The Screwy Genius of Tex Avery: A Wild Hare (1940)

On July 27, 1940, an unassuming gray rabbit was born in Brooklyn. And from those humble beginnings, he would go on to become one of the most famous anthropomorphic animals to ever grace the silver screen, a legend on par with longtime rodent rival Mickey Mouse. Bane to clumsy hunters, diminutive mustachioed criminals, and greedily ambitious ducks everywhere, this fluffy little bunny was christened … Bugs.

Evolution of a wascally wabbit. Photo credit: Wikipedia.

Okay, so technically, Bugs Bunny wasn’t born in Brooklyn (although that’s the story he puts out there). He was actually born in Hollywood in 1938, and sprung full-grown from the minds of Warner Bros. animators/directors Ben “Bugs” Hardaway and Cal Dalton, who co-directed their creation’s first onscreen appearance in Porky’s Hare Hunt. That cartoon, a virtual remake of the Tex Avery short that had introduced Daffy Duck the year before, depicted a very different rabbit–at least in appearance. But while this rabbit was white and rather short in comparison to his later incarnations, he still had the smart-mouthed gleeful spirit that would drive the character to many more adventures in the next seventy-five years (and beyond).

Yes, Bugs Bunny is, strictly speaking, seventy-five years old this year. Yet the official date of his birth is touted as July 27, 1940, because that was when the definitive version of the Bugs we all know and love made his debut, in an Avery-directed short called A Wild Hare.

[I cannot find an embeddable copy of this cartoon; click on this screencap to be linked to one.]

Though the rabbit character had appeared in four cartoons prior to the production of A Wild Hare, he remained something of a fluid figure, with an ever-evolving personality and appearance. But with this short, animated by Virgil Ross, the bunny came into his own. Here’s where some of the most familiar Bugs tropes find their roots:

• the carrot-chomping (famously borrowed from Clark Gable’s gnawing on one in 1934’s It Happened One Night);

• the hunter-prey relationship being turned on its head by Bugs’ utter lack of fear of his opponent;

• the anarchic breaking of the fourth wall (a Tex trait, through and through);

• the snappy one-liners brought to glorious, “Noo Yawk”-tinged life by Mel Blanc, including Bugs’ signature “What’s up, Doc?”, a line crafted by Avery in remembrance of high school slang back in Texas.

The result is not only an entertaining entry in the Warner filmography, but a clear indication of where Avery was heading as an artist. All of the hallmarks of his previous cartoons–the little screwball touches, the inventive visual gags, the exaggerated takes–are present here, and would only grow zanier and infinitely cleverer in the years to come.

Avery may be credited with giving figurative birth to the Bugs Bunny personality, but he did not stick with the character long enough to be a truly defining influence (Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, and Chuck Jones largely guided Bugs through most of his early 1940s output, as the character was further refined). Avery would only direct three more Bugs cartoons before heading over to MGM, all released in 1941: Tortoise Beats Hare, The Heckling Hare, and All This and Rabbit Stew. That last short, which was produced before Heckling Hare, was released after Avery had already left the studio, and his name does not appear in the credits. Rabbit Stew is also notable for its position as one of the notorious “Censored Eleven” Warner cartoons, due to stereotypically racist content (incidentally, two other Avery cartoons appear on that list: 1937’s Uncle Tom’s Bungalow, and 1938’s The Isle of Pingo Pongo).

Tomorrow: we move to Avery’s career at MGM, where his screwball aesthetic reached even crazier heights.

 

Don’t forget to enter our awesome Tex Avery prize pack giveaway (details here)!