The Bugs Bunny Show (partially lost animated TV series; 1960-2000)
The show's logo from a color broadcast.
Status: Partially Lost
The Bugs Bunny Show (also called The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes Comedy Hour, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show or The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show) was an animated anthology show that showcases many of the previously made Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies shorts. It premiered on ABC on October 11th, 1960, and would go on to be the longest-running cartoon series in history, ending on September 2nd, 2000. It has attained a large number of episodes throughout its forty-year run. While the theatrical shorts used in the show are accountable and survive today, episodes from the show's long run were not so lucky. The amount of all the episodes made is unknown.
History
The show first premiered on ABC Primetime as The Bugs Bunny Show. It ran from October 10th, 1960, to August 7th, 1962, for 52 episodes[1] before being rerun in black and white until September 10th, 1966, when the show started being broadcast in color. The show would move from Prime Time to Saturday Mornings in late August 1968 and would stay on ABC until September 8th, 1968, when the show moved to CBS and was paired up with The Road Runner Show. The network named this pair up The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour, which ran until September 4th, 1971, when The Road Runner Show was dropped by CBS, and the show went back to its old name. The Bugs Bunny Show moved back to ABC on September 8th, 1973, and on September 6th, 1975, it moved back to CBS and was paired up with reruns of The Road Runner Show, thus reviving The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour moniker. In November 1977, The Road Runner Show was dropped, and The Bugs Bunny Show was expanded to one hour and was renamed The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show, which premiered on November 19th. This version of the show would solider on till September 1985, when the show again moved back to ABC and was renamed The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes Comedy Hour. This moniker lasted only a year and was renamed one last time as The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show and would end up being the longest-serving moniker. In 1999 the hour long show was reduced to just 30 minutes. The show's last new episode aired on March 25th, 2000 and reruns ran on ABC until September 2nd, 2000 when Warner Brothers' library of Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies shorts became exclusive to Cartoon Network.[2]
Later Reruns
After the show ended in 2000, it was never seen or mentioned again until spring 2002, when Teletoon aired an episode of The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show from the 1980s as part of a marathon of Warner Brothers cartoons dedicated to the recently deceased Chuck Jones.[3] Later that same year, the show was added to the network's "Teletoon Retro" block and broadcasted episodes from the late 1980s as part of the block's schedule. When the block was expanded to its own channel in October 2007, the show became a regular fixture on the network while the show was being broadcasted on Teletoon (mostly on Saturday Mornings). The show would get regularly reran on both channels until 2015 when Teletoon Retro was discontinued in favour of a Canadian version of Cartoon Network; the show did not move to Cartoon Network, and shortly after, the show disappeared from Teletoon's schedule and was never seen again.
Surviving Material
Early episodes of the show are extremely rare to come by. An episode of The Bugs Bunny Show was released on the Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960s Set Volume 2 in 2009, while an episode of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show was released on the Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970s Volume 2 DVD around the same time. Episodes of the 1960s run of The Bugs Bunny Show were restored for other Looney Tunes related releases.[4][5] Some color versions of the show are said to be in possession of private collectors and are allegedly in a vault somewhere in Europe. While some episodes where a full restoration being done is impossible due to some of the shorts used in The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour that were previously in The Bugs Bunny Show having that show's segments wiped and are unrecoverable.[6]
On November 24th, 2012, 16mm seven episodes from the early 1960s era went on sale on the blog "For Sale By Craig" for $300. The episodes that the reels included were "Daffy Tries To Host", "Porky Pig & Charlie Dog Host", "The Gopher Twins Host", "Pepe LePew Hosts", "Rocky And Mugsy Take Over", "Satan's Waitin'" and "Hare Bush". However, none of the episodes have surfaced online, although six screenshots from six of the episodes have been posted.[7] It's unknown who bought the reels or if the reels were even sold since it was the blog's only post.
On November 9th and 11th 2020, 10 recordings and 1 partial recording of "The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show" from 1993 and 1994 were uploaded to the Internet Archive.
Four Canadian airings of The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show were uploaded to the Internet Archive on Christmas Day 2020.
On February 16th, 2021, a recording of Episode 20 (dated February 21st, 1961) surfaced on Vimeo courtesy of user xRobert1016x and two ABC recordings of The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show from 1989 were uploaded to the Internet Archive. The very next day, the same person who found a recording of Episode 20, shared a Google Drive link to four episodes from The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour from 1984.[8]
Gallery
Videos
Episodes
Promos
Stills
Surviving still of "The Gopher Twins Host".
Surviving still of "Satan's Waitin'".
Surviving still of "Pepe LePew Hosts".
Surviving still of "Hare Bush".
Surviving still of "Rocky & Mugsy Take Over".
Surviving still of "Porky Pig & Charlie Dog Host".
Low quality still of "Rocky & Mugsy Take Over."
Color still from "Porky Pig & Charlie Dog Host."
Still from "Satan's Waitin'."
The show's characters.
Stills from "Hare Bush."
A Bugs Bunny animation cell from an unknown episode.
A Daffy Duck animation cell from an unknown episode.
Rough sketch of Speedy Gonzales from an unknown episode.
Color still of "The Gopher Twins Host."
See Also
- Looney Tunes: By A Hare (lost build of cancelled arcade racing game; 1993)
- Looney Tunes: Laff Riot (found unreleased pitch pilot of "The Looney Tunes Show" animated sitcom; 2009)
- Looney Tunes: Space Race (lost build of cancelled original Nintendo 64 version of Dreamcast/PlayStation 2 racing game; 1998-1999)
- Hare Ribbin' (found original ending of Warner Bros. cartoon; 1944)
- Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (partially found original title cards for animated shorts; 1930s-1940s)
- New Looney Tunes (lost unaired pilot episode of animated series; 2014)
- Looney Tunes ClickN Read Phonics (partially found Flash animated internet shorts; 2011)
- Fish Tales (found redrawn colorized version of Looney Tunes short; 1968)
- The Heckling Hare (lost original ending of Looney Tunes short; 1941)
- Porky's Hare Hunt (partially found redrawn colorized version of Looney Tunes short; 1968)
External Links
- Four Canadian airings of The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show. Retrieved 15 Jan '21
- The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show title cards for the shorts. Retrieved 15 Jan '21
References
- ↑ Saturday Mornings Forever blogpost of The Bugs Bunny Show. Retrieved 15 Jan '21
- ↑ Archived Kevin Mccorry webpage on The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show. Retrieved 15 Jan '21
- ↑ Teletoon's fall 2002 TV time slot. Retrieved 15 Jan '21
- ↑ Cartoon Research Q&A page on Looney Tunes. Retrieved 15 Jan '21
- ↑ Kevin Moccorry webpage on The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour. Retrieved 15 Jan '21
- ↑ Kevin Mccorry webpage on The Bugs Bunny Show. Retrieved 15 Jan '21
- ↑ "For Sale By Craig" blogpost that had the episode reels up for sale. Retrieved 15 Jan '21
- ↑ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WMWOj9iKJAvbu0f2X1dvLgP5gd8UhWAO/view?usp=sharing