Bugs Bunny that another proposed name for the character was "Happy Rabbit." In the actual cartoons and publicity, however, the name "Happy" only seems to have been used in reference to Bugs Hardaway. In "Hare-um Scare-um", a newspaper headline reads, "Happy Hardaway." Animation historian David Gerstein disputes that "Happy Rabbit" was ever used as an official name, believing that the only usage of the term was from Mel Blanc himself in humorous and fanciful tales he told about the character's development in the 1970s and 1980s; the name "Bugs Bunny" was used as early as August 1939, in the Motion Picture Herald,
Bugs Bunny He would not appear in new material on-screen again until "Bugs and Daffy's Carnival of the Animals" aired in 1976. From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, Bugs was featured in various animated specials for network television, such as "Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet", "Bugs Bunny's Easter Special", "Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales," and "Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over". Bugs also starred in several theatrical compilation features during this time, including the United Artists distributed documentary "" (1975) and Warner Bros.' own releases: "The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie" (1979), "The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie" (1981), "" (1982),