--- description: Bugs Bunny first appeared on July 27, 1940 title: Watch the First-Ever 'What's Up, Doc?' Moment image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ec6d5d42a25150d/69885bed196cf4fd5b037358/150722-bugs-bunny-03.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Bugs Bunny at 75: Watch the First-Ever 'What's Up, Doc?' Moment ## Video: Watch Bugs Bunny's Debut In A Wild Hare [Watch (HLS stream): Watch Bugs Bunny's Debut In A Wild Hare](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/roxBDGSy.m3u8) (2:41)  _Published 2015-07-22. Watch Bugs Bunny's Debut In A Wild Hare_  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 27, 2015 10:00 AM CUT  Original production layout drawing by Chuck Jones for his 1943 short cartoon, "Super Rabbit" Original production layout drawing by Chuck Jones for his 1943 short cartoon, "Super Rabbit"Courtesy Chuck Jones Center for Creativity  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 27, 2015 10:00 AM CUT The usual gestation period for a rabbit is a month. But Bugs Bunny, the iconic cartoon character who turns 75 on Monday, took a lot longer to come to life. Scroll down to read that story–but not before watching a clip from his first official appearance, in the 1940 Tex Avery cartoon _A Wild Hare_. The Oscar-nominated cartoon has all the classic Bugs favorites: outwitting Elmer Fudd, the signature ears and tail, the “What’s up, Doc?” (_Looney Tunes characters, names, and all related indicia are TM & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc._ [You can watch the whole thing here](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4053d%5Fmerrie-melodies-a-wild-hare-1940%5Fshortfilms "undefined").) Here’s how the world’s favorite cartoon rabbit came to be. Animator Chuck Jones [gave credit](https://books.google.com/books?id=EEK8uMAFsM0C&pg=PA31&dq=bugs+bunny+wild+hare&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMImZq3hbrvxgIVSRgeCh2nUgu0#v=onepage&q=bugs%20bunny%20wild%20hare&f=false "undefined") to Tex Avery for the character, but Warner Bros. had made several rabbit cartoons in the studio’s earlier years. There were [cutesy rabbits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYAPLNrSTQ4 "undefined") and [wacky rabbits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZWQc070IsY "undefined"), but those rabbits aren’t Bugs. (One distinction, Jones explained, was that Bugs’ craziness always serves a purpose–in contrast to the unhinged Daffy Duck.) The _Wild Hare_ bunny is uncredited, though that [changed](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfrywe%5Felmer-s-pet-rabbit%5Fshortfilms "undefined") before the year was up. Bugs was an instant star. By 1954, TIME [noted](http://time.com/vault/issue/1954-12-27/page/47/ "undefined") that he was more popular than Mickey Mouse. (Mel Blanc, who voiced the character, later [claimed](https://books.google.com/books?id=0cEAOsLJad8C&pg=PA71&dq=bugs+bunny+wild+hare&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAmoVChMImZq3hbrvxgIVSRgeCh2nUgu0#v=onepage&q=%22wild%20hare%22&f=false "undefined") that the name was his idea, saying that they were going to call the character Happy Rabbit, but that Blanc suggested naming him after animator Ben “Bugs” Hardaway. Alternatively, the name is [sometimes](https://books.google.com/books?id=bZIv8NKfNKwC&pg=PA79&dq=bugs+bunny+wild+hare&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBmoVChMImZq3hbrvxgIVSRgeCh2nUgu0#v=onepage&q=bugs%20bunny%20wild%20hare&f=false "undefined") traced to a sketch that designer Charles Thorson did on Hardaways’ request, with the caption “Bugs’ bunny”—as in, it was the bunny that Bugs had asked him to draw.) Though Virgil Ross was the animator on _A Wild Hare_, Chuck Jones became one of the more famous hands behind the Bugs Bunny magic. In 1979, when _The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie_ came out, TIME critic Richard Schickel [noted](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,947531,00.html "undefined") that “it is possible that some day Animator Chuck Jones may come to be regarded as the American Bunuel” for the fact that Jones and the groundbreaking surrealist filmmaker so well understood the psychological underpinnings of comedy. As these images from the late artist’s archives show, Bugs Bunny may have taken a long time to be born—but he sure has aged well.  "Picture the Future" a hand-painted cel art edition by Chuck Jones Courtesy Chuck Jones Center for Creativity **_Read TIME’s take on Warner cartoons’ 50th birthday, in 1985, here in the TIME Vault:_** [For Heaven’s Sake! Grown Men!](http://time.com/vault/issue/1985-09-09/page/70/ "undefined") ### Pie  Slice of apple pie with ice cream, circa 1950s H. Armstrong Roberts—Retrofile/Getty Images The “pye”—as it used to be spelled—is a venerable dish, which can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome. But those pastry-based dishes weren’t the desserts we tend to think of today. Instead, they were overwhelmingly savory dishes. And for good reason: the crusts could help the contents of the pie (meat, typically) last a little longer than they would otherwise. Even apple pies didn’t used to look the way they do now: **_Read the full story here:_** [A Brief History of Pie](http://time.com/3958057/history-of-pie/ "undefined") ### Eggnog  Eggnog L. Mueller—MCT via Getty Images Eggnog is centuries old, it turns out: But it wasn’t always