Development of Bugs Bunny start of the story reading, "Starring Bugs Bunny" (the first on-screen use of that name), but nevertheless featured the same initial off-model versions of Elmer and the hare seen in "...Camera". Here, Elmer goes to a pet shop and buys a rabbit that promptly proceeds to turn his life upside down. "A Wild Hare" (July 27, 1940) was the debut of Bugs Bunny as we know him today. Tex Avery changed several of the rabbit's characteristics: his voice became a cross between the Bronx and Brooklyn accents, the color of his gloves became white, as did the color of his
Bugs Bunny Scare-um" (1939), directed again by Dalton and Hardaway. This cartoon—the first in which he is depicted as a gray bunny instead of a white one—is also notable as the rabbit's first singing role. Charlie Thorson, lead animator on the film, gave the character a name. He had written "Bugs' Bunny" on the model sheet that he drew for Hardaway. In promotional material for the cartoon, including a surviving 1939 presskit, the name on the model sheet was altered to become the rabbit's own name: "Bugs" Bunny (quotation marks only used, on and off, until 1944). In his autobiography, Blanc claimed