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Western Animation / Bugs Bunny

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"Eh... What's up, Doc?"
"Some people call me cocky and brash, but actually I am just self-assured. I'm nonchalant, imperturbable, contemplative. I play it cool, but I can get hot under the collar. And above all I'm a very 'aware' character. I'm well aware that I am appearing in an animated cartoon... And sometimes I chomp on my carrot for the same reason that a stand-up comic chomps on his cigar. It saves me from rushing from the last joke to the next one too fast. And I sometimes don't act, I react. And I always treat the contest with my pursuers as 'fun and games'. When momentarily I appear to be cornered or in dire danger and I scream, don't be consoined [sic] — it's actually a big put-on. Let's face it, Doc. I've read the script and I already know how it turns out."
— Bob Clampett, writing as Bugs.

Bugs Bunny is the modern American trickster and easily the biggest star of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and their related works. The only rival of Mickey Mouse, he's inarguably one of the most famous cartoon characters in the world and an icon of The Golden Age of Animation. This character as a Funny Animal is found in many cultures' mythologies, including Reynard the Fox, Anansi the spider, Native American spirit Coyote, and Bugs' great-grandfather, Br'er Rabbit. Bugs is specifically a Karmic Trickster: harmless when left alone, but gleefully ready to dish out poetic justice whenever he perceives the need. There is an element of education in his revenge.

Like many of his peers, Bugs' origins are unclear. Before him, The Marx Brothers were the premier American tricksters, and traces of their influence can be found in many of his best known mannerisms. (In fact, many people aren't aware that Bugs' saying, "Of course you realize, dis means war!" originated in films such as Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera.)

More directly, shy, timid prey unexpectedly turning on the pursuer was a common theme at the Warner Bros. animation studios in the early days — Daffy Duck made his debut in the same way. Director Ben "Bugs" Hardaway introduced the notion of this character as a "scwewy wabbit" in "Porky's Hare Hunt" (1938). His name derives either from Hardaway's — model sheets were said to have been tagged with "Bugs' Bunny" — or the contemporary Brooklyn slang "bugs", meaning "crazy". Or both.

The proto-Bugs in "Porky's Hare Hunt" was basically Woody Woodpecker as a rabbit. After a few further early appearances where the design and characterization were modified (with the bunny notably gaining grey fur in Hardaway's "Hare-Um Scare-Um" from 1939), it's generally accepted by all parties that the smart, suave, on-the-ball wabbit we know and love today took his full official form in Tex Avery's "A Wild Hare" (1940). Chuck Jones later made him more sympathetic by giving Bugs that iconic attitude of live-and-let-live, right up until he's just that one step too far, and then it's war — "at which point [he] retaliates in every way he can imagine, and he is a very imaginative rabbit."

The job of any trickster, but especially the American type, is to think the thoughts and do the things that they say can't be thought or done. He's most likely to be found disturbing the complacency of his culture, or deflating the pompousness of its symbols. Since Bugs is also a comedy hero, he has the added advantage of Plot Armor that could stop an armor-piercing round.

His influence on modern American culture, like that of all the Looney Tunes characters, has been far-reaching to the point of ubiquity. For obvious reasons, though, Bugs is the favorite, especially in the theatrical years, getting more shorts than any of his co-stars, with a impressive 168 titles under his beltnote . Naturally, he has spawned several imitators over the years, notably direct descendant Buster Bunny of Tiny Toon Adventures and Yakko, Wakko and Dot of Animaniacs — although these last three skew more heavily toward The Prankster.

In 2011, Bugs starred in The Looney Tunes Show, having given up his nomadic roots and rabbit holes in favor of an average suburb, shared with co-star Daffy Duck. In 2015, a new series starring Bugs—Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production, later renamed New Looney Tunes—debuted on Cartoon Network. In 2020, a back-to-their-roots series, Looney Tunes Cartoons, debuted on HBO Max. Bugs' next project was the 2022 Edutainment Show Bugs Bunny Builders, in which he heads a construction company that serves the city of Looneyburg.

    open/close all folders 

     Filmography 

1938

  • Porky's Hare Hunt (LT, Hardaway): First appearance of the Bugs Bunny prototype. Here, he is a tiny, pudgy white rabbit with a Goofy-esque rural accent, who, in Ben Hardaway's words, was "Daffy Duck in a rabbit suit." Naturally, this prototype is far different from the Bugs we all know and love, being a heckler, but with a touch of Groucho Marx thrown into the mixing pot. This character at the least provided a foundation for the character of the Bugs we know. This prototype is also very similar to the earliest incarnations of Woody Woodpecker, who Ben Hardaway also helped write for.

1939

  • Prest-O Change-O (MM, Jones): Second sighting of the prototype, who has taken up residence in the house of the magician Sham-Fu, and heckles the poor pups who he encounters for no discernible motive. He has become slightly taller and slimmer at this point. Bugs' trademark ability to have objects come out of nowhere is presented here for the first time, although in the context of him being a magician's rabbit. The prototype is silent here, save for his laugh. Public Domain.
  • Hare-Um Scare-um (MM, Hardaway/Dalton): Where Bugs is officially named as Bugs' Bunny—note the possessive term, which appeared on the model sheet prepared by Charles Thorson. He is still manic, but has now grown in size and sprouted grey fur and an apricot muzzle, looking closer to the Bugs we know. His Hammerspace ability is revisited, now presented in a non-magical context. He also hams it up with some sarcastic mock-pathos, which would be echoed in A Wild Hare and The Wabbit Who Came To Supper. This short is also infamous for having a lost ending that was cut out of most original prints, but has been found and included in Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Vol. 2.

1940

  • Elmer's Candid Camera (MM, Jones): Debut of Elmer Fudd. Bugs is almost fully realized as a character by this point, with his original The Prankster traits played down in favor of being more reserved and in control than before, but his character is still very underplayed. That aside, he still has some of his unmotivated heckler self left in him, pestering poor Elmer (who was just taking pictures) to the point where he has a nervous breakdown. Chuck Jones himself was not happy with this short, saying the rabbit was "Bugs with his umbilical cord in his hand looking for a place to plug it in" and that it should only be watched "if you are dying to die of ennui."
  • A Wild Hare (MM, Avery) - Starring Elmer. Official debut of the fully realized Bugs Bunny. This short is a semi-remake of "Elmer's Candid Camera", but improves in what Tex Avery felt was flawed about "Camera"—such as only making Bugs a defensive character who reacts to a threat and plays off of villainous Elmer's stupidity. Oscar nominee.
  • Patient Porky (LT, Clampett): A rabbit pops up for a gag in the first couple minutes, looking very close to Bugs' final design, but still having the manicness and laugh of the proto-Bugs.

1941

  • Elmer's Pet Rabbit (MM, Jones): Chuck Jones' first short with Bugs, and the first one to actually give his name. In this short he has an extremely foul temper and a horrible personality, both of which were hurriedly dropped afterwards. He also had a distinctly different voice in this short, sounding more like a yokel than the New York accent that he would be famous for (and which was previously introduced in "A Wild Hare").
  • Tortoise Beats Hare (MM, Avery): The first of the three "Bugs Vs. Cecil" shorts. Chuck Jones considers this a failure, feeling that Tex had swapped Bugs' in-control, defensive personality in favor of making him the loser ala Elmer Fudd while giving Cecil Turtle Bugs' personality (but technically, it did show us a whole different side of Bugs than before).
  • Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (MM, Freleng): Friz Freleng's first effort with Bugs. Here, he is presented as rather passive, at least in contrast with the previous shorts. Oscar nominee.
  • The Heckling Hare (MM, Avery): The cartoon that caused Avery to leave Leon's cartoon studio to make cartoons for MGM. With that said, Avery finally managed to nail Bugs' defensive personality again, capturing what made him such a hit in "A Wild Hare".
  • All This and Rabbit Stew (MM, Avery, uncredited): One of the "Censored Eleven" Public Domain.
  • Wabbit Twouble (MM, Cwampett) - Starring the Fat Elmer. Bob Clampett's first Bugs Bunny. It is rumored that this cartoon was started by Tex Avery but finished by Clampett, backed up by the fact that Tex and Bob planned it together early on. Here, Bugs goes right back to being a Villain Protagonist, pestering poor Elmer (solely because he set up camp in Bugs' territory). But wheras the earlier Bugs were fairly aggressive in their pestering, Clampett presents Bugs as going about it in a more playful, confident way, as if a nod to that Bugs knows exactly what he's doing, so in a sense, he's certainly not too Out of Character here. Also notable for being the origin of the “Big Chungus” meme.

1942

  • The Wabbit Who Came to Supper (MM, Freleng) - Starring the Fat Elmer. Again, Bugs is more defensive here than usual, but his in-control persona still kicks up, manipulating Elmer into caring for him. Public Domain.
  • The Wacky Wabbit (MM, Clampett) - Starring the Fat Elmer. Again, Bugs is a Villain Protagonist, but is still very playful. Public Domain.
  • Hold the Lion, Please (MM, Jones): A very bizarre take on the Bugs Bunny shorts, with Bugs having his vague personality, but little of what made him so popular in previous shorts, a clear testament to that Jones still didn't have a full grasp of his character.
  • Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (MM, Clampett): Debut of Beaky/Killer the Buzzard. Unlike Clampett's previous shorts, Bugs is back to being a defensive character again.
  • Fresh Hare (MM, Freleng) - Starring Elmer. Freleng presents Bugs as a defensive Villain Protagonist, on the run of Mountie Elmer Fudd in the Canadian wilderness. Public Domain.
  • The Hare-Brained Hypnotist (MM, Freleng) - Starring Elmer. Public Domain.
  • Case of the Missing Hare (MM, Jones): Jones finally nails Bugs' character here. Public Domain.
  • Crazy Cruise (MM, Avery/Clampett, both uncredited): Not a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but he does make a cameo in the ending.
  • Any Bonds Today?? (AKA Bugs Bunny Bond Rally, Clampett): A very brief bumper short made to promote War Bonds. With Elmer and Porky. Public Domain.

