14 Highly Uncomfortable Facts About Bugs Bunny
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Bugs Bunny is more than a wascally wabbit. He’s also a wacist, a fascist and a bit of a Fweddy Kwuegew.
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He’s Given Countless Rabbits Tummy Trouble
Rabbits can eat some carrots, but their high sugar and low fiber contents are a great recipe for rabbit diarrhea. Because of Bugs, everyone thinks carrots and rabbits are a match made in heaven, but he only chomps a carrot to mimic Clark Gable in It Happened One Night.
Is Bugs Bunny to Blame for Justin Roiland?
Mel Blanc chewed actual carrots while voicing the character, for authenticity’s sake. Sounds a lot like Roiland’s habit of getting rip-roaring drunk to voice Rick for Rick and Morty. We can’t say for sure, but it’s not unlikely that Roiland got this idea from Blanc.
Bugs Bunny Gave Blanc an Eating Disorder
Mel Blanc hated carrots. He would spit out the chewed-up carrot goop into a bucket he kept next to him while recording. Textbook disordered eating.
He’s Hipster Trash
Bugs Bunny — specifically his accent — is from Flatbush, Brooklyn. That’s the primordial ooze from which polycules and handbag-mustache boyfriends emerged.
He Had a Stranglehold on Mel Blanc’s Psyche
Blanc once fell into a coma after a bad car accident. His family tried desperately to get through to him, but he wouldn’t respond — for 14 days! — until a neurologist asked “Bugs Bunny, how are you doing today?” Blanc immediately responded “Myeeeh, what’s up, doc?” Chilling.
He Freddy Krueger’d His Way into Other People’s Brains, Too
A 2001 memory study exposed participants to a fake ad for Disneyland, describing Bugs Bunny as one of the attractions. One-third of participants later recalled meeting Bugs Bunny at Disneyland — a legal impossibility.
Bugs Even Left an Indelible Mark on Mel Blanc’s Gravestone
Bugs let, nay, forced Blanc to live for 81 years, but Blanc finally escaped in 1989. His tombstone reads, “THAT’S ALL FOLKS.”
His Fascist Bona Fides Are Concerning, to Say the Least
Bugs Bunny has been the official mascot of various military gunneries, quadrants and bombardment groups. In 1943, the Marines made it official: After Bugs appeared in an animated short in full Marine regalia, they awarded his propaganda by making him an honorary master sergeant.
He Forever Tarnished the USPS
Bugs Bunny was the first cartoon to appear on a U.S. postage stamp in 1997, forever altering the path of the hallowed institution. Contemporary critics said putting a cartoon on a stamp would fuel the “commercialization” of stamp art, and it seems they were right — it’s the 7th most-popular stamp in history.
Elmer Fudd’s Offensive Counterparts
Before Fudd was locked in as Bugs’ archnemesis, there was sort of a villain-of-the-week situation going on. A couple of the more offensive hunters that Bugs picked on were Willoughby, a mentally handicapped hound dog based directly on Lennie from Of Mice and Men, and an unnamed African American that renowned animator and racist Tex Avery really went to town on.
Bugs Wouldn’t Quit Skewering Indigenous People
He also went up against Hiawatha, an indigenous stereotype, and another unnamed indigenous stereotype that Bugs derogatorily called Hiawatha.
He Wasn’t Kind to Residents of the Axis Powers in World War II
In a 1944 film with a title too racist to type, Bugs off-screen murders a bunch of Japanese people, is accosted by an extremely stereotypical sword-wielding soldier and goes in drag as a geisha in order to try and hook up with a Sumo wrestler.
He Fought Slavery… with Brownface
In 1953’s Southern Fried Rabbit, Yosemite Sam (correctly!) believes slavery isn’t over. Bugs escapes his wrath by dressing like an enslaved person and saying all the stuff you’d imagine he would in that scenario. Then he transforms into Abraham Lincoln to admonish Sam for mistreating enslaved people.
And Also Blackface
In 1949’s Mississippi Hare, he’s plucked from a cotton field by African-American laborers, which isn’t necessarily in his control. But the blackface rendition of “Camptown Races” certainly is.