associated with the end-of-year holiday season. That happened when the drink came to the Americas; even George Washington had his own signature recipe for eggnog, which by his time had begun to be made with rum. **_Read the full story here:_** [A Brief History of Eggnog](http://time.com/3957265/history-of-eggnog/ "undefined") ### Waffles  A plate of buttered waffles made in an Easywork waffle iron, in 1947 Chaloner Woods—Getty Images This peculiarly patterned breakfast staple has a surprisingly long and illustrious history. The ancient Greeks used a tool kind of like a waffle iron to make cakes, and the treat came to the New World with some of its earliest European settlers: But it wasn’t until the 1930s that a California family combined instant waffle mix, electricity and ingenuity to come up with a way to mass-produce waffles. The eventual result, if you haven’t already guessed, was Eggos. **_Read the full story here:_** [A Brief History of Waffles](http://time.com/3957420/waffles/ "undefined") ### Peanut Butter  A 1930s peanut butter jar label Buyenlarge / ;Getty Images Peanut butter’s origins are a bit mysterious. Contrary to the popular myth that George Washington Carter came up with the idea, there’s evidence that some version of peanut butter was being made at least a couple decades before he published his 1916 text _How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption_: **_Read the full story here:_** [A Brief History of Peanut Butter](http://time.com/3957387/history-of-peanut-butter/ "undefined") ### Buffalo Wings  Buffalo wings await contestants during Wing Bowl 16 at the Wachovia Center Feb. 1, 2008 in Philadelphia William Thomas Cain—Getty Images Unlike peanut butter, Buffalo wings have a an easily identified origin: Buffalo, N.Y. But what exactly happened to spark its birth is a little blurrier: In one version of the story, the dish was invented merely to get rid of a surplus of chicken wings; in another version, Bellissimo’s son specifically asked for wings. **_Read the full story here:_** [A Brief History of Buffalo Wings](http://time.com/3957370/buffalo-wings/ "undefined") ### Maple Syrup  Children from the Scarborough School tapping syrup from a maple tree on financier Frank Vanderlip's estate. Scarborough, N.Y., March 18, 1927 Underwood Archives / Getty The American maple-syrup industry can be traced back to the 17th century, when farmers began to tap the trees on their properties for a sweetener that was, at the time, cheaper than sugar: The old system of making maple syrup—leaving buckets under taps, collecting sap, hauling the buckets to the sugar house to be heated—was eventually widely replaced by a method that used tubes and vacuums rather than buckets and gravity. **_Read the full story here:_** [A Brief History of Maple Syrup](http://time.com/3958051/history-of-maple-syrup/ "undefined") ### Salt  A waiter fills numerous salt and pepper shakers, 1950 Vintage Images / Getty Images Salt isn’t technically a food in itself, but it makes so many foods taste so much better that we couldn’t leave it off the list. Plus, its history is one of the longest, most interesting food stories out there, dating all the way back to the days when, as TIME put it in 1982, “animals wore paths to salt licks \[and\] men followed.” Salt was, eventually, one of the pillars of civilization: **_Read the full story here:_** [A Brief History of Salt](http://time.com/3957460/a-brief-history-of-salt/ "undefined") ### Barbecue  Memphis ribs and Texas smoked sausage with two sides at The American BBQ Restaurant in Rowley, Mass. Boston Globe / Getty Images Though the word “barbecue” is misapplied to all manner of grilled meats, it actually refers to a specific process (indirect heat, slow cooking) and comes from a specific tradition: Eventually, barbecue separated into several regional styles with their own preferences for meats and flavors. **_Read the full story here:_** [A Brief History of Barbecue](http://time.com/3957444/barbecue/ "undefined") ### Leftovers  Leftovers in a freezer Bob Fila—MCT / Getty Images So, you run out and make or buy all these foods, now that they’re on your mind, but there’s no way you can eat them all right away. Which brings us to leftovers. It’s not as if someone had to “invent” the idea of saving what remains at the end of a meal—after all, in the pre-modern feast-and-famine cycle, saving the fruit of the harvest was a matter of life and death. But that doesn’t mean that the look of leftovers hasn’t changed over the years. Thanks, largely, to refrigeration: **_Read the full story here:_** [A Brief History of Leftovers](http://time.com/3957492/a-brief-history-of-leftovers/ "undefined")  Original production layout drawing by Chuck Jones for his 1943 short cartoon, "Super Rabbit" Courtesy Chuck Jones Center for Creativity  Original lobby card for the 1943 Chuck Jones directed "Super Rabbit" Courtesy Chuck Jones Center for Creativity  Photostat of a Tex Avery model sheet of Bugs Bunny. Courtesy Chuck Jones Center for Creativity  "The Evolution of Bugs Bunny" a hand-painted cel art edition by Chuck Jones Courtesy Chuck Jones Center for Creativity ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3967572/bugs-bunny-75/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3967572/bugs-bunny-75/"},"headline":"Bugs Bunny at 75: Watch the First-Ever 'What's Up, Doc?' 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