1943

1944

  • Jasper Goes Hunting: Actually a Puppetoons short from Paramount Pictures, but Bugs makes a cameo in it.
  • What's Cookin, Doc? (MM, Clampett). Bugsy is presented as a very showboaty ham in this short. Clampett alledgedly make this short to make fun of Friz Freleng, possibly for his previous effort "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt", being snubbed for an Oscar. Features large usage of Stock Footage from "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt", although it's in the context of the story and not a mere corner cut move.
  • Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears (MM, Jones): The debut of Jones' Three Bears characters.
  • Hare Ribbin' (MM, Clampett): Clampett once again presents Bugs as a defensive character here. The short is notable for having an infamous alternate ending, in which Bugs himself guns down the dog that was chasing him! This "Directors Cut" can be found on the fifth Looney Tunes Golden Collection. This short also features Stock Footage from "The Heckling Hare" and "A Wild Hare".
  • Hare Force (MM, Freleng)
  • Buckaroo Bugs (LT, Clampett): One of the only Bugs cartoons where he is explicitly called and recognized as a straight up villain in-universe. Also the first Bugs cartoon released under the Looney Tunes label; discounting his cameo in Porky Pig's Feat, all of his previous shorts were Merrie Melodies.
  • The Old Grey Hare (MM, Clampett) - Starring Elmer. This is a bizarre cartoon that delves into the chemistry between Bugs and Elmer.
  • Stage Door Cartoon (MM, Freleng) - Starring Elmer.

1945

1946

  • The Big Snooze (LT, Clampett) - Starring Elmer. Last Bugs cartoon that Clampett directed, and the last of his cartoons that was released.
  • Rhapsody Rabbit (MM, Freleng): Infamous for its conspicuous similarity to the Tom and Jerry short The Cat Concerto, although Freleng insisted that it was a complete coincidence. Also the very first cartoon to air on Cartoon Network.

1947

1948

1949

1950

  • The Lion's Busy (MM, Freleng) - Cameo; a Beaky Buzzard cartoon.
  • Hurdy-Gurdy Hare (MM, McKimson)
  • Mutiny on the Bunny (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam. The second of three cartoons featuring Sam as a pirate.
  • Homeless Hare (MM, Jones)
  • Big House Bunny (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam.
  • What's Up Doc? (LT, McKimson) - Starring Elmer. With caricatures of Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Al Jolson and Bing Crosby.
  • 8 Ball Bunny (LT, Jones) - Second and last appearance of Playboy Penguin, and features a caricature of Humphrey Bogart. One of the rare times where Bugs becomes something of a Butt-Monkey.
  • Hillbilly Hare (MM, McKimson)
  • Bunker Hill Bunny (MM, Freleng) - Starring Sam.
  • Bushy Hare (LT, McKimson)
  • Rabbit of Seville (LT, Jones) - Starring Elmer.

1951

  • French Rarebit (MM, McKimson)
  • His Hare-Raising Tale (LT, Freleng) - with clips from "Stage Door Cartoon," "Baseball Bugs" and "Haredevil Hare."

1952

1953

  • Duck Amuck (MM, Jones) - A Daffy Duck cartoon, but ol' Bugsy is the driving force behind the events of it.
  • Forward March Hare (LT, Jones)
  • Upswept Hare (MM, McKimson) - Starring Elmer.
  • Southern Fried Rabbit (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam.
  • Hare Trimmed (MM, Freleng) - Starring Sam and Granny from the Tweety and Sylvester series.
  • Bully for Bugs (LT, Jones) - The cartoon Jones created to spite against Edward Selzer because the latter told the former not to.

1954

  • Captain Hareblower (MM, Freleng) - Starring Sam. The last of three cartoons to feature Yosemite Sam as a pirate.
  • Bugs and Thugs (LT, Freleng) - Starring Rocky and Mugsy.
  • No Parking Hare (LT, McKimson)
  • Devil May Hare (LT, McKimson) - Starring Taz.
  • Bewitched Bunny (LT, Jones) - Starring Hazel.
  • Yankee Doodle Bugs (LT, Freleng)
  • Lumber Jack-Rabbit (LT, Jones) - the only 3-D cartoon from the studio.
  • Baby Buggy Bunny (MM, Jones)

1955

  • Beanstalk Bunny (MM, Jones) - Starring Elmer and Daffy.
  • Sahara Hare (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam.
  • Hare Brush (MM, Freleng) - Starring Elmer.
  • Rabbit Rampage (LT, Jones) - Cameo by Elmer. A sequel to "Duck Amuck".
  • This Is a Life? (MM, Freleng) - Starring Sam, Elmer, and Daffy. With clips from "Hare Do" and "Buccaneer Bunny."
  • Hyde and Hare (LT, Freleng)
  • Knight-mare Hare (MM, Jones)
  • Roman Legion-Hare (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam.

1956

  • Bugs' Bonnets (MM, Jones) - Starring Elmer.
  • Broom-Stick Bunny (LT, Jones) - Starring Hazel.
  • Rabbitson Crusoe (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam.
  • Napoleon Bunny-Part (MM, Freleng)
  • Barbary Coast Bunny (LT, Jones) - Only Bugs and Nasty Canasta cartoon.
  • Half-Fare Hare (MM, McKimson) - with caricatures of Jackie Gleason and Art Carney as Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton.
  • A Star Is Bored (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam, Elmer, and Daffy.
  • Wideo Wabbit (MM, McKimson) - Starring Elmer.
  • To Hare Is Human (MM, Jones) - Starring Wile E.

1957

  • Ali Baba Bunny (MM, Jones) - Starring Daffy.
  • Bedevilled Rabbit (MM, McKimson) - Starring Taz.
  • Piker's Peak (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam.
  • What's Opera, Doc? (MM, Jones) - Starring Elmer. Widely considered to be one of the best Looney Tunes shorts of all time, spoofing much of Wagner’s works.
  • Bugsy and Mugsy (LT, Freleng) - Starring Rocky and Mugsy.
  • Show Biz Bugs (LT, Freleng) - Starring Daffy.
  • Rabbit Romeo (MM, McKimson) - Starring Elmer.

1958

  • Hare-Less Wolf (MM, Freleng)
  • Hare-Way to the Stars (LT, Jones) - Starring Marvin.
  • Now Hare This (LT, McKimson)
  • Knighty Knight Bugs (LT, Freleng) - Academy Award winner for Best Animated Short Film, starring Sam. Surprisingly, this is the ONLY Bugs cartoon to have won an oscar!
  • Pre-Hysterical Hare (LT, McKimson) - Starring Elmer. One of six Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts to use a stock music soundtrack (due to a then-ongoing musician's strike), and the only classic Bugs Bunny short to have Elmer Fudd voiced by someone other than Arthur Q. Bryan, with Dave Barry instead voicing him.

1959

  • Baton Bunny (LT, Jones/Levitow)
  • Hare-Abian Nights (MM, Harris) - Starring Sam.
  • Apes of Wrath (MM, Freleng) - Cameo by Daffy.
  • Backwoods Bunny (MM, McKimson)
  • Wild and Woolly Hare (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam.
  • Bonanza Bunny (MM, McKimson)
  • A Witch's Tangled Hare (LT, Levitow) - Starring Hazel.
  • People Are Bunny (MM, McKimson) - Starring Daffy and caricature of Art Linkletter.

1960

  • Horse Hare (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam. Hasn't been seen on TV since the shorts were shown on Nickelodeon due to Indian stereotyping.
  • Person to Bunny (MM, Freleng) - Starring Elmer and Daffy. Final short in which Arthur Q. Bryan voices Elmer. Daws Butler did Elmer's remaining lines after Bryan's death.
  • Rabbit's Feat (LT, Jones) - Starring Wile E. Coyote.
  • From Hare To Heir (MM, Freleng) - Starring Sam.
  • Lighter Than Hare (MM, Freleng) - Starring Sam.

1961

  • The Abominable Snow Rabbit (LT, Jones; co-dir.: Noble) - Starring Daffy.
  • Compressed Hare (MM, Jones; co-dir.: Noble) - Starring Wile E.
  • Prince Violent (LT, Freleng; co-dir.: Pratt) - Later renamed Prince Varmint for television broadcasts. Starring Sam.

1962

  • Wet Hare (LT, McKimson)
  • Bill of Hare (MM, McKimson) - Starring Taz.
  • Shishkabugs (LT, Freleng) - Starring Sam.

1963

  • Devil's Feud Cake (MM, Freleng) - Starring Sam. With clips from "Hare Lift," "Roman Legion Hare" and "Sahara Hare."
  • The Million Hare (LT, McKimson) - Starring Daffy.
  • Hare-Breadth Hurry (LT, Jones; co-dir.: Noble) - Starring Wile E.; actually a Road Runner cartoon, but Bugs fills in after RR "sprained a giblet making a sharp curve."
  • The Unmentionables (MM, Freleng) - Starring Rocky and Mugsy.
  • Mad as a Mars Hare (MM, Jones; co-dir.: Noble) - Starring Marvin.
  • Transylvania 6-5000 (MM, Jones; co-dir.: Noble)

1964

  • Dumb Patrol (LT, Chiniquy) - Starring Porky and Sam.
  • Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare (MM, McKimson) - Starring Taz.
  • The Iceman Ducketh (LT, Monroe) - Starring Daffy. Thought to have been started by Chuck Jones, but was finished by Phil Monroe after Jones was fired due to breach of contract.
  • False Hare (LT, McKimson) - Cameo by Foghorn Leghorn; Last of the original theatrical Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Post-1964

  • Box Office Bunny (1991, Van Citters) - 50th anniversary short starring Elmer and Daffy. First short to feature Jeff Bergman as the voice of all three characters following Mel Blanc's passing in 1989.
  • Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers (1992, Lennon/Ford) - Starring Daffy, Elmer, and Sam.
  • Carrotblanca (1995, McCarthy) - Parody of Casablanca.
  • From Hare to Eternity (1996, Jones) - Starring Sam. Only time Sam appears in a Chuck Jones short, this was Jones' tribute to Friz Freleng, who had then recently died.
  • (blooper) Bunny! (1997, Lennon/Ford) - Starring Daffy, Elmer, and Sam. Produced in 1991, but not released until 6 years later.
  • The Matwix (2001) - Parody of The Matrix and starring Elmer. First short with Billy West voicing Bugs.
  • The Island Of Dr Moron (2002) - Starring Gossamer, Dr. Moron and the Carrot Monster.
  • Satellite Sam (2002) - Starring Sam.
  • Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas (2003, Kopp/Shin) - Starring Sam.
  • Bunk Bedlam (2004) - Starring Sylvester, Sylvester Jr. and Clyde Bunny.
  • Fast Feud (2005) - Starring Daffy.

