Bugs Bunny's greatest quips

The ubiquitous Bugs Bunny catchphrase wasn't intended to be such a classic. Animator Tex Avery simply thought of it as a normal Texas expression, though Bugs' accent is clearly from Brooklyn. It does makes sense that he'd have Texas roots, though, since Bugs' travel seems to always take him through Albuquerque.

From "What’s Opera, Doc?" — considered one of the greatest cartoons of all time. Bugs faces off with Elmer Fudd in a collection of Wagnerian operas. Bugs dresses up as Brunhilde in an attempt to escape Elmer, who sings “Kill da wabbit!” to the tune of Flight of the Valkyries. But Elmer does kill him at the end, despite his immediate regret. Even in this rare instance of Elmer defeating Bugs, the above quote shows that even in defeat, Bugs always gets the last word.

"Knighty Knight Bugs" was the only Bugs cartoon to win an Oscar. It features Bugs as a the court jester, forced to go after the Singing Sword because of the cowardice of Sir Loin of Beef and Sir Osis of the Liver, and because he is the kingdom’s fool. In perhaps a greater honor than the Academy Award, the cartoon also inspired a log flume ride at Six Flags Over Texas.

Bugs often wins arguments by briefly adopting the opposite position to his own, and relying on his opponent’s knee-jerk contrarianism in forgetting what’s he’s actually advocating for. This will not always work in real life, but it will work 100 percent of the time when arguing with a furious, put-upon cartoon duck.

When Bugs trash talks the powerful Gas House Gorillas, they take him up on his offer to play every position against them. His series of homers made up an impressive 95-run deficit by the end of the game, when his “percussion pitch” is blasted out of the stadium, but he catches it by scaling the Umpire State Building. Bugs probably should have relied on his changeup, which struck out three Gorillas with a single pitch. Truly, he was the Shohei Ohtani of "Merrie Melodies."

Groucho Marx is an obvious inspiration for Bugs, who has a carrot in his mouth in place of Groucho’s ever-present cigar. “This means war!” comes from the Marx Brothers classic "Duck Soup," and was adopted/stolen by Bugs. He doesn’t have brothers, just the unrelated Babs and Buster Bunny as heirs to his rabbit mischief throne. And while he doesn't have a Harpo, Bugs proves to be an excellent harpist.

Bugs comes from a time before product placement in movies, aside from cigarettes and diamonds. But he’s from exactly the time of fourth wall breaking and asides to the audience. The only thing that doesn’t work about this line from "Looney Tunes: Back In Action" is that obviously Bugs is an Acme man, not a Wal-Mart shopper.

One surprisingly woke aspect of Bugs’ character is that he recognizes that gender is a construct. Or, he’s secure enough in his rabbit masculinity that he can dress in drag to thwart his nemeses Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam. Daffy’s attempt to out Bugs by gender-shaming him fails spectacularly, as Elmer ends up shooting Daffy’s beak off after Bugs replies.

Once again, Bugs employs a verbal switcheroo to thwart Daffy, who attributes his mistakes in this showdown to “pronoun trouble.” It doesn’t matter how many attempts Daffy gets, the “shoot me now” befuddles him every time, to the point that he begins resignedly removing his beak before it’s shot off by Elmer.

Duck season and baseball season really do happen at the same time, at least in the Warner Brothers universe. And here we see that Bugs’ top priority in these showdowns is to drive Elmer insane, as he passes up the chance to get Daffy shot another time by telling the truth about duck season. Presumably Elmer is a Gas House Gorillas fan, since like them, he's a big bully.

In his cameo appearance in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," Bugs shares the screen with Mickey Mouse and Bob Hoskins. Even though it’s a Disney film, Bugs gets the best gag, tossing Eddie Valiant a spare tire, not a spare parachute. He would be proud of how Eddie outsmarts the weasels and Judge Doom, with a Bugs-esque mix of verbal trickery and extreme anvil violence.

In "Space Jam," Bugs gets off an implicit double burn on Michael Jordan, after he claims he can't help the Toon Squad with their basketball game because he's "a baseball player now." Jordan was pretty good at baseball for a professional basketball player, but still hit .200 in AA. The line not only mocks MJ’s ineptitude on the baseball diamond, but also reminds us that even Bugs has more serious acting credentials than His Airness. He’s done opera!

While Bugs lives by his own rules, he’s eager to exploit the authoritarian instincts of his rivals. Elmer is a slave to the different concepts of seasons, Yosemite Sam slavishly follows the Stand Your Ground law at all times, but Bugs can shift at a moment's notice, yet also appeal to the same authority he constantly thumbs his nose at. The paperwork involved in a fricaseeing license is indeed onerous.

In 2003’s "Back In Action," Jenna Elfman critiques some of Bugs’ gags, especially in a 21st century context. In what functions as a mission statement for his entire body of work, Bugs declares his loyalty to the lowest common denominator of humor. If you’re not into a classic gag like that, he suggests, perhaps the Bugs oeuvre is not for you.

Bugs and Daffy compete in a race for a million bucks, with Daffy getting hampered by problems with both a plane and a boat. Daffy also does not remember that he can swim. By the end, both are injured and exhausted, but an exasperated Daffy gives Bugs the prize when he learns it's a million box, a box with a million boxes inside. Of course what he doesn't know is that the boxes each contain a dollar.

Bugs Bunny doesn't have many love interests. He's a lifelong bachelor, lives alone in a hole, but the real impediment is that he can never love anyone else as much as he loves puns. And how can anyone fall in love with a bunny who's constantly tossing off groaners like that?

After Daffy suggests naming their basketball team the Ducks, Bugs gets off another double burn on Daffy and the Mighty Ducks. In your face, Disney, who have since dropped “Mighty” from the name of the Anaheim hockey team they own, but kept the duck logo. Bugs would also hate the University of Oregon, who literally has an unbranded Donald Duck as their mascot. And since Phil Knight is their main backer, that also means Nike is a Mickey Mouse organization. Don’t tell Michael Jordan! 

Bugs always runs into trouble when he reaches the crossroads underneath Albuquerque, or as he says it, Albookwoykee. But the first time this gag happens, in "Herr Meets Hare," he’s made a wrong turn and ended up in Nazi “Joimany.” For the rest of the short, Bugs faces off against Hermann Goring, and dresses up as both Hitler and Stalin, because 1940’s cartoons were weird.  

Cartoon physics are one of Bugs’ assets, as seen in "High Diving Hare." Tied up and at the end of a platform that Yosemite Sam is sawing off, Bugs nonetheless stays in the air while Sam plummets to the ground. In the world of Warner Brothers cartoons, you are subject to gravity only if you can’t deliver a timely pun. Or you’re a Road Runner.

The bunny's first appearances were put together by director “Bugs” Hardaway. Charlie Thorson, the animator, labeled the model sheet for Hardaway as “Bugs’ Bunny.” Through the magic of inconsistent copying, the character became Bugs Bunny. Ain't punctuation a stinker?

Though clever and quick on his feet, Bugs isn’t a formally educated bunny. He's street smart, or burrow smart as the case may be. His spoonerisms when insulting an opponent’s intelligence are humorous, but also serve to undercut Bugs’ pretension. His are the malaprops of the common man, and Bugs remains the triumphant underdog and champion of the proletariat.

Another "Space Jam" line, as the poor alien Nerdlucks searching for Bugs Bunny get tricked even more easily than Elmer Fudd does. If their clumsy attempts to identify him weren't enough of a demonstration of their stupidity, consider this: They bet big against Michael Jordan in an important basketball game.