What's Up, Doc? The Birth of a Bunny Legend
On July 27, 1940, Warner Bros. released 'A Wild Hare' — the cartoon that turned a nameless rabbit into Bugs Bunny.
"What's up, Doc?" Three words, one gray rabbit, and a legend that has never left the stage.
On July 27, 1940, Warner Bros. released an eight-minute Technicolor cartoon called A Wild Hare, directed by Tex Avery. The setup is now immortal: Elmer Fudd tiptoes through the woods with his shotgun, whispering to the audience, "Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting wabbits." He finds a rabbit hole, leaves a carrot as bait — and meets a rabbit like no one had ever seen.
Earlier cartoons had fumbled toward the character for two years, but A Wild Hare got everything right at once. Animator Bob Givens gave the rabbit his lean, confident new design. Mel Blanc gave him the voice — a breezy Brooklyn-Bronx wise-guy drawl that would become one of the most imitated voices in history. Arthur Q. Bryan's Elmer played the perfect foil. And somewhere in the middle of it all, the rabbit emerged from his hole, chewed a carrot, and asked the hunter the question that would define him forever.
The short was a smash in theaters and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Cartoon Short Subject. Warner Bros. moved fast: the character's next appearance got a hastily inserted title card reading "featuring Bugs Bunny" — the name, born on studio model sheets, was now official.
July 27 is celebrated as Bugs Bunny's birthday to this day. He became Warner Bros.' biggest star, a mascot for American GIs in World War II, and one of the most recognizable cartoon characters on the planet — cool under pressure, smarter than everyone in the room, and always, always chewing that carrot.
The rabbit who asked "What's up, Doc?" taught generations of kids that wit beats force, and that the little guy can win. Not bad for eight minutes of work.
Photo: Bugs Bunny's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Credit: Orizan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