Television specials with original material

  • Bugs and Daffy's Carnival of the Animals (Jones, 1976) - A combination live-action/animation 23-minute special, featuring interpretations of Ogden Nash poems set to the music of Camille Saint-Saëns. Bugs's first appearance in original material since 1964.
  • Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979)
    • Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol (Freleng) - Starring Sam and Porky.
    • The Fright Before Christmas (Freleng) - Starring Clyde and Taz.
  • Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over (1980)
  • Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1990) - This Crossover special marked the first time Bugs was voiced by someone other than Mel Blanc (in this case, Jeff Bergman).

Television shows

Movies

Comic-Books

  • Looney Tunes: In 1943, Bugs Bunny received his own spotlight in Dell Comics' Four Color.
  • Bugs Bunny: 1952–1962. Bugs' first comic-book series, published by Dell Comics.
  • Bugs Bunny: 1962–1984. Second solo book, published by Western Publishing.
  • Looney Tunes Magazine: Quarterly magazine launched by DC Comics in 1989. It was licensed out to Welsh Publishing beginning with issue 7 and was renamed to Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes Magazine. It ended after issue 21 in 1995.
  • Looney Tunes: Launched by DC in 1994, still ongoing.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny Special (August, 2017}: Comic crossover between Bugs and DC's Legion of Super-Heroes.

Comic-Strips

  • Bugs Bunny: Bugs' own newspaper comic-strip ran from 1944 to 1990.

Video Games

"Of course you realize this means tropes!":

