Happy Birthday – Bugs Bunny is 75 Today!

Break out the cigars and kiss your favorite hunter. You wouldn’t know it as far as Warner Bros. is concerned – but their biggest movie star is 75 years old today.

Bugs Bunny made his official debut in a Tex Avery cartoon, A Wild Hare, released on this date in 1940. Avery was the third director to try his take on a wacky rabbit hunting secario (Ben “Bugs” Hardaway directed the first version a few years earlier – and thus “Bugs’ Bunny” became the in-house name for the screwy hare), but this was the cartoon that crystalized the ingredients that we recognize as Bugs Bunny – especially his signature line (“What’s Up, Doc?”) and Mel Blanc’s Brooklyn/Bronx wise-guy accent.

So “Bricka-Bracka Firecracka, Sis-Boom-Bah! Bugs Bunny, Bugs Bunny – Rah Rah Rah!” Happy Birthday Bugs. May you live forever – despite all the Elmer Fudd’s, Yosemite Sam’s and corporate Tasmanian Devil’s in your way.