The Bugs Bunny Mystery Special The Bugs Bunny Mystery Special The Bugs Bunny Mystery Special is an animated television special that was broadcast on CBS October 26, 1980. Presented as an Alfred Hitchcock-style whodunit, the plot is modeled after those of "North by Northwest" and "The Fugitive". Like most Looney Tunes specials of the time, this program consists of clips from classic cartoons with some new original animation holding them together. A criminal known as the Tall, Dark Stranger robs a bank, and Inspector Elmer Fudd mistakenly arrests Bugs Bunny for the crime. Escaping from jail, Bugs sets out to prove his innocence while evading
The Bugs Bunny Show in unison. For the final chorus, a lineup of "Looney Tunes" characters joins Bugs and Daffy onstage (Porky Pig is absent from the procession). "The Bugs Bunny Show" proved beneficial to the Warner Bros. cartoon staff, as it allowed the studio to remain open despite the shrinking market for theatrical animated shorts. The final first-run episode of the original "Bugs Bunny Show" aired on August 7, 1962, and the Warner Bros. animation studio closed the following spring. ABC began re-running "The Bugs Bunny Show" on Saturday mornings in mid-August 1962 until September 1967 when it was moved to Sunday mornings