    A-M 
  • Absurdly Dedicated Worker: In "Southern Fried Rabbit", Bugs Bunny encounters Yosemite Sam as a Confederate soldier guarding the Mason-Dixon line eighty odd years after the end of The American Civil War. When informed of this fact, Sam replies "I ain't no clockwatcher!"
  • Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: His default "outfit" is a pair of gloves, and nothing else.
  • The Ace: Bugs in his more modern depictions, to the point of finally getting revenge against Cecil in The Looney Tunes Show. While Bugs mellowed down in the show, Cecil just became even more of a Jerkass.
  • Acme Products: Bugs has made use of their services, with better results than Wile E. Coyote.
  • Alliterative Name: Bugs Bunny.
  • Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: Bugs's catchphrase is "What's up, doc?" usually said in a cheeky, casual voice but not always.
    • In "Hare Ribbin", he says it in an annoyed tone when a dog sniffs him.
    • In "Hasty Hare", he says it in a frightened tone and with a stammer when he realises that what he thought was a kid dressed up for Halloween was actually Marvin the Martian.
  • Always Someone Better:
    • During the theatrical shorts, Bugs Bunny could outsmart anybody except Cecil Turtle and the gremlin in "Falling Hare". In The Looney Tunes Show, Bugs would often come out the victor even against Cecil.
    • He plays the opposite end of the role perfectly to the envious Daffy Duck however; Chuck Jones has even stated that Bugs is meant to be everything Daffy isn't.
  • Ambiguously Jewish: The Brooklyn accent, among other things, but also subtle things, like when he mentions having grown up playing Pisha-Paysha after being challenged to a game of blackjack (by Blacque Jacques Shellacque in Bonanza Bunny). The fact that his actor was a Jew might have had something to do with it.
  • America Saves the Day: The World War II propaganda chapters used this by having Bugs, as America, constantly foil Adolf Hitler or the Nazis.
  • And Call Him "George": Bugs is nearly smothered (literally) with adoration by an Abominable Snowman. The Trope Namer.
  • Angrish: Bugs just can't seem to put the hatred he feels for Cecil into words in Tortoise Beats the Hare.
    Bugs: You! You blankety blank blank turtle!
  • Anti-Hero: He may be the first fully-realized antihero in animation, coming right around the time Ideal Heroes like Mickey Mouse were falling out of favor. He goes from being a Heroic Comedic Sociopath to Karmic Trickster.
  • Animated Actors: What he is on-screen. He's usually a Fourth-Wall Observer if a cartoon doesn't already include one, and he's characterized as someone who is always in control. Ostensibly, it's because he read the script.
  • Anvil on Head: Bugs may not have pioneered this cartoon trope, but he used it and all its variations extensively throughout his career.
  • Arch-Enemy:
    • Of all the characters Bugs goes up against, Elmer Fudd is probably the most frequent. As a hunter, Elmer hunts Bugs for the sport of it, as if Bugs is a Worthy Opponent. Bugs, however, frequently sees Elmer as an annoyance.
    • Yosemite Sam also has a knack for constantly trying to kill Bugs, but for more personal reasons. Sam has a Hair-Trigger Temper at the best of times, and Bugs setting off Sam even slightly causes the outlaw to fly into a murderous rage.
    • Cecil Turtle is not only 3-0 against Bugs, he beat Bugs at his own game.
  • Art Evolution: Very literal evolution — in the earliest shorts, Bugs looks like a rabbit that walks upright, compared to his modern appearance where he's essentially a human with bunny ears.
  • Artistic License – Biology: In real life, rabbits do not eat carrots (in the wild at least—they're okay as a very occasional treat for pets, but are too sugary for regular consumption). Bugs is a large part of the reason humans think they do now.
  • Ash Face: Of course, occasions where he himself is a victim of this are quite rare. His antagonists on the other hand never fare as well.
  • Attention Whore: Definitely has moments of this, especially in "What's Cookin', Doc?" It's most prominent under Robert McKimson.
  • Attractive Bent-Gender: One of Bugs' favorite ways to escape Elmer Fudd, and it always works. The ears or tail usually give him away, though. Subverted in The Looney Tunes Show, in which calling Bugs an ugly woman in drag is a Running Gag.
  • The Bad Guy Wins:
    • In "Hare Brush", Elmer J. Fudd, who is an eccentric millionaire, has been committed to a sanitarium because he thinks he's a wabbit. Elmer lures Bugs into taking his place for a carrot, where he is examined by a psychiatrist who convinces Bugs that he is Elmer J. Fudd, millioniare who owns a mansion and a yacht. Bugs decides to go "wabbit hunting", only for Elmer in a Bugs Bunny suit to use his own tricks against him. An I.R.S. agent asks him, "Are you Elmer J. Fudd?" and after a hypnotized Bugs answers that he is, they take him away for income tax evasion, and Elmer (as Bugs) says "I may be a scwewy wabbit, but I'm not going to Alcatwaz!"
    • After Daffy goes through a bunch of fast-changing scenery and crazy re-drawing jobs in "Duck Amuck" where Bugs is revealed to be the artist, Bugs ends up on the receiving end of his own gags in "Rabbit Rampage", where the artist is revealed to be Elmer Fudd.
  • Badass Adorable: Despite being an anthropomorphic rabbit, Bugs is so cute that he almost outsmarted every enemy he stumbles upon! He even does a puppy eyes face when he was about to be killed by Witch Hazel in Broom-Stick Bunny.
  • Bag of Kidnapping: In "To Hare Is Human" Wile E. Coyote captured Bugs by forcing Bugs into a sack.
  • Bait-and-Switch: A recurring gag is that Bugs will set the villain of the week up to fall for one of his tricks (typically literally), only to decide that what he's doing is just cruel and put down a mattress or something to keep it from hurting as much.
    Bugs: Y'know, my conscience kinda bothers me sometimes... but not dis time! (yanks the mattress away)
  • Batman Gambit: Bugs often likes to take advantage of his foes' predilections. In "Ballot Box Bunny" for example he tries to offer voters free (but exploding) cigars, knowing Yosemite Sam would co-opt them, which he does, earning the ire of a big muscular voter.
  • Beary Funny: "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears".
  • Beastly Bloodsports: "Bully for Bugs" has him facing off against a strong, fast and smart bull in a rather unconventional bullfight.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Most of the time, he's very cheerful and friendly, but if pushed far enough (usually by people who keep bullying, cheating or threatening him or others), he's more than happy to retaliate and no amount of carrots will save you when he does!
  • Big Ball of Violence (i.e.: Case of the Missing Hare")
  • Big Brother Mentor: He was officially Buster Bunny's mentor in Tiny Toons, but he's often filled the role of mentor to the rest of the Tiny Toons as well.
  • Bizarre and Improbable Golf Game: My Bunny Lies Over The Sea, in which Bugs competes with a Scotsman in a game of golf. Needless to say, the rabbit fudges the rules a bit, like digging a trench to lead the ball into the hole, for instance.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: Yosemite Sam was created to push Bugs into one. While Bugs was usually a defensive character, earlier on he picked on blatantly unthreatening antagonists and often had no issues against taking it above the line of self-defense or sometimes even skipping the mentality altogether For the Lulz. Sam was a more malicious and challenging foe to Bugs, and also had the habit of picking on other characters, allowing Bugs to look more outright heroic in his trickery.
  • Book Dumb: While he's very clever and Street Smart, he has trouble reading ("diabolical sabotage" becomes "dy-a-bo-likkle...sab-o-tay-gee") and he doesn't know geography very well. In "The Abominable Snow Rabbit", he ends up in the Himalayas, while trying to reach Palm Springs:
    Daffy: You and your shortcuts. I told you to turn west at East St. Louis.
    Bugs: Yeah, I know. (looks at map) The way I figure it, we're somewhere in the Hi-may-lay-us mountains.
    Daffy: That's pronounced "Himalayas"... Himalayas? Why, you four-legged Marco Polo! That's in Asia!
  • Born in the Theatre: Like all Looney Tunes shorts, it's very obvious in his pre-50s cartoons that Bugs' shorts were originally aired in cinemas and not on television.
  • Bowdlerise: Like all the Warners' animated output — indeed, that of all the major American studios during and just post-WWII — some of Bugs' shorts are not very politically correct. At the height of the Pacific campaign during the war, he starred in a blatant bit of propaganda called "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips". He also appeared in Black Face on more than one occasion, including a short parody of Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer.
  • The Boxing Episode: "Rabbit Punch".
  • Bratty Half-Pint:
    • "I want an Easter egg! I want an Easter egg! I want an Easter egg! I want an Easter egg!"
    • Baby Face Finster. Not really a baby, just a midget bank robber in disguise.
  • Breakout Character: Much like Donald Duck before him, Bugs' popularity ended up eclipsing his predecessors, Porky and Daffy. The difference however is that Bugs eventually became the face of the company and remained so to this day.
  • Bring the Anchor Along: "Buccaneer Bunny" has Bugs Bunny hornswoggled into rowing Shanghai Sam's ship across the sea, with the rabbit affixed to his post with an ankle shackle attached to a heavy iron ball. Nonetheless, Bugs is able to carry it to the Captain, demanding that he rid the rabbit of this device. Shanghai Sam complies by throwing the ball overboard ... taking the rabbit with it.
  • Broken Ace: While Bugs is usually the cunning protagonist, writers took care to balance this with the odd fall-guy role so as not to lose audience sympathy. In keeping with the character's cockiness, though, when Bugs was a loser he was often a very sore one.
  • Brooklyn Rage: Do not make Bugs angry.
  • Bullet Dancing: Subverted in "Bugs Bunny Rides Again," where Bugs breaks into a full-bore softshoe routine when Yosemite Sam tries this trope on him. Then Bugs yells "Take it, Sam!" and Sam does — straight into an open mine shaft.
  • Crossover: Including Paramount's "Jasper Goes Hunting," Odradek's "Political Cartoon," Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
  • Card-Carrying Jerkass:
    • In his earliest incarnations, he really was a Card-Carrying Jerkass, and he would torment whoever his nemesis was for virtually no reason, as in Elmer's Pet Rabbit. Before long, though, his personality was toned down into a much more likable (and marketable) character. note 
    • Even in later cartoons, Bugs sometimes invokes this by wryly saying "Ain't I a stinker?". In most cases, however, his jerkassery is usually provoked by the antagonist's attempts to kill him.
  • Cargo Concealment Caper: Many cartoons start with Bugs inside a crate of carrots, which takes him to whatever location the story takes place in.
  • Cartoon Conductor: In "Long-Haired Hare" and "Baton Bunny".
  • Carnivore Confusion: In spite of being almost fully anthropomorphic, large chunks (perhaps even the majority) of Bugs' filmography are about hunters and other predators trying to kill him.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue:
    • A trademark. His catch phrase even emerged as this, given Bugs' reaction to Elmer shoving a gun to his face was "What's up, Doc?"
    • In "Hair-Raising Hare", Bugs is barricading a door with a monster on the other side and shouts frantically to the audience "Is there a doctor in the house?!" When one stands up in the audience, Bugs coolly enquires "Ehhh, what's up, Doc?"
  • Cavalier Consumption: Bugs often does this, as a possible holdover from his days as a prankster. When asking "Eh... What's up, Doc?", he's often feigning caring, and is even asking and talking while chewing.
  • Cement Shoes: Mobsters Mugsy and Rocky try this on Bugs in "The Unmentionables".
  • Chained to a Railway: Including one notable instance in which Elmer Fudd is tied to the tracks, and the "Super Chief" (namechecking a famous passenger train of the time) runs right over him — a long line of little bunnies following Bugs, who's wearing a feathered headdress.
  • Character Catchphrase:
    • "What's up, Doc?" He tends to say variations of this catch phrase: "What's up, Doctress?", "What's up, Duke?", "What's up, Duck?" (when talking to Daffy), etc.
    • "Of course you realize, This Means War!"
    • "I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque..." (pronounced "Alba-coy-key")
    • "What's cooking?"
    • "Ain't I a stinka?"
    • "What a maroon."
  • Characterization Marches On: The early shorts are very strange to watch if you're familiar with the Bugs from the late 40's and onward—for one thing, Bugs is sometimes the butt of the joke, filling a role similar to what Daffy Duck would later evolve into. One must understand that in his infant years, the directors stumbled across Bugs entirely by accident in A Wild Hare, and didn't quite "get" what made Bugs such a hit at first. and this is supported by the early batch of post-Wild Hare shorts like "Elmer's Pet Rabbit", "Tortoise Beats Hare" and "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt". It wasn't until "The Heckling Hare" and "All This and Rabbit Stew" when they started to get a clue as to what Bugs was about, and even then Chuck Jones still took a while to fully understand Bugs' character.
