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 Nips the Nips Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips is a 1944 "Merrie Melodies" cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. Somewhere in the Pacific, Bugs is floating in a box, singing to himself, when 'the island that inevitably turns up in this kind of picture' turns up. Bugs swims towards it, and admires the peace and quiet, when bombs start going off ("The Storm" from the "William Tell Overture" is also heard in the background). Bugs ducks into a haystack, and soon comes face to face with a Japanese soldier; a short, buck-toothed, bare-footed Japanese man who says his 'Ls'