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,
The Bugs Bunny Show a half-hour and renamed "The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show". Beginning with its third season, "The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show" was expanded to a full hour, and the original "This Is It" theme was reintroduced, accompanied by a newly animated introductory sequence. Another version of the "This Is It" opening sequence was done in 1992. Though the program did not qualify for the educational/informational designation, it nonetheless remained on Saturday mornings after the new designation debuted in 1996, one of the few non-E/I programs to survive the rules changes. That same year, ABC was bought by The Walt Disney