    • Friz Freleng reflected on Bugs's evolving characterization in a 1990 interview:
      Friz: We used to go into meetings every once in a while and say, "Look, we're losing Bugs. He's not bright and mischievous as he was." And we'd look at some of the new pictures, then look at some of the old pictures and say, "He's slowed down. He's getting to be an old man. Let's bring the kid back." As we were getting older, Bugs was getting older without our realizing it. We had to remind ourselves to snap him up and get him a little peppier and brighter. We were continuously reminding ourselves we could lose the character very easily.
  • Circus Episode: "Big Top Bunny" has Bugs join a circus, with Bruno the Magnificent, a Russian circus bear, trying to get rid of him.
    • "Acrobatty Bunny" finds Bugs having to outwit Nero the lion after a circus crew completes their job setting up the big top.
  • Civilized Animal: Although his behavior is entirely human, he still lives in a burrow and has to worry about being hunted or eaten. There was an odd situation in the cartoon "Hare Splitter" where Bugs and his rival live in furnished burrows and wear only their fur, while their contested girlfriend lives in a frame house and is fully dressed.
  • Clip Show: "His Hare-Raising Tale", "Devil's Feud Cake", "Hare-abian Nights" Not to mention a whole bunch of TV specials and feature films.
  • Close-Call Haircut:
    • Played with, along with every other gun cliche known to man, in most of the Yosemite Sam shorts. Bugs once used a trick shot on Sam that not only parted Sam's hair, but split his hat as well.
    • Elmer once did this to Bugs' ears.
  • Closet Shuffle: Bugs does this in "Racketeer Rabbit." Virtually duplicated in "Bugs and Thugs" with Rocky and Muggsy, once as a prank and once for real.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: While Bugs was almost always more intelligent than his foes, he was far from lucid in most of his early appearances. This was tamed as his character evolved, though still makes the odd showing here and there.
  • Coin-Targeting Trickshot: In one cartoon, Yosemite Sam throws a nickel in the air and shoots it. It come down with a perfect hole through its center. Then Bugs throw a nickel in the air and shoots it. Five pennies come down.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: He occasionally tips over into this.
  • Community-Threatening Construction:
    • In the cartoon "No Parking Hare", Bugs has to battle a construction foreman building a freeway where his burrow is. In the end, the freeway is built around Bugs' home.
    • "Homeless Hare" has a similar plot, this one involving a skyscraper.
  • Concussions Get You High: Bugs staggers about drunkenly after getting hit in the face with a girder in "Homeless Hare".
  • Cornered Rattlesnake: Made an increasingly pivotal part of his character, particularly in the Chuck Jones shorts. Bugs was not allowed to heckle opponents unless they provoked or harassed him, then it was war.
  • Crashing Through the Harem: Happens in the Bugs Bunny episode "A-Lad-In His Lamp".
    Bugs: (rushes into a room, screams are heard, he rushes out and closes the door) Err, um... a Hare-em, I think.
    Genie: (opens the door and looks in, to more screams) Oh, that was a harem all right. I know a harem when I see one.
  • Cry Laughing: In the short "Knighty Knight Bugs", Bugs does this after the king tells him to retrieve the singing sword from Sam or else he [the king] will have to cut off Bugs' head.
  • The Darkness Before Death: He would ham up a "Oooh, I'm dying! Everything's getting dark..." speech to make Elmer Fudd or someone think he's been shot, poisoned, etc. — just before "miraculously recovering" to give his foe a swift kick in the ass!
  • David Versus Goliath: Especially true of Chuck Jones' Bugs, who has taken on bulls ("Bully for Bugs") and professional wrestlers ("Bunny Hugged").
  • Deadpan Snarker: Arguably the most famous and iconic Deadpan Snarker in western animation.
  • Depending on the Artist: In the late forties it was easy to tell who had directed which Bugs cartoon just by looking at Bugs's design. Friz Freleng used the design which we all know and love today (although initially, he used a more odd rubbberhose design for him prior to the mid to late 40s), Chuck Jones had a slightly different version with larger eyes, larger cheeks and more pointy teeth (having initially drawn him more round), and Robert McKimson (plus, for his sole Bugs Bunny outing, Arthur Davis) had a majorly different version with stubbier legs, a slight pot belly, more slanted eyes, long teeth, and a huge mouth that flapped around like a windsock whenever he talked. And Bob Clampett had an incredible variety of ways to draw Bugs, since he gave his animators more leeway in deviating from the model sheets. At the end of the decade, the differences became a lot less pronounced. Some artists would even play this up for comedic effect. Picking out Rod Scribner's and Robert McKimson's animation of Bugs in a Bob Clampett cartoon is considered almost the entry level for identifying Golden Age artists' styles. "Buckaroo Bugs" is probably the easiest instance to distinguish Scribner and McKimson's styles, because there's a scene late in the film where Scribner's animation abruptly switches to McKimson's animation in the middle of chewing a carrot!
  • Deus ex Machina: In "Rabbit Punch", the Crusher has tied Bugs to a train track — in a boxing ring, mind you — then boards a locomotive and proceeds to speed towards Bugs. The scene makes it clear it's passed the Despair Event Horizon, with The Crusher's Slasher Smile and Bugs' genuinely worried expressions. What could possibly save him? Cue the film strip of the cartoon eventually breaking, showing Bugs in a White Void Room, revealing that he cut the film with scissors, thereby ending (or, rather, non-ending) the cartoon.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: The episode where Bugs has his piano concert has a man who kept coughing before he could get started. He responds to this by pulling out a gun and shooting him.
  • Doorstop Baby: "Baby Face" Finster invokes this as a ploy to use Bugs' rabbit hole as a hideout.
  • Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: His signature expression, often pulled to show smug confidence when outsmarting or seducing his enemies.
  • Duck Season, Rabbit Season: Co-Trope Namer; refers to a series of cartoons in which Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck argue over what hunting season it is.
  • The Easy Way or the Hard Way: Often to show his laid back nature, Bugs would try placating his foes first. When they kept biting however, the gloves were off.
  • Elephants Are Scared of Mice: In Acrobatty Bunny, Nero the lion tries using an elephant to break down the iron bars keeping him from eating Bugs. Bugs retaliates by unleashing a wind-up toy mouse, which gets the elephant so scared that it starts using Nero as a club on the fake rodent.
  • Enemies with Death: According to "Devil's Feud Cake", the devil himself has been after Bugs for years.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Bugs is often not above teasing and trolling friend and foe alike, but in one Tiny Toons episode, he seemed genuinely disgusted and disappointed when several of Dizzy Devil's classmates were mocking the former for his inability to read.
  • Expressive Ears: His ears occasionally change position to suit his mood.
  • Eyebrow Waggle: One of his signature gestures, meant as a Shout-Out to Groucho Marx and often accompanied by an Aside Glance.
  • Fake Faint: In "Rabbit Punch", Bugs is in a boxing match. He says to the audience that he'll feint the Champ out of position; he walks over to the Champ, then pretends to faint, and when the Champ looks down to see if he's okay, Bugs punches him with both fists.
  • Final Speech: Averted so deliciously, as Bugs would utter the "Oooh, I'm dying! Everything's getting dark ... " speech to make Elmer Fudd or someone think he's been shot, poisoned, etc. ... just before "miraculously recovering" to give his foe a swift kick in the ass!
  • Finger Extinguisher: When Yosemite Sam tries to blow up his fort, Bugs puts the flame out with his bare hands.
  • Five-Aces Cheater: It's not uncommon for Bugs to respond to an opponent blatantly cheating by cheating in an even more ridiculous fashion. The classic example being "Bonanza Bunny", where he beat his blackjack opponent's two 10 of Spades with a 21 of Hearts.
  • Flanderization:
    • Bugs was initially a far wackier and egotistical protagonist, however his suave cunning demenor was exaggerated to such a point he is regarded as one of animation's prime Invincible Heroes. As Chuck Jones once emphasized, Bugs is meant to be everything Daffy Duck isn't.
    • Yosemite Sam was actually created to combat this. After a few cartoons, it rapidly became apparent that Bugs Bunny could think circles around Elmer Fudd so thoroughly that, even when Elmer was clearly the antagonist, Bugs still looked like the bully. So they created Sam to give Bugs an opponent who was smart enough (or at least belligerent enough) to give Bugs a challenge and keep him from Flanderizing into a villain. After a while, even Sam had become ineffective, and so both Marvin The Martian and the Tazmanian Devil were introduced to bring in a fresh new threat (proving slightly more effective).
  • Foe Romance Subtext: Bugs shows some degree of this with most of his antagonists.
    • Elmer is always smitten by Bugs' cross-dressing antics. It says something when at least two cartoons end with Bugs marrying Elmer. The icing on the cake is that Bugs doesn't seem to mind at all to kiss him or be held by him, in fact, he seems to enjoy it. Then again, he is a savvy, iconic trickster to boot...
    • Bugs in "Rabbit's Feet" comes off as shamelessly flirting with Wile E. Coyote with all of the kissing, cuddling and idle chit-chatting he does.
    • There's also Bugs' friendship-slash-rivalry with Daffy. As much as Bugs revels in observing and/or causing Daffy's suffering, the two are frequently shown hanging out together, and in Looney Tunes: Back in Action he's willing to go to great lengths to get Daffy re-"hired" by Warner Brothers. After all, without Daffy, who is he going to play Duck Season, Rabbit Season with?
  • The Fool: Even when he isn't using sheer wit to defeat an adversary, he seems to have lady luck (and the villains' bumbling) on his side. Lampshaded in "Hare and Loathing Las Vegas"; he has his own pair of lucky rabbit's feet.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: Bugs Bunny’s hands.
  • Friendly Enemy: Whenever they aren't after his blood in some manner, Bugs tends to be rather easy going and sometimes out and out charitable to his foes. Granted the fact they are often Animated Actors plays a lot into this.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Despite being The Ace and an Invincible Hero (or rather, because of it), he's disliked by most characters in the Looney Tunes cast. Daffy, Elmer, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian, Taz, Gossamer, and many minor characters can't stand him. Of course, it's not a problem at all for Bugs, who can win against all of them.
  • Friend to All Children: Not too surprising given his Nice Guy behavior but Bugs does show himself as friendly and helpful to the young in age, a good way to get him after you being to threaten them. And in the very rare instances that he has a child as an antagonist (or believes such to be the case) he will opt for thwarting them and escaping, rather than retaliate as normal.
  • Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: He has fallen onto both sides of this trope;
    • Whenever he's paired with Daffy Duck or Yosemite Sam, he's the Gleeful to their Grumpy. He's a carefree and easygoing trickster, while Daffy is a bitterly sarcastic and frustrated loser who hates him, and Sam has a Hair-Trigger Temper.
    • In The Looney Tunes Show, he's the Grumpy to Lola's Gleeful. Lola is cheerful and hyperactive, while he is her reluctant boyfriend who finds her annoying.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser : Taken to extremes. Bugs often had a very forgiving demeanor to the many individuals that tried to con, maim or even kill him so often. Justified as it's all part of the show. In the Looney Tunes B-Ball video game, he plays a game of basketball against several members of his Rogues Gallery; Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Taz the Tasmanian Devil, and Marvin the Martian.note 
