Bugs Bunny's Career on Home Video

The Looney Tunes video legacy begins with a theatrical compilation showcasing some of the best works of Chuck Jones, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie.

The concept of "home video" has been around since the late-1970s, yet it took a while for movie studios to catch on and realize that their extensive film libraries might prove to be profitable releases.

Warner Bros. only started to get into the swing of things in the early 1980s. Among some of the first home videos issued by the fledgling Warner Home Video was 1979's The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, a theatrical compilation of most of the better Looney Tunes cartoons directed by Chuck Jones.

In addition to The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, in 1982 Warner Home Video released a line of videos called A Night at the Movies. Focusing on a different year, each video contained a classic Warner Bros. feature, newsreels, coming attractions, and (natch!) a Warner Bros. cartoon. The choice of cartoons in the line ranged from classics ("Speedy Gonzales," "Martian Through Georgia") to some eyebrow-raisers ("Person to Bunny," "Hook, Line and Stinker"). These tapes have been long out of print and have only recently been discovered by collectors, and most of the cartoons that were selected have been rereleased in successive compilations.

"8 Ball Bunny," a short often edited for television, was just one of the many highlights in the Looney Tunes Video Show line.

Still, there had yet to be any home-video release of just uncut Looney Tunes cartoons. This was rectified later in the year when Warner Home Video released their Looney Tunes Video Show series. Three videos were widely distributed in the United States (plus an additional four were available only in select markets, Canada, and overseas), with each one featuring seven complete Warner Bros. cartoons. True to the series title, each tape contained cartoons featuring a pleasant mix of characters. One Bugs cartoon highlighted each volume, while the remaining contents would vary from films featuring the "big stars" such as Daffy and Tweety, to 1960s Speedy Gonzales cartoons, to even celebrated one-shots such as Robert McKimson's "The Hole Idea."

Obviously this series was initially released just for the purpose of the fledgling video-rental industry, as the waters of the direct-to-consumers video market were greatly untested. But the three major American tapes proved to be so popular that Warner Home Video reissued them for consumer sale in 1989 and are still available to rent in most video stores.

Still, the Looney Tunes Video Show was nothing but a cruel teaser compared to what was to come. In 1985, to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Porky Pig and of the classic "spirit" of the Looney Tunes, Warner Home Video issued the grandest collection of animation videos ever. Titled Warner Bros. Cartoons Golden Jubilee: 24 Karat Collection, twelve videos were released over the course of 1985 and 1986, with each one featuring eight of the most beloved and celebrated cartoons of all time.

In addition to individual A Salute to... videos showcasing Mel Blanc, Friz Freleng, and Chuck Jones, every major character (save Yosemite Sam) was represented with their own video. This of course included Bugs Bunny, who, in addition to his own eight-cartoon collection, also popped up in the videos starring Daffy Duck, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, and Elmer Fudd, and the Salute volumes...making a grand total of twenty-four of the wabbit's adventures available in this line!

All of the Golden Jubilee videos were in print until 1991, when a few select volumes in the line were briefly reissued for Bugs's fiftieth birthday. Nowadays, the Jubilee tapes have become collector's items, as many of the cartoons in this line have yet to resurface.

MGM's Viddy-Oh! For Kids releases featured pre- 1948 shorts as diverse as the classic "Slick Hare" to the oddball "Hardships of Miles Standish."

In 1986 broadcasting conglomerate Turner Entertainment saw how successful Warner's cartoon compilations had been. At this time, Turner had controlling interest in MGM and owned the United Artists television-distribution library, the latter of which included all of the color Warner Bros. cartoons copyrighted before September 1, 1948. Combining both of these assets, MGM Home Video unveiled their Viddy-Oh! For Kids line. Each video usually focused on one character and was presented as a Cartoon Festival with a highlight on one of the titles in the compilation. MGM's line consisted of not only Looney Tunes but also of all theatrical cartoons in United Artists' library (including Pink Panther, Tijuana Toads, The Inspector, etc.), Turner-owned animation such as Tom and Jerry and Gilligan's Planet, and even compilations of Little Rascals shorts!

Sadly the Looney Tunes cartoons on these videos were not 100 percent "uncut." Turner fashioned each video with an extended uniform "Blue Ribbon" opening. After showing the then- standard A.A.P. syndication logo, a 1939 arrangement of "Merry Go Round Broke Down" was dubbed over a generic "Blue Ribbon" cartoon opening, with the "Blue Ribbon" logo frozen to fill out the time of the music. The following cartoons would then just start with their opening credit sequence, each time skipping their respective bullseye opening. The Cartoon Festival videos stayed in print until 1991, after which leftover stock was sent to Kay-Bee's Toy Liquidators and other closeout stores.

