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
Development of Bugs Bunny and of the character. A model sheet by Charlie Thorson describes this prototype character as "Bugs' Bunny" (note the apostrophe) but in most of the cartoons the character is unnamed. Virgil Ross, the animator for "A Wild Hare" describes how the character came to be named in the interview published by "Animato!" magazine #19. Mel Blanc often told the story of the creation of the character and its name. He suggested that the character be named after the character's initial director, Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. Blanc's own book, "That's Not All Folks" published by Warner Books in 1988, describes the "tough