Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Bugs Bunny Evolution- he gets a name and some style

volu
In these next 2 cartoons, the directors are still using the Bob Givens model sheet, yet they still manage to assert their own styles on top of the standardized studio one. This is illegal today.

Elmer's Pet Rabbit - Chuck Jones
Chuck loved his shadows in the early days!
This is the first time the rabbit gets called "Bugs Bunny".
Chuck is starting to put angles on his characters.

Bugs walks all hunched over like Groucho Marx in Chuck's early cartoons. He is still part animal.

Marc Deckter sent me this and says it's a Bob McKimson model. Maybe it is, but it's not too different than the Bob Givens rabbit yet. I'm not sure which cartoon it goes with. Anyone know for sure?

Tortoise Beats Hare -Tex Avery

This is the first cartoon that Bugs Bunny loses in.

Bugs is drawn really solidly in the cartoon and his personality is pretty defined, but it's a slightly different personality than what he became shortly after. I really like this period of Bugs. All This and Rabbit Stew and Heckling Hare are two more great Tex Avery Bugs cartoons in this style. Then Clampett's Wabbit Twouble. I guess this Bugs lasted through Wacky Wabbit. Then Bugs Bunny Gets The Boid was a transition to the more triangle headed and older rabbit you see in Falling Hare.

Clampett later remade the tortoise and hare cartoon, as if he wasn't satisfied with how it came out the first time. It's great to compare this to Tortoise Wins By a Hare to see how two different directors use the same story and the same characters and get a completely different experience out of it.
And then if you are a real man and love Friz, check his own remake to see just how he brought the cartoon "back down to earth" (his own words).
What's the name of that cartoon you Friz experts out there?

Look at the difference between the way he is drawn in this cartoon as compared with Chuck's. Can you articulate it, now that your eyeballs are getting an education?

Now the turtle is the fag.


I love when Bugs tries to figure out how he lost. It shows a whole extra dimension to his character.