humor, look for Chuck Jones. If you want high-energy chaos and surrealism, look for Bob Clampett or Tex Avery. Friz Freleng is your guy if you like musical timing and the Yosemite Sam rivalry.
- Watch with the sound up. The music, composed largely by Carl Stalling, is essentially a character of its own. Stalling borrowed from classical music and popular hits of the 30s to create a sonic landscape that tells the story even if you close your eyes.
- Check the 1940-1958 window. This is widely considered the "Golden Age." While the later stuff (like the 60s shorts by DePatie-Freleng) has its fans, the budgets were lower and the animation was much stiffer.
Bugs Bunny is more than just a cartoon. He’s a survivalist. He taught generations of kids that you don't have to be the biggest person in the room to win; you just have to be the smartest. Or the one with the best comedic timing.
To really appreciate the evolution of the character, start with A Wild Hare (1940) to see his "birth," then jump to Baseball Bugs (1946) to see his peak confidence, and finish with What’s Opera, Doc? (1957) to see the artistic height of the medium. You'll notice that while the world changed around him, the rabbit stayed exactly who he needed to be: the guy with the plan and the carrot.
If you want to explore the technical side, look up the "Smear Frame" technique used by the animators. It’s a trick where they draw a character in multiple places at once in a single frame to simulate fast motion. It's why those old cartoons feel so much "faster" and more fluid than modern 3D shows. Once you see a smear frame, you'll never look at a cartoon the same way again.