Happy 75th Birthday to Bugs Bunny, and Goodbye Elmer Fudd!

It was seventy-five years ago today that Warner Bros. released A Wild Hare, introducing the irrepressible Bugs Bunny (and the utterly repressible Elmer Fudd) to the world in his first official animated short.

As the New York Times reported earlier today, primitive versions of Bugs had appeared in earlier Warner cartoons, but A Wild Hare brought a fully realized, wise-cracking, street-smart Bugs to viewers for the first time.