What Is Your Favorite Cartoon - The Bugs Bunny Generation

If you want to see the real generation gap, just ask someone - "What is your favorite cartoon?" If the answer is Spongebob Squarepants they are probably a Gen X'er, and if it's Cars or Transformers, then they are probably a Millennial, but if it's Bugs Bunny or any of the Warner Brother's Looney Tunes characters, then you have a genuine Baby Boomer on your hands.

So to answer that question, what is your favorite cartoon?, it's Looney Tunes of course. Bugs Bunny, and his supporting cast of Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and crew. A combination of innocence, mischief, and slapstick that would come to define two generations of American kids, and be used to promote everything from kid's products to war bonds.

The Warner Brother's Looney Tunes Cartoon series started wayyyyy back in the 1930's, as a companion series to Merry Melodies, another Warner Brother's cartoon series that was developed to promote Warner Brother's Studios music division. The studio had recently purchased Brunswick Records, along with four music publishers for US $28 million. In 1929 that was a lot of money, and they were eager to start promoting this material to cash in on the sales of sheet music and phonograph records.

The Looney Tunes, (and Merry Melodies), characters were the work of the master of the cartoon world - Leon Schlesinger.

The series, like any commercial production had its ups and downs, and direction changes. Contract disputes with the original cartoonists of the series caused them to leave, and take their copyrighted characters with them in 1933, so Looney Tunes had to come up with new stars. Enter Porky Pig and Daffy Duck - the first major cartoon series characters of the Looney Tunes cast.

In 1940 the biggest and most famous cartoon character of all time was introduced - Bugs Bunny, and his trademark "What's up Doc?"

It wasn't long after that introduction that Bugs Bunny quickly became the most iconic Looney Tunes character.

Move over Porky. Forget it Daffy. There's a new sheriff in town. Master of disguise, king of the cons, the master out-witter - Bugs Bunny and his laconic, "What's up Doc?," a statement that says it all.

Elmer Fudd wants to shoot him. Daffy Duck wants to outwit him. Wiley Coyote wants to blow him up. And the Tasmanian Devil wants to eat him. But nobody gets the upper-hand on Bugs Bunny, and his infuriating "What's up Doc?" just rubs salt into their wounds of defeat.

The great "first" Bugs Bunny cartoon debate rages on. Was it Bugs, or just a rabbit? Was that Elmer Fudd, or just a hunter? Was 1939's Hare-um Scare-um the first real Bugs Bunny cartoon, or just a prototype, a glimpse of what was to come?

The official studio answer is that the 1940 A Wild Hare cartoon is the first official Bugs Bunny cartoon, because those were the character portrayals, (Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd), that became the final official versions of Bugs and Elmer, (although small character tweeks continued through to 1944), used in the series.

But...

Both sides are right. The 1939 cartoon was the first appearance of the characters that would become Bugs and Elmer, but their character names, and iconic appearances were those of the 1940's A Wild Hare cartoon.

Like Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and later Penn and Teller, the pair would grow to become the ultimate jokster and straightman combo.

Of course Merry Melodies and Looney Tunes are cartoon series, but my favorite cartoon of all times is...

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