Summary of The Birth of Bugs Bunny | THE MERRIE HISTORY OF LOONEY TUNES

00:00:00 - 00:35:00

This video tells the story of Bugs Bunny, from his creation in the early 1930s to his success as a popular character in the 1940s. Voice actors like Mel Blanc and Pinto Kolvig helped to bring Bugs to life, and his short cartoons were popular with audiences. However, when Warner Brothers was sold to MGM in 1944, Bugs Bunny's time as a Warner Brothers exclusive came to an end.

• 00:00:00 In 1940, many significant events took place, including the start of World War II, the first McDonald's restaurant opening, and the debut of Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny's most famous creation, the screwy rabbit, was initially conceived as a one-off character, but after being successful in several shorts, he was redesigned and became a more popular character.
• 00:05:00 The Birth of Bugs Bunny is the story of how one of the most famous and popular characters in all of animation, Bugs Bunny, came to be. Chuck Jones directed the short, which involved Bugs Bunny trying to outwit a rival rabbit character named Elmer Fudd. Although the shorts were popular when they were released, Bugs Bunny soon lost favor with audiences and was eventually replaced by Elmer Fudd in later shorts. However, Bugs Bunny's legacy lives on and is still popular today.
• 00:10:00 The Birth of Bugs Bunny is the story of how Bugs Bunny got his start in animation, and how he gradually evolved into the sly trickster character we know today. Bugs' first short, "The Wild Hair," features a different, more irritable Bugs, and director Leon Slestiger experimented with different ways to make him successful. Bugs' trademark slapstick humor was firmly established by his second short, "Elmer's Pet Rabbit," which featured Chuck Jones directing the first of many Bugs cartoons with a different voice and characterization.
• 00:15:00 This video tells the story of Bugs Bunny, from his creation as a one-note character in the early 1930s to the rise of the Looney Tunes directors in the late 1940s. While all the directors had their own individual style, Bugs Bunny evolved along with them, and by the early 1950s, all the directors were starting to explore new directions with their shorts. One of these directors, Bob Clampett, made shorts about other characters while still technically being Porky Pig cartoons, introducing Porky in the beginning and having him hand the reins over to another character. Meanwhile, at another studio, Chuck Jones was struggling to produce animation similar to what Disney was doing. However, his shorts are still considered some of the best produced by the studio. In 1941, Leon Schlesinger, the head of Warner Bros., decided to try and unionize the animation staff, and this led to a conflict with Texas Avery, one of the directors at Warner Bros. When Avery refused to sign the contract, Schlesinger suspended him from the studio for four weeks without pay.
• 00:20:00 In 1941, radical changes were taking place at Schlesinger Productions, including the production of Looney Tunes in color. Schlesinger got a new crop of animators in the fallout of the lengthy Disney animator strike. Among these new artists was Bob McKimson, who was demoted to animator and second in command to Bob Klampus. Klampus made it clear that they were a team and ensured that McKimson, Virgil Ross, Scribner and Sid Sutherland shared rank. Klampus' first job was completing all the unfinished shorts Avery had left behind in his departure. One of these shorts was 1941's Wabbit-Twubble, which introduced the new character design for Elmer Fudd that would only last for four shorts. The success of Wabbit Swivel showed just how much animation really played into Klampus' brand of humor.
• 00:25:00 This short, "The Dover Boys," is a parody of old-timey novels, and Chuck Jones's unit is the opposite of the Disney-inspired unit led by Klampus. Leon Schlesinger kept Chuck Jones on staff, and his shorts became better and better over time.
• 00:30:00 This video tells the history of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes franchise. Bugs Bunny was originally drawn with abstract backdrops to make the audience forget they were watching drawings on a screen, but Jones tossed that idea aside and deliberately made his animated actors perform on modern art paintings. Backgrounds changed with each short, with the Aristocat taking place in an art deco manner with stark patterns, the Unbearable Bear in a flat minimalist house at night, and Wakiki Rabbit taking place on a tropical island made of tapa cloth. He and his teams became unique players who were pushing the boundaries, and the war effort necessitated the production of topical cartoons. Norm McCabe took over for Frank Tashlin after he left to work at Disney and Screen Gems, and created some of the most infamous Looney Tunes shorts, like Duct Taters and Tokyo Jokyo Shorts. Bugs Bunny's last black and white shorts were Porky Pig's Feet, and Tashlen would not be creating Looney Tunes for long - soon after, it was announced that the Looney Tunes shorts would be in color and completely indistinguishable from the Merry Melody.
• 00:35:00 This video recounts the history of Bugs Bunny, from his creation in 1942 to the success of his animated movies in the 1940s. The voice actors who portrayed Bugs Bunny during this time period include Mel Blanc, Pinto Kolvig, Ken Rogers, Sarah Berner, and Benederet. Leon Schlesinger, the head of Warner Brothers at the time, sold the studio to MGM in 1944, ending Bugs Bunny's reign as a Warner Brothers exclusive.