Thursday, July 27, 2006

Happy Birthday, Bugs Bunny!


From The Writer's Almanac: It was on this day in 1940 that Bugs Bunny made his debut in a short animated film called "A Wild Hare". He was modeled on Groucho Marx, with a carrot rather than a cigar. Mel Blanc gave him a Brooklyn accent. The story line of the cartoon involved Elmer Fudd hunting rabbits, only to have Bugs thwart him at every turn. Bugs Bunny's first line in the cartoon, when he meets Elmer Fudd, is, "What's up, doc?" It was a phrase that one of the writers remembered people saying where he grew up in Texas.

5 comments:

Carl V. Anderson said...

Happy Birthday Bugs!!! I don't know of any animated show as deliciously entertaining as the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons. So glad I was one of the generation that got to grow up with Looney Tunes.

Anonymous said...

Bill, did you ever hear anyone say What's up, doc? in Texas before Bugs Bunny came along?--Karin

mybillcrider said...

I'm an old guy, but I wasn't around before Bugs came along. Actually, he's a year older than I am.

Writeprocrastinator said...

"What's up, doc?" It was a phrase that one of the writers remembered people saying where he grew up in Texas."

Wasn't that Fredrick Avery?

http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000813/bio

"Tex" Avery to the rest of us. I couldn't have gotten through my teenage years without Buggs, plain and simple.

Happy Birthday to the one of the greatest film stars of all time.

Nothing like imagining how Buggs would've dealt with a particularly difficult idiot, to help in dealing those you cannot verbally lash out at or thrash.

Juri said...

Happy birthday, Bugs! (What's his real first name, by the way?) He's one of the true heroes in the annals of cinema! (I also love Daffy Duck.)