"We decided he was going to be a smart alec rabbit, but casual about it," Avery recalled. Bugs is changed from a Daffyesque lunatic to a streetsmart wiseass. 1940: Director Tex Avery becomes the real father of Bugs Bunny with "A Wild Hare". Cartoonist Charlie Thorson comes up with a gray and white rabbit with large buck teeth. Says one of Bugs' creators: "That rabbit was just Daffy Duck in a rabbit suit." 1939: Bugs Hardaway decides to remake "Porky's Hare Hunt" with a new rabbit (as "Hare-um Scare-um"). director Ben "Bugs" Hardaway remakes the cartoon with a rabbit instead of a duck, as "Porky's Hare Hunt". animation director Tex Avery makes "Porky's Duck Hunt." Porky Pig hunted a screwball duck named Daffy -"who didn't get scared and run run away when somebody pointed a gun at him, but leapt and hopped all over the place like a maniac." "When it hit the theaters," recalls another director, "it was like an explosion." 1938: Warner Bros. "Eventually Bugs even stole Marx's response to an insult: 'Of course you know, this means war!' " TIMELINE 1937: Warner Bros. "Bugs uses his carrot as a prop, just as Groucho used his cigar," points out Stefan Kanfer in Serious Business. Bugs also lifted bits from silent comedians Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. There are literally dozens of other Chaplin rip-offs. the walking broomstick in Bewitched Bunny does Chaplin's trademark turn, with one foot in the air, at every corner. For example: The abrupt and shocking kiss Charlie plants someone who's getting too closse for comfort in The Floorwalker went on to become one of Bugs' favorite ways to upset his adversaries. The Looney Tunes directors, all fans of Chaplin, even stole many of his gags. "It was Chaplin who established that 'gestures and actions expressing attitude' give a screen character life." Adamson writes. A con artist, a masquerader, ruthless and suave, in control of the situation. Zomo is the trickster rabbit from Central and Eastern Africa who gained audience sympathy by being smaller than his oppressors and turning the tables on them through cleverness -thousands of years before Eastman invented film. Joe Adamson writes in Bugs Bunny: Fifty Years and Only One Grey Hare: Like jazz and rock'n'roll, Bugs has at least some of his roots in black culture. You may not have heard of this African folk-rabbit. THE INSPIRATIONS Bugs was born in the 1930s, but cartoon historians say his ancestry goes further back. * In 1976, when researchers polled Americans on their favorite characters, real and imaginary, Bugs came in second. * For almost 30 years, starting in 1960, he had one of the top-rated shows in Saturday morning TV. * In 1985 he became only the 2nd cartoon character to be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (Mickey Mouse was the first). * Every year from 1945 to 1961, he was voted "top animated character" by movie theater owners (when they still showed cartoons in theaters). * He's been nominated for three Oscars, and won one -in 1958, for "Knighty Knight, Bugs" (with Yosemite Sam). IMPRESSIVE STATS Bug Bunny is the world's most popular rabbit: * Since 1939, he has starred in more than 175 films. Who's your favorite cartoon character? Ears ours. The following is an article from The Best of the Best of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
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