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Following the history of the Warner Bros. cartoon studio, particularly the development of Bugs Bunny, can be downright dizzying. One book says one thing, another says something else, one interview contradicts another, Wikipedia goes off on some strange tangent (of course, if you're reading Wikipedia hoping for accuracy on anything, you're already in trouble), and some of the things that turn up on some lunatics' blogs out there...oh bruddah. The fact remains that Bugs Bunny is perhaps the most celebrated and most enduring cartoon character of all time, and well, lots of people have wanted to claim credit for him.
In this section we will trace the evolution of the rabbit character that eventually became the Bugs Bunny we all know and love. We'll stick to the facts, weed out all the junk, and follow the cartoons that were released along the way.
We do NOT consider any of the following shorts to be official entries in the Bugs Bunny catalog (and again, some books may disagree). As far as we're concerned, the eventual character of Bugs Bunny was created by Tex Avery and debuted in 1940's A Wild Hare. Everything before that production is nothing more than a prototype.
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How to read the guide
On its own it's just an okay short, but historically it really suffers because it pales in comparison to Porky's Duck Hunt, and the comparison is unavoidable. There are a few original gags that seem like more than just leftovers, such as the windup toy suddenly springing to life and kicking Zero in the face or the rabbit's later sob story, and this short might be the first appearance of the much-used and arguably iconic "hare remover" pun. But nevertheless so much of the cartoon plays off like an intended sequel, almost expecting the audience to have seen the previous film. There's no setup to the prospect of hunting this time, as Porky and Zero are just out there at the start, with the rabbit's opening warning to the others almost being used as a gimmick to quickly tell the audience, "He's after rabbits this time, folks!" This lack of any kind of natural introduction hurts the plot: in Duck Hunt it's established that Porky is going to a lake, and all of the action relatively stays there—but here the setting just jumps all over the place, first to a cornfield and then to the woods and then behind an abandoned house or something. With no firm structure in place, so many of the elements then just stick out like watered down versions from Duck Hunt, especially in relation to the rabbit (the screwy dancing, his "I'm just a trifle pixelated" line, etc.). And yet, the one thing that made the previous short really stand out, the freewheeling mania, isn't there—no script checks, no out-of-nowhere musical numbers, no random Joe Penners; it's just a by-the-numbers "Porky vs. troublemaker" plot. The pig does have a couple of choice moments, and the visual of his spent bullet shells piling up around him should be more famous than it is, but it's clear they wanted to make the rabbit the focal point. (Ironically, Daffy immediately became a star after only appearing as one of a number of ducks, whereas this rabbit took two more years to incubate.) It's all just very derivative, and even an oddly sadistic sight gag of literally blowing Porky up off the screen isn't enough to make it stand out. Yet, people still responded well to that rabbit....
Arguably the most entertaining of the pre-Bugs shorts and a much-needed upgrade from Hardaway's own Porky's Hare Hunt. The rabbit's gags are zanier and at times much more natural—such as turning a nearby cave into a department store elevator, etc.—but there's still that strong Daffy Duck influence that's hard to shake, and the rabbit jumping around a lake looks as awkward as he did using his ears to fly back in Hare Hunt. The character is definitely in a state of transition, and his shtick is clearly being workshopped a bit. We get the first instance of a "guess who" gag that would evolve into a memorable scene in A Wild Hare before phasing out of Bugs Prime's repertoire completely, and there's an improvement here of the Hare Hunt sob-story plea even though that bit gets abandoned before even making it into an actual Bugs film. Obviously the biggest historical contribution involves the rabbit dressing in drag to fool Sourpuss's dog, but the scene is more revolutionary than funny. The dog itself is utilized very strangely, as most of the tricks upfront are directed at him instead of the actual hunter. It's almost like they weren't sure who should be the rabbit's antagonist, although the presence of the dog does lead to one of the funnier gags with the fake traffic stop. John Sourpuss meanwhile is a gruesome little character, unappealing in design and nasty in tone—he isn't funny and he isn't sympathetic. Thankfully, an inspired swapping out of characters would soon occur, one that makes all the difference to what the eventual series would be. But the Daffy spectre keeps getting reinforced and making this new heckler seem like a copycat, with of course the original "lost" ending having shades of that in Daffy Duck & Egghead but also more significantly the centerpiece song number being reminiscent of Daffy's from that film as well. Though a good sequence that doesn't overstay its welcome, the rabbit's song is totally unnecessary, and sure enough it will be very soon before the Merrie Melodies series does away with the idea of an entry even needing a musical number. Meanwhile, the rabbit would soon shake off the rest of his similarities to that duck, and for the sake of the character's survival it couldn't come soon enough.