A video called Daffy! just wouldn't be complete without the uberclassic "The Great Piggybank Robbery" by Bob Clampett.

After about two years of the Viddy-Oh! tapes, Turner rearranged the compilations and MGM released the Cartoon Moviestars line of videos. Released over the span of 1988 and 1989 as kind of a "Pre-48 Golden Jubilee," this new line cut down on the number of characters to feature and mainly concentrated on the big "stars" (the Looney Tunes guys, Pink Panther, Tom and Jerry, etc.), leaving most of the Depatie-Freleng characters in video limbo (no offense to Mr. Jaws, of course). The key difference in these compilations was that the cartoons finally were able to run uncut, complete with titles and bullseye openings.

Including the video release of the 1975 documentary Bugs Bunny Superstar, five Bugs Bunny videos were issued (six if you count the Elmer! tape) before MGM gave the wabbit his own video line in 1990 for his fiftieth birthday. Each Cartoon Moviestars volume contained anywhere from seven to nine cartoons, thus making the bulk of Bugs's pre- 1948 adventures available on home video. MGM got the jump on Warner Home Video by also releasing the Cartoon Moviestars titles on laserdisc, at most times combining two of the videos as one disc (for example, the Bugs! and Elmer! videos became the Bugs! & Elmer! laser).

In retrospect, the Cartoon Moviestars line couldn't hold a candle to the Golden Jubilee tapes mainly because of Turner's limited access to the Warner cartoon library, but for the time it was a great way to get the bunny's earlier cartoons out to those without Turner cable networks.

Bugs's encounters with Yosemite Sam were few and far between on Warner Home Video releases throughout the 1980s. "Rabbitson Crusoe" on 1988's Bugs Bunny's Hare-Raising Tales would be the only Bugs-and-Sam short to tide fans over between 1986 and 1991.

Meanwhile in 1988 Warner Home Video followed up their Golden Jubilee line with the complementary Cartoon Cavalcade series. Released with fewer volumes and fewer cartoons on each tape, this series was both a test to see how well television specials would sell on home video (the two Chuck Jones specials Carnival of the Animals and A Connecticut Yankee Rabbit in King Arthur's Court were issued in this line) and a way to get some more classic Daffy and Porky cartoons on home video. Also noteworthy is the fact that the video summaries on the packages in this line were written by a then-unknown writer and historian who would quickly become one of the most recognized and respected names in the animation industry, Jerry Beck.

Naturally a new set of Looney Tunes videos would not be complete without a new compilation of Bugs Bunny shorts. However, unlike the Daffy and Porky tapes, Warner chose to give the new Bugs video a "theme," focusing on the rabbit's various takes on fairy tales and classic literature. While some bonafide classics were included in the mix (such as Chuck Jones's "Rabbit Hood" and two exceptional early Robert McKimson shorts), this Bugs follow-up was a debatable disappointment.

"The Heckling Hare" was the only Tex Avery cartoon featured in the first assortment of MGM's Bugs Bunny videos in 1990. When the line was completed in 1991, the only remaining Avery-directed Bugs cartoon not released was the infamous "All This and Rabbit Stew."

Bugs received his best (and in some cases, worst) pre-48 treatment in MGM's commemorative Bugs Bunny line, released to coincide with the wabbit's fiftieth birthday. Two four- volume sets were issued, one in late 1990 and the second in the spring of 1991, with each video featuring five cartoons.

The first four videos featured more or less all of Bugs's pre-48 "classics," along with some more-obscure shorts such as "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" and "Hold the Lion, Please!" The titles of the collections weren't very imaginative (The MGM subtitles Festival of Fun and ...On Parade have also been tacked onto Tom and Jerry and Pink Panther videos), but the package design was wonderful. The cover of each video featured a well-done "shadowed" drawing (in other words, what Space Jam wanted the characters to look like!) of Bugs reenacting a scene from one of the cartoons on the video.

"A Feather in His Hare" was one of the four cartoons inexplicably missing from each of the videos in the second assortment of MGM's Bugs Bunny line. Apparently MGM thought nobody would notice if the cartoon featured on the cover of the Here Comes Bugs video wasn't included.

