Bugs Bunny as the "Rabbit Season/Duck Season" trilogy and are famous for originating the "historic" rivalry between Bugs and Daffy Duck. Jones' classic "What's Opera, Doc?" (1957), casts Bugs and Elmer Fudd in a parody of Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen". It was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1992, becoming the first cartoon short to receive this honor. In the fall of 1960, ABC debuted the prime-time television program "The Bugs Bunny Show". This show packaged many of the post-1948 Warners cartoons with newly animated wraparounds.
Development of Bugs Bunny Development of Bugs Bunny A prototypical version of Bugs Bunny appeared in four cartoon shorts before making his first official appearance in Tex Avery's "A Wild Hare". While this prototype version is commonly referred to as "Happy Rabbit", animation historian David Gerstein disputes this, saying that the only usage of the term was from Mel Blanc himself; the name "Bugs Bunny" was used as early as August 1939, in the Motion Picture Herald, in a review for the short "Hare-um Scare-um". Several published first person accounts, encyclopedic references, and Warner Bros.' own published material describe the inception of the name