  • Gone Horribly Right: In "Rebel Rabbit", Bugs is offended that rabbits have a bounty of only 2 cents while foxes and bears are worth $50 and $75, respectively, on the grounds that rabbits are "perfectly harmless" compared to them, and vows to prove that rabbits can be just as bad. In doing so, he becomes a Person of Mass Destruction by, in this order, attacking a guard with his own billy club, renaming Barney Baruch's private bench as "Bugs Bunny", painting barbershop-pole stripes on the Washington Monument, rewiring the lights in Times Square to read "Bugs Bunny Wuz Here", shutting down the Niagara Falls, selling Manhattan Island back to the Indians, sawing Florida off from the rest of the country, swiping the locks off of the Panama Canal, filling up the Grand Canyon, and literally tying up the railroad tracks. Bugs does indeed prove that rabbits are just as bad as bears and foxes and earns a $1 million bounty... and for his efforts, he's hunted down by the entire US Army and imprisoned in Alcatraz.
    Bugs: (as he surrounded by artillery shells in a foxhole) Could it be that I carried this thing too far? (the shells explode; cut to Bugs in a cell in Alcatraz) Ehhh, could be.
  • Goofy Buckteeth: He is a fun-loving Karmic Trickster with buckteeth, as befitting a rabbit.
  • Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress:
    • A Looney Tunes staple that was lampshaded in "High-Diving Hare", wherein Yosemite Sam ties him up, quick-marches him up onto a high-diving platform and out to the end of the board, then saws off the board in order to force Bugs to go through with his diving act... only for the diving platform to suddenly collapse and bring Sam down with it, while the diving board itself hangs in midair. "I know this defies the law of gravity... but I never studied law!"
    • Also done in "A Star is Bored", when Daffy saws off the limb of a fake tree trunk. Bugs was sitting on said limb. Unfortunately for Daffy, the only part being held by invisible strings is said limb. The tree instantly falls over.
    • Let's not forget "The Heckling Hare", which has Bugs and his antagonist Willoughby the dog falling off a cliff for a very long time. Averted at the end when they skid to a stop before hitting the ground.
    • In "Falling Hare", the bomber that Bugs and the gremlin are in goes into a steep dive, during which the wings tear off, but it stops in midair right before hitting the ground:
      Gremlin: Sorry, folks! We ran out of gas!
      Bugs: Yeah...You know how it is with these 'A'-cards!note 
    • This is revisited in "Hare Lift": when the huge plane goes into a dive (after Bugs pulls out the control column and throws it out the window) and Yosemite Sam bails out with the only parachute available (not forgetting to shout at the rabbit, "So long, sucker!", leaving Bugs on the plane, the rabbit pulls a lever on the plane. The plane screeches to a halt in midair.
      Bugs: Lucky for me this thing had "air brakes"!
    • In "A Star is Bored", Bugs puts a jet into a steep dive as part of a movie stunt, but halts it mere feet above the ground. He then swaps positions with his stunt double (Daffy in a rabbit suit) who crashes into a heap when the cameras roll again.
    • Referenced in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, where this works until the female protagonist points out that this shouldn't work, upon which gravity kicks back in again and they land in a crumpled heap.
  • Guile Hero: He uses trickery instead of force or Science as his key to victory.
  • Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: He's worn plenty of skirts and dresses, though.
  • Hammerspace: His tendency to pull things out of nowhere for an advantage.
  • Happy Harlequin Hat: Wears one in "Knighty Knight Bugs."
  • Heli-Critter: "Lighter Than Hare."
  • Hero Antagonist: Some of his later shorts tended to focus more on his enemies (like Daffy) plotting ways to get back at him, to the point his iconic logo at the start of each short can be rather misleading to who you'll be watching for the next five minutes.
  • His and Hers: In Hare-Way to the Stars, Bugs has a pair of towels labeled "His" and "Hares".
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: In "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears" Bugs sweet talks Mama Bear to avoid getting eaten by the bears. He succeeds in getting the other two to leave him be but then has to deal with an Abhorrent Admirer in Mama Bear.
    Mama Bear: Tell me more about my eyes...!
  • Human Mail: Bugs once mailed himself to Washington, DC.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
  • "I Am" Song: "I'm Glad That I'm Bugs Bunny", recorded by Mel Blanc for Capitol Records in 1950 (and co-written by Looney Tunes writers Warren Foster and Michael Maltese), where Bugs runs down a long list of animals that he's glad to not be.
  • Iconic Sequel Character: He didn't appear until almost a decade into the Looney Tunes series run.
  • Illness Blanket: In one comic story, Bugs is dropped off at the North Pole as part of an experiment to see how rabbits adapt to the cold. By the time Porky comes to rescue him, he's so cold that he has to be wrapped in a blanket for the return trip.
  • Incessant Music Madness: "Long-Haired Hare" begins with Bugs playing various instruments (a banjo, a harp and a tuba) and singing while an opera singer is trying to rehearse, leading the opera singer to demolish Bugs' instruments and beat him up.
  • Inexplicably Awesome: How did a seemingly unremarkable rabbit like Bugs become a master of trickery and a powerful Reality Warper able to defeat all manner of monsters and villains with comical ease? No explanation is ever given in the shorts.
  • Informed Species: Not as extreme an example as some, but he is a lanky humanoid who walks instead of hopping.
  • Invincible Hero: Leaned into this more and more in later shorts (though granted most of the Rogues Gallery didn't exactly pose much of a challenge anyway). Arguably balanced by the occasional loss here and there, with Bugs even playing the Butt-Monkey at times (he actually did lose much more frequently compared the other Looney Tunes protagonists such as Tweety Pie or Speedy Gonzales).
  • Iron Maiden: The short "False Hare" had a wolf trying several ways to kill Bugs, including shutting an Iron Maiden's door on him. The wolf's nephew takes a peek inside once the wolf inevitably falls victim to Hoist by His Own Petard, and apparently doesn't like the result.
  • It Will Never Catch On: In "What's Up, Doc?", Bugs turns down dozens of scripts, including one entitled Life With Father. Bugs predicts: "Ehhh...this will never be a hit." It actually ran for 3,224 performances (1939-1947) on Broadway, making it the longest-running non-musical play in Broadway history.
  • Jerkass Ball:
    • Bugs is a huge jerkass in the shorts featuring Cecil Turtle and this causes him to lose Karmic Protection.
    • The odd time Bugs' winning streak ended was karmically provoked by an unusual bout of callousness from the usually easy going rabbit.
    • In a few of his earlier shorts, he played the Jerkass trope straighter than elsewhere.
  • Karma Houdini:
    • In Buckaroo Bugs, Bugs is the villain of the piece, a western outlaw named "The Masked Marauder", who steals carrots and humiliates the wimp of a cowboy sent to bring him in. While Bugs was the antagonist once or twice, he never again "got away with it" like he does here.
    • Cecil Turtle in Rabbit Transit. He cheated and still won. More accurately, he cheated until the home stretch, when he stopped using his rocket-powered shell. He let Bugs go by, who was running over the speed limit since he was aware Cecil was rocket-propelled. After he "won", he was promptly arrested. Both of these examples are particularly strange, as they were made during a time when The Hays Code banned Karma Houdinis in the film industry.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: Bugs also took the role of the sadistic animator in Duck Amuck, one of the only roles that he tormented Daffy just for fun. While Daffy is powerless to stop him in the cartoon, in Rabbit Rampage, he ends up paid back in his own coin by Elmer Fudd. Fittingly, Bugs had a history of heckling Elmer unprovoked and getting off scot free in earlier cartoons as well (eg. "Wabbit Twouble").
  • Karmic Trickster: The writers actually had a set of rules they always followed when writing Bugs Bunny cartoons to make sure Bugs didn't become an out-and-out bully. For starters, Bugs himself never started fights; he could retaliate all he wanted, but he never antagonized. On occasions when he did dole out punishments his victim didn't deserve, things would start going wrong for him. Best example would be "Rebel Rabbit" where Bugs is incensed that the bounty on rabbits is mere pennies, and sets out to prove that Rabbits aren't harmless by wrecking the country in funny ways. (Sawing off the state of Florida, filling in the Grand Canyon, literally tying up the railroads) In the end, he's hunted down by the armed forces and put in Alcatraz Prison, where he concludes that maybe he "went a little too far".
  • Kick the Dog: His prototype literally does this in "Prest-O Change-O", using his magic tricks to torment a couple of puppies. Eventually the enraged larger puppy overpowers him and clocks him hard across the room.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Many Warner directors, particularly Friz Freleng, were bent on making a more challenging Rogues Gallery for Bugs, fearing that earlier, more docile foes such as Elmer Fudd failed to provoke him and leaned his characterization more into that of a smarmy bully. Yosemite Sam was the first attempt at this, being ineffectual, but far more violent, relentless and conniving than Elmer, and often playing on Bugs' more altruistic image. When Sam started to lose his edge, Chuck Jones created Marvin the Martian, contrasting Sam by being affable and polite, but actually competent and dangerous enough to evoke fear from Bugs.
  • Large Ham Title: In the Bugs Bunny shorts (though not in Roadrunner), Wile E. Coyote introduces himself as; "Wile E. Coyote, super genius!"
  • Leitmotif: What's up Doc? which he has been known to sing himself or The Warner Bros. Jingle
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: When Bugs says, "Of course you realize this means war!", you can be sure that whoever provoked him this way will soon be entering a world of hurt.
  • Look Behind You: In Frigid Hare, Bugs distracts Playboy Penguin by shouting "Look! A four-legged airy-plane!" and pointing up. When Playboy looks up, Bugs kicks him off the ice shelf.
  • Lost in Imitation: Bugs' carrot-eating was intended as a Shout-Out to Clark Gable in It Happened One Night. However, carrots became the default food of all rabbits, fictional and real, with real-life consequences (carrots are sometimes lethal to real-life rabbits in large amounts).
  • Lucky Rabbit's Foot: Referenced several times. He's naturally got two of them, so he pretty much always wins where luck is involved.
  • Magic Poker Equation:
    • Most humorously in "Barbary Coast Bunny" where Bugs walks into a crooked casino where all the games are rigged, and still cleans the place out.
    • Also in "Bonanza Bunny," where he plays 21 with Blacque Jacques Shellaque and holds on only one card. Blacque Jacques draws two tens of Spades for a 20, but Bugs' single card is a '21' of Hearts.
    • Bugs does something similar to this in "Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas", where when playing blackjack against Yosemite Sam, Sam as dealer gets a twenty with two cards and Bugs reveals that he has 21 aces. In fact the whole short seems to be based on this trope.
  • Malaproper: Sometimes combined with Delusions of Eloquence.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • He's named after his creator Ben "Bugs" Hardaway.
    • He frequently bugs other people. Most characters who meet the rabbit think he's extremely annoying.
  • Mellow Fellow: Bugs gradually evolves into a relaxed, laid-back fellow, especially under Chuck Jones's pen. In The Looney Tunes Show, he can be this or The Sour Supporter depending on the episode.
  • Medium-Shift Gag:
    • The punchline of "Rabbit Hood" is that Robin Hood has been MIA for most of the film, and when he finally appears, it's live-action footage of Errol Flynn from The Adventures of Robin Hood. A dumbfounded Bugs comments, "That's silly, it couldn't be him!"
    • "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers" uses this to a disturbing effect.
  • Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness: One later drawing of Bugs by Chuck Jones (which can be found in one of his biographies) has Bugs reacting in horror at the sight of a picture of "Bugs' Bunny", his alleged prototype, from "Hare-Um Scare-Um".
  • Menace Decay: Bugs was always a Karmic Trickster, but in the early shorts he was much more hyperactive and relentless about it, and didn't mind taking things above and beyond self-defense either. As the creative team felt a greater need to make Bugs look more heroic, he became tamer and laid back, rarely that proactive unless a foe was antagonising him at that very moment.
  • Multiple-Choice Past: Variously described as being from Manhattan (in shorts like "A Hare Grows in Manhattan") and Brooklyn, though his accent is a Flatbush accent.
  • My Instincts Are Showing: One of the things that can outsmart Bugs (at least in the short term) is luring him with carrots. See "Mad as a Mars Hare":
    Bugs: Darn it. Betrayed by my baser reflexes again.