When the final four videos were released for Easter 1991, a small problem arose. Instead of listing five cartoons like the previous four tapes had, these new volumes claimed to contain six(!) cartoons each. However only the first five cartoons listed on the boxes were actually contained in each cassette. Fans felt gypped, feeling that MGM had purposely not included the listed "Bugs Bunny Rides Again," "Herr Meets Hare," "A Feather in His Hare," and "Haredevil Hare" so that collectors would have to hunt down the previous Cartoon Moviestars videos in order to have these in their collections (the cartoons were available on Bugs Bunny Classics, Bugs & Daffy: The Wartime Cartoons, and Starring Bugs Bunny!).

Equally aggravating was the fact that collectors had to buy additional, older MGM videos if they wanted to complete their pre-48 Bugs collection (or at least try to). Aside from the aforementioned "missing" cartoons, fans had to buy 1989's Bugs vs. Elmer to obtain 1944's "Stage Door Cartoon" (while the other SIX cartoons in that collection were available in the Bugs Bunny line), Bugs Bunny Superstar if they wanted either "A Corny Concerto" or "The Old Grey Hare," and would need to purchase 1985's Bugs Bunny Cartoon Festival Featuring Little Red Riding Rabbit if they needed the Academy Award-nominated "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt." Plus, three Bugs cartoons--"Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips," "Case of the Missing Hare," and "All This and Rabbit Stew"--were not available on any MGM video (to this day, the last two cartoons have yet to surface legitimately on VHS, although "Case" made its way onto an MGM laserdisc).

MGM did finally include the four "missing" advertised Bugs cartoons on their respective videos in a much later pressing, which was almost a moot point by then as a couple of them had already been rereleased elsewhere. But despite these little flaws, MGM's Bugs Bunny series was still a fun group of videos to collect. It's only a pity they did not add additional volumes to complete Bugs's early filmography.

For Christmas 1991, MGM released the very first Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc set. Featuring seventy cartoons on five discs, Jerry Beck assembled what he thought was the "essential" collection of pre-1948 Warner Bros. cartoons, including a little 1944 wartime oddity titled "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips."

Yosemite Sam came back with a vengeance in 1992, even earning his very own video for the first time ever. The classic "Sahara Hare" was featured alongside such other stellar Sam films as "Wild and Woolly Hare" and "Mutiny on the Bunny."

In 1992 Warner Home Video got back into the swing of things and released a great unnamed six-volume series of Looney Tunes compilations. With the video premiere of several black-and- white (albeit computer-colorized) Daffy and Porky shorts, the first-ever video starring Yosemite Sam (who was overlooked in the Golden Jubilee line), and the filling of many classic- cartoon gaps, this line of videos seems to be the last domestic series by Warner to have any real collector thought as to its contents (until 2003, anyway).

Friz Freleng's hilarious gangster spoof "Racketeer Rabbit" replaced Bugs's little scuffle with the Japanese, "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips," when the first Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc set was pulled and quickly reissued in 1994.

Not to be outdone, in late-1992 MGM (whose videos were now being distributed by Warner Home Video!) rereleased their GAOLT laserdiscs as ten videos (and as a special five- video boxed set), with each video featuring one side of each laserdisc. This included the first- ever VHS release of the previously ultra-rare "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips," in which the wabbit fights Japanese soldiers on an isolated Pacific island. Approximately a year and a half after the video release, a Japanese-citizens-rights group pressured MGM to recall the videos and laserdiscs with the offensive cartoon. The laserdisc set had been rereleased without "Nips," while the video cassette containing the cartoon (Bugs Bunny by Each Director) has been long out of print and has become a collector's item.

The rarely seen original version of "Hare Ribbin'" was the only Bugs theatrical short offered on the fifth Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc set, which also included clips of Bugs's cameos in the feature films Two Guys From Texas and My Dream is Yours.

From 1992 to 1997, MGM released additional GAOLT laserdisc sets, rounding out the rest of Turner's pre-1948 cartoon library (with the sole exceptions of eleven cartoons long ago deemed insensitive to African Americans). A few rare Bugs oddities popped up here and there in these subsequent sets, such as the original 1940 print of "A Wild Hare" and the sought- after 1942 war trailer known as "Any Bonds Today?" In 1997 the fifth and final set of laserdiscs was released, even though Turner's library of cartoons starring major characters such as Bugs, Daffy, etc., had been completely used up at this point! As a treat, Jerry Beck unearthed a rare "director's cut" of the 1944 Bugs Bunny cartoon "Hare Ribbin,'" featuring the original, alternate ending visually different from the one that was released in theaters and shown on television.