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jbwarner86 — A Bunny's Evolution
Published: 2007-07-27 18:07:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 11460; Favourites: 139; Downloads: 945
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Description
In all the recent excitement of my commissions and my webcomic, I almost completely forgot to do something to commemorate Bugs Bunny's birthday. So I quickly sketched up this analysis of how Bugs evolved since his earliest formative appearances in 1938, to his official first cartoon in 1940, to the finalized design from 1943 that we all know and love.Happy birthday to the world's greatest cartoon character, doc!
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Comments: 46
Can you recolored version of A Bunny's Evolution?
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wow this this awesome.lol though the weird thing is he gonna turn more chibi like in the next evolution....well it at least a little better than loonatics
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I'm very impressed...you have the 3C's down pat! Good Work!
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Wonderful charting! It's really strange to see just how much such a famous character changed over the years^^
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I got most of the big ones, though.
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Now if only WB can make him as badass as Mickey was in Kingdom Hearts and completely forget that Loonatics never existed......
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That's spot on.
I don't think any character has gone through as much evolution as Bugs.
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They evolve so fast, don't they? Great chart, JB. I've always like Clampett's version of Bugs, though Chuck's is good, also.
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Very nice!
Ever notice that Bugs never had his own black 'n white incarnation?
However I guess that would be Oswald. Nevermind.
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Well, "Porky's Hare Hunt" was in black-and-white, and the fully-evolved Bugs made a cameo appearance at the end of Frank Tashlin's 1943 black-and-white classic "Porky Pig's Feat". But generally, Bugs stayed in the all-color Merrie Melodies for the first few years of his career. At that time, Porky and Daffy were the studio's biggest stars, and the black-and-white Looney Tunes were reserved exclusively for them. Bugs generally was resigned to the Merrie Melodies, which were mostly a series of one-shots designed to test possible new star characters (Chuck Jones' Sniffles the Mouse and Tex Avery's Egghead were both Merrie Melodies exclusives). When the Looney Tunes started to go to color in 1942, Bugs gradually began to cross over to them too.
Oswald and Bugs really have no connection. Oswald was created by Walt Disney at the Charles Mintz studio during the silent era, years before Ben Hardaway thought up the earliest version of Bugs. And even when he did, he didn't have Oswald in mind - he was actually ripping himself off, rehashing the story he'd written for Tex Avery's 1937 Looney Tune "Porky's Duck Hunt", which introduced Daffy Duck. For this reason, the early Hardaway Bugs was pretty much a carbon copy of Daffy, and thus, Hardaway generally isn't credited with Bugs' creation - it was Avery who rethought the character inside and out.
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Wow! You really have a great knowledge of Warner's animation!
Actually, I was trying to make a feeble joke about the classic 30's inkblot-designed characters.
If Bugs was actually created around the same time as Oswald, Mickey or Bosko, he would probably be very similar looking to Oswald.
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Ah, I get it now...guess it went over my head the first time.
People ask me how I know so much about Warner Bros. animation. It's simple, really - I've read "That's All, Folks! The Art of Warner Bros. Animation" by Steve Schneider more times than I can count.
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Wow... I never imagined Bugs looking this different from his earlest design, particularly within the span of five years (if I understood your post correctly).
I can't think of any game characters that changed that dramatically within that span of time, unless you'd consider the sudden change of Zelda's Link from Oracrina of Time/Majora's Mask to Wind Waker.
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Well, the fact that the Warner studio changed character designers around that time probably had something to do with it. Charles Thorson did most of the character designs in the 1930s (including the first two proto-Bugs designs), and most of his characters were very cherubic and "cutesy", which were both qualities that Tex Avery despised in animation. Robert Givens became the studio's principal character designer in 1939 or so, and Avery commissioned him to design the new rabbit character that would become Bugs Bunny, a design that looked more clever and more three-dimensional than the rabbits that had preceeded him. Then in 1943, animator Robert McKimson drew what many consider to be the definitive Bugs Bunny model sheet for the Bob Clampett unit, drawing influence from the several directors that had already handled the rabbit, and it solidified Bugs' look throughout the studio.
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Which cartoons featured the very first Bugs shown on that evolution chart? I only remember the second one and beyond.
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The all-white proto-Bugs appeared in "Porky's Hare Hunt" (LT, Hardaway, 1938) and again in "Prest-O Change-O" (MM, Jones, 1939), although in the latter cartoon he has no dialogue beyond his ricocheting pre-Woody Woodpecker laugh.
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I think I recall seeing Prest-O Change-O, but it's been a very long time. Anyway, thanks.
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I didn't know you had a webcomic now! You'll have to post a link to it!
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Well, it's not done yet, but in October it'll be posted at [link] .
Whoa, deja vu...
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Kinda reminds me of Chuck Jones' timeline of Bugs.
Awesome job, man!
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I'm not done with it at the moment, but in October, it'll be posted at [link] . I'm collaborating with the site's webmaster on it - he's doing the story and I'm doing the artwork.
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4 volumes of the Looney Tunes Golden Collections really paid off
Great job on Bugs
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i have that realy bugs evolution in my bedroom on my drawings desk...
that was an exllecent evolution of Bugs ^^
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Happy birthday Bugs and very good work for his evolution ^^
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I like the 3rd and 4th ones the most (mainly cuz I don't consider the first two him) but awesome job! You should color it!
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Bugs definitely grew up. 
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Heh... ol' Bugs really has matured over the years!
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