    N-Z 
  • Name Drop: Bugs has dropped the names of numerous celebrities of the day, but in particular in "French Rarebit" he mentions the restaurant Antoine's of New Orleans. It actually exists in New Orleans (on Rue de St. Louis) and has been in operation since 1860.
  • Negative Continuity: As with all the other Looney Tunes, each Bugs short starts off fresh. The sole exception to this, and probably all the old shorts in general, is Tortoise Wins by a Hare, which directly references its predecessor, "Tortoise Beats Hare", by having Bugs watch the actual cartoon on a home movie projector, but due to some plot details being ignored (such as that Cecil blatantly cheated in the first race, something Bugs has seemingly forgotten) it probably falls under Broad Strokes as well.
  • Nice Guy: He was originally an abrasive troll and invokedDesignated Hero, but over the years gradually becomes more laid back and one of the nicest characters in the series, being usually a friendly guy to anyone who doesn't cause him trouble (even having a Friendly Enemy attitude towards Daffy, despite the latter's antagonism).
  • No Fourth Wall: Bugs often spoke directly to the audience, usually to make a smart-aleck comment about whatever was happening at that moment.
  • No Sense of Direction: He always misses that left turn in Alburquerque.
  • Not So Invincible After All: The writers had a field day with these. While usually making it through each short with hardly a hair out of place, every now and then Bugs' luck would run out and he would be made the Butt-Monkey to another, usually underestimated foe. In the earliest shorts, this role usually fell to the character of Cecil Turtle, but even Bugs' most hapless nemeses could occasionally score a victory on him: one of the classic examples being Rabbit Rampage — itself a successor to Duck Amuck in which Bugs replaces Daffy as the victim of a tormenting animator, who turns out to be Elmer Fudd.
  • Official Couple: Since the 90's, Bugs has often been paired up with Lola Bunny. Their relationship has varied from medium to medium, but they usually end up together at one point or another.
  • Offing the Annoyance: During his Rhapsody Rabbit concerto he has to deal with a spectator's cough, for which Bugs has his own cure, a shot from his hidden gun that puts an end to it.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: In an old comic, he reveals that his real name is George Washington Bunny.
  • Operation: [Blank]: "Operation: Rabbit"
  • Outdated Name: "Bugs" or "Bugsy" was a reasonably common nickname in the '30s for someone known to be a little crazy, especially if their given name started with B. The slang fell out of usage and now the cartoon rabbit is just about the only well-known Bugs in popular culture, subjecting the name to One-Mario Limit.
  • Out of Focus: Despite being Warner Bros.' biggest star, Bugs vanished after 1964's "False Hare". That is, until he returned in 1979's "Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol". Since then, he's appeared in several of the sporadically released post-1969 shorts.
  • Packed Hero: Used multiple times; see the trope page for details.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: His enemies will only realize it's him when they see his tail or ears, having not noticed Bugs' fur or little bunny nose.
  • Parody Magic Spell: Used in "Transylvania 6-5000". Bugs starts reading a book about magic words that contain the words "Abracadabra" and "Hocus Pocus." Unbeknownst to him (at first, anyway), "Abracadabra" turns the vampire into a bat, and "Hocus Pocus" turns him back into a person. He starts singing the words in a song, transforming the vampire back and forth (Hilarity Ensues)... then starts mixing them up in the song, "Abraca-Pocus" and "Hocus-cadabra", making half the vampire transform, i.e. a human body with a bat's head, then a bat's body and human head. Then he throws out, "Newport News!" which changes the vampire into an ugly witch, and finally, "Walla Walla Washington!" which turns him into a two-headed vulture.
  • Pet the Dog: In "Which is Witch", after Bugs and the Witch Doctor I.C. Spots fall into a river together, a crocodile surfaces next to Bugs, who, upon finding out that the croc ate the medicine man, immediately demands the reptile spit him back out. When the crocodile refuses, Bugs grabs a club and attacks the croc trying to save his former adversary's life, then expresses remorse when, despite having made a handbag out of his opponent, he seems to have failed.
  • Plunger Detonator: "The Windblown Hare". When The Big Bad Wolf huffs and puff and blows at The Three Little Pigs' house of straw, the house explodes. The camera pans right and show Bugs standing next to a plunger detonator. Bugs used it to blow up the house while he was offscreen.
  • Point That Somewhere Else: Bugs often does this in his encounters with Elmer.
  • Polka-Dot Paint:
    • In "Easter Yeggs", Bugs paints Elmer's head blue with yellow polka dots in two strokes.
    • He paints red and yellow polka dots in a room of Elmer's home in "Hare Tonic" to make him think he's suffering symptoms of rabbit-itus.
  • Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Some people would be surprised to know that Bugs and Elmer only shared 35 pictures out of Bugs' 168 shorts.
  • Proud Papa Passes Out the Cigars:
    • Parodied in "Apes of Wrath", where after the drunken Delivery Stork delivers Bugs as a substitute for a gorilla baby, the excited father gorilla gives out bananas to all his friends.
    • In "Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare", Bugs trick Tasmanian Devil into thinking he's the father to a newborn baby, to which Taz gives him a cigar. It then turns out that Taz's "baby" is actually a bomb, but it turns out Taz had played a trick of his own when Bugs finds out the cigar is of the explosive variety.
      Bugs: I just wonder if he's as dumb as he looks.
  • Projectile Toast: Bugs himself lampshaded this in "To Hare is Human" (when Wile E. Coyote attempted to replace the carrots in his toaster with grenades): "One of these days, I'm gonna hafta have that spring fixed."
  • Pro Wrestling Episode: "Bunny Hugged"
  • The Protagonist: The iconic main star of the Looney Tunes franchise.
  • Public Domain Animation: A handful of his cartoons have slipped into the Public Domain.
  • Pun-Based Title: The writers for Looney Tunes must have used every 'hare' pun possible while thinking up titles for Bugs Bunny shorts.
  • Pungeon Master: Bugs is really fond of puns and wordplay. Often "hare"-related puns, but they're by no means the only puns he does... when he makes a snarky remark to himself he's fairly likely to throw in a pun. Some... a little more forced than others.
    "Wotta gully-bull. Wotta nin-cow-poop."
  • Rascally Rabbit: 'Scuse us, that's "Wascawwy Wabbit!" Bugs constantly uses his trickster tactics to outwit and harass everyone. In the early days he was something of a prankster and would just prank others for his own amusement. Over the years he became more of a Karmic Trickster and only went after those who struck first.
  • Real Award, Fictional Character:
    • In the 1944 short "What's Cookin' Doc?", Bugs believes he's a shoo-in for Best Actor at the Oscars, but James Cagney wins it instead, causing Bugs to have a meltdown. He ends up getting a Booby Prize Oscar, shaped like him.
    • Bugs is awarded a Nobel Prize in The Looney Tunes Show episode "The Shelf". Subverted when this genius bunny succeeds in demolishing his entire house while building a shelf to display his award.
    • Bugs argues with the humorless Kate Houghton during Looney Tunes: Back in Action about rehiring Daffy Duck, and bolsters his argument with four Oscar statuettes and a chunk of granite with his Walk of Fame star on it. For the record, four Warner Bros. cartoons have won an Oscar, but only one went to a Bugs Bunny cartoon: "Knighty Knight Bugs". Bugs Bunny also has an actual star on the Walk of Fame.
    • In the short "Super-Rabbit", Bugs becomes a Marine at the end. In real life, the U.S. Marine Corps were so thrilled by that ending that they actually inducted Bugs into the force as a private, complete with dogtags; he was regularly promoted until the end of World War II, where he was officially "discharged" with the rank of Master Sergeant.
    • On the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?", Bugs' Shloscar is treated as the actual Oscar that "Knighty Knight Bugs" won.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Daffy's red.
  • Rhyming Title: The short "Bugs and Thugs".
  • Righteous Rabbit: Many of his cartoons had Bugs in a heroic role where he (in Joe Adamson's words) "fought Yosemite Sam because it was the right thing to do." Of course, he'd use his wiles and sense of being a Karmic Trickster in his battles.
  • Road Runner vs. Coyote: In the shorts where he's pitted against the Trope Namer himself, Wile E. Coyote, he serves as the Road Runner to Wile E.'s Coyote. In the case of "Hare-Breadth Hurry", he literally substitutes for the Road Runner due to the latter having sprained a giblet.
  • Roger Rabbit Effect: His appearances in My Dream Is Yours, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action
  • Rogues Gallery: Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Tasmanian Devil, Gossamer, Witch Hazel, Rocky and Mugsy and occasionally Marvin the Martian, and Daffy Duck (depending on the mood).
  • Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Bugs has often dealt with villains from other Warner Bros. cartoons, most famously with Roadrunner's Wile E. Coyote.
  • Rule of Three: Generally, to keep Bugs from appearing like a bully, he only reacts after the antagonist does three knocks against him. After that, "of course you realize, This Means War!!"
  • Running Gag: Bugs going on vacations by digging a shallow track in the ground, invariably getting lost, often with Daffy in tow, to the latter's frustration.
  • Running Gagged: Bugs doesn't do his trademark crossdressing shtick much, if at all, anymore. The last major instance of Bugs doing it was in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which was specifically done to call to attention how dated and questionable the gag is now.
  • Save the Villain: In "Which is Witch" Bugs chooses to save the witch doctor, who Bugs believes to be a child, that's been troubling him through the short after he gets eaten by a crocodile.
  • Semper Fi: Bugs served in the Corps from 1943-1945. No, really.
  • Ship Out of Water: At the end of the Looney Tunes cartoon "14 Carrot Rabbit", Bugs inexplicably boards an ocean liner on land in front of Fort Knox.
  • Shut Up, Scary Thing!: Director, Bob McKimson, once claimed Bugs as the type of person where if a lion roared at him, he would simply walk over and slap it across the face. He displays this in Bully for Bugs when a bull keeps snorting on his tail, and Bugs slaps him exclaiming, "Stop steamin' up my tail! Whaddaya tryin' to do? Wrinkle it?!"
  • Siege Engines: In "Knighty Knight Bugs", the Black Knight (Yosemite Sam) uses a catapult to try to launch himself into a castle window.
  • Slapstick: Usually one of Bugs Bunny’s tricks. However, he's rather intelligent about being on the giving end instead of the receiving end, most of the time. When Bugs was about to hit a bomb with a giant sledgehammer (ostensibly to blow it up for a tiny imp that wanted to see a "blockbuster bomb" explode), Bugs dropped the hammer and screamed "WHAT AM I DOING?!" before he hit the bomb.
  • Something-itis: In "Hare Tonic", Bugs convinces Elmer that he has "the dread disease, rabbit-itis".
  • Sore Loser: The lesser-seen aspect of his personality; during the rare moments where Bugs is on the losing side of things, he does not take it well. The trilogy of his shorts with Cecil Turtle, and Rabbit Rampage, all see Bugs coming out on the losing end. When he does, Bugs shows that he can be pretty vindictive and spiteful when he loses, spewing out insults and resorting to cheap tactics in order to win. And when even that doesn't work, Bugs will insist that he deserves to win anyways.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Bugs' Rogues Gallery follows this, with each main enemy that he encounters being progessively more dangerous or belligerent.
    • Bugs' first main enemy was Elmer Fudd. Elmer was generally malicious, typically having end goals that were explicitly harmful to Bugs but was dull witted, soft mannered, and mild tempered to the point that even when he was a clear cut antagonist the creators still felt like Bugs was bullying him.
    • The creators endeavored to create a new foe to counteract how ineffectual Elmer was and made Yosemite Sam. Sam wasn't necessarily smarter than Elmer but was much more aggressive and violent, typically having several moments during his appearances that showcased how much of a villain he was.
    • Sam was followed up with Marvin the Martian. Marvin was Affably Evil, being softspoken but completely at ease with doing downright deranged actions. (His debut had him planning to blow up the Earth for petty reasons) He also had resources and know-how to be a legitimate threat.
    • Following Marvin was the Tazmanian Devil. Taz was very much The Berserker who required no prodding at all to go after Bugs with the stated intention of eating him. Not only was Taz very much a physical threat but he also proved smart enough to see through a few of Bugs' tricks, so it's not too shocking that meetings between the two gave Bugs a few Oh, Crap! moments.
    • Topping them all was Witch Hazel. The witch was unpredictable and Ax-Crazy to the point that Bugs was usually terrified of her and often managed to elude her more by luck than anything.
  • Species Surname: Bugs is a bunny rabbit.
  • Straight Man: Becomes this to Daffy Duck in The Looney Tunes Show.
  • Straight Man and Wise Guy: Bugs Bunny, of all people, will occasionally play the Straight Man to Daffy's Wise Guy. While the latter lets his inner demons get the best of him and gets himself into hot water almost all the time, Bugs keeps his cool and just tries to relax or get to somewhere he can relax until Daffy's antics become his problem.
  • Street Smart: Bugs Bunny is very street smart and clever, it’s how he lasted so long.
  • Stripping Snag:
    • In "Mississippi Hare", Bugs dresses as a Southern Belle to escape Colonel Shuffle, and tricks another man into tossing the Colonel off the steamboat. Bugs' skirt then gets snagged on a gate, stripping off the back half. The man takes one look at the "lady's" exposed cottontail, throws a fit and jumps ship. "Aw, well. We almost had a romantic ending."
    • The same gag is used in "Hare Trimmed", with Bugs pretending to be a widow that Yosemite Sam wants to marry. They are halfway to the alter when Bug's train gets caught in a nail, and Sam notices just as he's about to say "I do." It's The Last Straw for Sam and he runs out having a meltdown.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: Bugs can apparently breathe underwater, since almost all of "Hare Ribbin'" (save the opening) is set underwater!
  • "Take That!" Kiss: One of his trademarks, especially towards Elmer.
  • Talking Animal: "Eh... What's up doc?"
  • Temporarily a Villain: Whenever he's a Villain Protagonist.
  • This Means War!: While not always explicitly said, it gradually became a key facet of his character (at least in the later shorts he starred in) that if you left him alone he'd leave you alone, but if you started a fight the gloves would come off. Many of the cartoons he appears in start with him just going about his usual business when someone else provokes him, leading to the usual antics. Less of the case when he's a Villain Protagonist, however.
  • Through a Face Full of Fur: Notably in "Falling Hare."
  • Tim Taylor Technology: Wile E.'s massive computer in "To Hare Is Human" has all the answers for catching a rabbit, but none of them work. Except for the last when the boulder end of a booby trap is descending upon him:
    Wile E.: (panickly pressing buttons) Rock... falling... what'll... I... do??
    Computer read-out: Go back and take your medicine. (Wile E. goes back and lets the boulder fall on him)
    • And that's because Bugs was inside the machine every time.
      Bugs: Of course, the real beauty of this machine is that it has only one moving part.
  • Toll Booth Antics: In "Rabbit Transit", Bugs, in the middle of a cross-country race, approaches a toll bridge, but jumps into the river and swims across instead.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Bugs becomes a lot softer in the later cartoons, evolving further away from an abrasive Troll and more a laid back Friendly Enemy.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: As a bunny, his favorite food is obviously carrots.
  • Troll: In several early shorts, Bugs would harass outmatched opponents for the sheer fun of it. The creative team soon eased him out of it by making his opponents this, though were fearful pitiful adversaries such as Elmer Fudd weren't provocative enough and were still leaning him dangerously into this trope.
  • Tunnel King: Bugs is able to travel anywhere in the world by tunneling, usually in a matter of hours (or sometimes minutes).
  • Unexpectedly Real Magic: In the cartoon "Transylvania 6-5000", Bugs spends the night at the castle of Count Bloodcount, a vampire wanting to sink his fangs on our hero. Unable to sleep, Bugs picks up a book on magic spells and reads out loud about the words Abracadabra and Hocus Pocus. Unbeknownst to him (at first, anyway), those words cause the Count to turn into a bat and back again, respectively. As Bugs makes up a song about them, the Count keeps changing at the most inopportune times.
  • Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Sadly, Bugs has been known to sink to this level on occasion. His foes became more and more arrogant themselves to circumvent this (though of course in their case it is just Tempting Fate).
  • Villain Protagonist: Bugs was generally a defensive character, but there have been several episodes where he became this, especially in his early years. But barring a handful of exceptions, Bugs was never portrayed as malicious, but as a practical joker who knows its all an act, and is just rolling along with the situation.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Bugs and Daffy.
  • Vocal Evolution: His voice is lower and his accent is thicker in his earliest shorts.
  • Wartime Cartoon: Several, some good, some politically incorrect, some forgettable propaganda.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: Bugs speaks with a peculiar mixture of a Brooklyn/Bronx accent. (Mel Blanc also said his inspiration was Frank McHugh, who spoke in a New York Irish accent).
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Many, many times. And his enemies always develop a crush on him.
  • With Friends Like These...: With Daffy. In some shorts he outright ascends to a villain for Bugs.
  • Worm Sign: It often happens when he travels under ground.
  • Writers Cannot Do Math: In ''The Wabbit Who Came to Supper", going by the deductions as listed in the special delivery letter, Elmer is actually left with a final balance of $902,934.04, rather than owing them $1.98.
  • Wrong Turn at Albuquerque: The Trope Namer. This was used as a setup gag in a number of episodes to explain why Bugs was in a weird place.
  • You Say Tomato:
    • Bugs Bunny is fond of odd pronunciations. "Maroon" for 'moron' is perhaps the best known. Part of it is his accent, but much of it seems to be affectation. Bugs does use "moron" in "Tortoise Beats Hare". He was also known to mangle the word 'imbecile' (which he pronounces as "im-BES-sel").
    • Bugs says "nave" instead of "naïve" at least once, but also says "naïve", so at least this one is likely intentional.
    • Bugs also has trouble saying Aluminum, either calling it Alu-mini-um or extending it to Aluminumminumminum.
  • You Wouldn't Hit a Guy with Glasses:
"An' that's the end!"

