It’s perhaps the most contentious show biz birthday since Jack Benny. Today, however, is the date most animation fans consider to be Bugs Bunny’s natal day. While prototype versions of the character appeared in four earlier Warner Bros. cartoons, beginning with 1938’s Porky’s Hare Hunt, the familiar gray-and-white mischief maker that moviegoers know today made his screen debut on July 27, 1940, in the Merrie Melodies short A Wild Hare.
Directed by Fred “Tex” Avery, A Wild Hare launched the decades-long feud between Bugs and hapless hunter Elmer Fudd. It was also the first time that the rascally rabbit used his iconic catchphrase “What’s up, Doc?” (which, according to Avery, was a common greeting in his Texas hometown when he was a teen).
Voice man Mel Blanc, inspired by a scene with Clark Gable in It Happened One Night, introduced Bugs’ habit of chomping on a carrot…even though Blanc later admitted he hated carrots and would spit them out after delivering his lines. And actor Arthur Q. Bryan, the voice of Elmer until his death in 1959, first told audiences to “be vewwy, vewwy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits.” Both Blanc and Bryan would recreate their roles in a 1941 episode of comic Al Pearce’s radio show.
Moviegoers were–to coin a phrase-“wildly” enthusiastic about the cartoon. Theater managers were sometimes forced to play the short a second time before moving on to the feature film. A Wild Hare would go on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject, Cartoons (It lost to M-G-M’s The Milky Way).
Over the next quarter-century Bugs would go on to star in over 150 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts from Warner Bros. Since then he’s branched out into feature films (My Dream Is Yours, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, et al.) and various TV series. He even managed to take home that Oscar, winning for 1958’s Knighty Knight Bugs. And it all began 85 years ago today with a simple “What’s up, Doc?” Happy Birthday, Bugs.