Opinions | Bugs Bunny Was Here

Originally Posted 12/1/06 by Jeff Harris

A long time ago, I wrote about how Bugs Bunny is dead.

To use Mark Twain's popular, yet hackneyed expression, the reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated.

Like his corporate cousins The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny is seen everywhere from vitamins and candies to clothing and other merchandise. Also like his corporate cousins, his zany misadventures are chronicled on DVD, that digital versitile doohickey that'll be around forever (and by forever, I mean until Apple creates an i-something that'll place videos directly into our brains, which should be around 10 or so years from now). However, the rarest place you're likely to see that wascally wabbit is the medium that made him a legend.

No, not at the movies. The movies made Bugs Bunny a star. It was television that made him a legend.

Bugs Bunny represents a spirit that, quite honestly, isn't seen in cartoons nowadays. He's the little guy who goes against an opponent and outsmarts them. Was he a goody-two-shoes? No, he's a wiseass that'll, to use the modern coloquialism, "school those fools," whether it was a bulbous-nosed hunter, a volatile bandit, a diminutive despot, or regular folks that just get in his way. Was he ill-tempered? With exception to a few shorts (namely the Tortoise trilogy and that Duck Amuck sequel), no. Was he politically or puritanically correct? He wore blackface in a couple of cartoons, starred in a cartoon called Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips, dressed in drag on numerous occasions, and frequently kissed men on the lips, what do you think? He was pretty much the prototype of the perfect cartoon character.

When it comes to theatrical shorts, there's everything before Bugs Bunny and everything after. Because of Bugs Bunny, the feel of an entire industry changed. Sure, it wasn't immediate, but a number of studios created more entertaining shorts utilizing the attitude enforced by the Bugs Bunny cartoons. The wascally wabbit eclipsed his direct predecessors Porky Pig and Daffy Duck in popularity at Warner Bros, but Bugs' influence was seen in their later cartoons as well as the general output from Warner Bros., Walter Lantz, Terrytoons, Fleischer, and MGM. Even Disney had a few Bugsian shorts now and then. There's a reason why these shorts are often cited as the golden age of animation, which leaped into the golden age of television.

Ah yes, the so-called golden age of television, where American families gathered in their front rooms, whether they call it a family room or a den, and watched programming on their big, enormous 12-inch screens. The "baby boomer" generation were largely introduced to theatrical shorts courtesy of friendly adults in kid-friendly outfits like sea captains, forest rangers, clowns, and spacemen. The powers that be at Warner Bros. realized the potential they had with the popularity of their stable of characters when they decided to sell a package of their shorts surrounded by new wraparound segments. By naming it after their most popular character (not to mention finding a valued sponsor in General Foods, makers of Post cereals, Tang, and Kool-Aid), Warner Bros. had a lot of confidence in The Bugs Bunny Show. Originally a prime-time series, where it did well, it migrated to Saturday mornings airing in some form on the major broadcast channels and a lot of cable outlets for over forty years. And during that period, it remained the number-one series on Saturday mornings in its time period.

Cue to the 21st century. Bugs Bunny remains a popular figure to generations of families. However, in some cases, the younger half, namely the children of the children of the 80s, don't know who he is. They have an inkling of who he might be. Some would say that he's that gray baby rabbit who sounds like Double D and is friends with Lola, Tweety, Daffy, and Taz on Baby Looney Tunes. Some say he looks a little like Ace Bunny, the wise-cracking field leader of the Loonatics. Some would even say he's the Mickey Mouse of Six Flags. And do you want to know why kids see Bugs Bunny in these ways?

Because Warner Bros. wants them to.

Warner Bros. believes that nobody really wants to see their stable of characters the way they were. Radio was once a dominant medium? Who's Richard? Does YOUR tobacco taste different lately? I'm not even reflecting on the bigoted shorts that were created. As an episode of Drawn Together (not exactly the most politically/puritanically correct show on the planet) perfectly stated, studios are trying to rub out any offensive images from their older shorts, as if they never existed, which is stupid. In Warner Bros's case, they think ALL of their non-recent products are offensive, so, they're hiding them from public view, namely broadcast and cable television.

You'd think that Warner Bros. would either air reruns of the classic Looney Tunes or follow Tom and Jerry Tales' route in creating new, fully-animated shorts featuring the original characters in their original incarnations (meaning they're not starring in yet another take of A Christmas Carol nor are they presented as nuclear-powered superheroes, chatty babies, space defenders, detectives, bellhops, or educators) on the Kids' WB on the CW block they program and operate.

They don't.

Tom and Jerry is treated better than the Looney Tunes characters. The original shorts still have a permanent home on Cartoon Network, and Tom and Jerry Tales, which truly adheres to the classic theatrical shorts, is one of the highest-rated shows on broadcast television every Saturday morning. Seriously, when you don't look at Nick's dominance on Saturday mornings as well as the Pokemonvasion on Cartoon Network, Tom and Jerry Tales is among the highest-rated shows on Saturday mornings. At 8:30 AM in the East Coast.

Warner Bros. can't say that they don't have access to talented artists, storyboard artists, and writers (I know that animation fanatics hate animation writers, but they serve a decent purpose if their intentions are not evil), because they do. The Looney Tunes comics, which aren't everywhere, are the closest thing to new Looney Tunes shorts we're getting.

I'm just saying to Warner Bros. one thing, and one thing only. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. The wheel works and is a perfect creation as is. Loonatics is a triangular wheel while Baby Looney Tunes is a square wheel, and both aren't going anywhere. People will complain that anything new won't be exactly like the classics, and that's okay. Those classics were already made. Make something new, but instill the spirit that inspired those classics. Let the artists churn them out with love. Get creators that truly love the characters. Don't let Warner Bros' mantra be Bugs Bunny was here.

Let it be Bugs Bunny IS here!