 
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Video Example(s):

Bugs Bunny meets Trix Rabbit

One two-part commercial has Bugs Bunny show up to help the Trix Rabbit, the former being upset that the cereal has no carrot flavor bits. Unfortunately, Bugs' plan is just as flawed as all the Trix Rabbit's, in contrast to his usually well-engineered schemes against his adversaries. To further rub it in, Bugs is actually shown enjoying a bowl at the end of the second part while the Trix Rabbit remains Trixless.

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Special Guest

Bugs Bunny's Sa...

Happy New Year!

"People!"

Baseball Bugs

The Heckling Hare

Ballot Box Bunny

In the back

A Hundred Easy

"No Mowe Bullets!"

Pickup Pie!

"In The Cold, C...

Explosive Shack...

Spear and Magic...

Expecting A Hap...

"Run For the Hi...

The WB Launch

Falling Hare

We Are in Love

Elmer Season

Show Biz Bugs

Wabbit Twouble ...

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Bugs Bunny meets Trix Rabbit

One two-part commercial has Bugs Bunny show up to help the Trix Rabbit, the former being upset that the cereal has no carrot flavor bits. Unfortunately, Bugs' plan is just as flawed as all the Trix Rabbit's, in contrast to his usually well-engineered schemes against his adversaries. To further rub it in, Bugs is actually shown enjoying a bowl at the end of the second part while the Trix Rabbit remains Trixless.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (9 votes)

Example of:

Main / SpecialGuest

Media sources:

Report

Bugs Bunny meet...

Bugs Bunny's Sa...

Happy New Year!

"People!"

Baseball Bugs

The Heckling Hare

Ballot Box Bunny

In the back

A Hundred Easy

"No Mowe Bullets!"

Pickup Pie!

"In The Cold, C...

Explosive Shack...

Spear and Magic...

Expecting A Hap...

"Run For the Hi...

The WB Launch

Falling Hare

We Are in Love

Elmer Season

Show Biz Bugs

Wabbit Twouble ...