BUGS BUNNY'S DEBUT

Above is 'Porgy's Hare Hunt' from 1939. which features the first appearance of Bugs Bunny as well as another look at the evolution of Porky Pig (see below posts). Porky is considerably more adult than he was only a couple of years earlier and seems much closer to his eventual persona. He stutters, is overly reliant on his dopey dog (which makes him seem sensitive and supportive) and somehow comes off as so hapless that you feel sorry for him in spite of the fact that he wants to pointlessly murder animals. (I guess people still do that, don't they?)

Bugs, for his part, is practically unrecognizable. His buck teeth and ridiculous tail do him no good in the looks department, but his personality is what's missing. Though already smarter than those who wish to hunt him, it's done without the swagger and amusement of the later Bugs. And his laugh is, weirdly, the same as Woody Woodpecker's. Which came first? (Woody I believe). So was this okay with Walter Lantz? A subject for further research which I, for one, have not the slightest interest in conducting.

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