Elmer J. Fudd is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies series. As the series' most prominent human character, he has appeared in a wide variety of films, pitting him against a large number of characters, including his archenemy Bugs Bunny, whom he frequently attempts to hunt, but usually ends up injuring and humiliating himself. He exhibits the speech sound disorder known as rhotacism, replacing his Rs and Ls with Ws thus referring to Bugs Bunny as a "scwewy" (screwy) or "wascawwy (rascally) wabbit." Elmer's signature catchphrase is, "Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits", as well as his trademark laugh.
The best known Elmer Fudd cartoons include Chuck Jones' work What's Opera, Doc?, the Rossini parody Rabbit of Seville, and the "Hunting Trilogy" of "Rabbit Season/Duck Season" shorts (Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit, Duck!) with Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck. An earlier prototype of a character named Egghead had some of Elmer's recognizable aspects before the character's more conspicuous features were set.
Egghead Tex Avery introduced a new character in his cartoon short Egghead Rides Again, released July 17, 1937.Egghead at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on June 16, 2016. Egghead initially was depicted as having a bulbous nose, a voice like Joe Penner (provided by radio mimic Danny Webb) and an egg-shaped head. Many cartoon historians believe that Egghead evolved into Elmer over a period of a couple of years. However, animation historian Michael Barrier asserts that "Elmer Fudd was not a modified version of his fellow Warner Bros. character Egghead" and "the two characters were always distinct. That was evidenced by Elmer's early prototype being identified in a Warner publicity sheet for Cinderella Meets Fella (filed with the Library of Congress as a copyright description) as 'Egghead's brother.'"https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/recurring-cartoon-falsehoods-that-tick-you-off.3305141/page-3 David Gerstein, an animation historian is also confirming to Brandon Pierce on animesuperhero.com that "Machel Barrier is technically right. Egghead appears in two Avery cartoons, EGGHEAD RIDES AGAIN and DAFFY DUCK AND EGGHEAD, and two Ben Hardaway/Cal Howard/Cal Dalton cartoons, A-LAD-IN BAGDAD and COUNT ME OUT. Mike refers to the prototypical Elmer, "Egghead's brother", as such because he was explicitly promoted that way in the publicity for the cartoon that Tex Avery directed in 1938. You can find this Elmer on merchandise as far back as 1938, and he is always called Elmer— as distinct from Egghead, who appeared at the same time and kept on being called Egghead. With the single exception of EGGHEAD RIDES AGAIN, Egghead has black Hair, but only in DAFFY DUCK AND EGGHEAD, A-LAD-IN BAGDAD and COUNT ME OUT, and always has big, reflective eyes. Elmer is bald, has smaller, sometimes squinty eyes, and often a derby hat.Trouble is, Tex Avery blurred the two into one in his 1970s recollections; leading to all kinds of distortions and since (such as "Egghead" in DAFFY DUCK'S QUACKBUSTERS really using the prototypical Elmer model). Tex's memory isn't infallible. In some interviews he discussed his classic cannon scene in the Lantz Oswald CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS JR. (1934) and mentioned a few moments that aren't in it!". Barrier also said that "The Egghead-Elmer story is actually a little messy, my sense being that most of the people involved, whether they were making the films or publicizing them, not only had trouble telling the characters apart but had no idea why they should bother trying."
Egghead made his second appearance in 1938's Daffy Duck & Egghead and was teamed with Warner Bros.' newest cartoon star Daffy Duck. Avery retired the character in favor of Fudd, but Cal Dalton continued to use Egghead in his cartoons, such as in A-Lad-In Bagdad (1938) and Count Me Out (1938), until Friz Freleng returned to the studio, replaced Dalton and Ben Hardaway, and pivoted to use Elmer Fudd instead. Egghead shifted from being bald, to having a Moe Howard haircut, and always has a huge egg-shaped head. Egghead returned decades later in the compilation film Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, while going back to being bald again and redesigned into looking like Elmer Fudd and wearing Elmer Fudd's Clothes and Derby Hat. More recently, he also made a cameo appearance at the end of Looney Tunes: Back in Action and was also given in his own story, which starred him alongside Pete Puma, in the Looney Tunes comic book. An animation historian suggested that the Egghead character was based on Ripley's Believe It or Not! cartoonist and entertainer Robert Ripley.
Egghead has the distinction of being the first recurring character created for Leon Schlesinger's Merrie Melodies series (to be followed by such characters as Sniffles, Inki, Elmer Fudd, and even Bugs Bunny), which had previously contained only one-shot characters, although during the Harman-Ising era, Foxy, Goopy Geer, and Piggy each appeared in a few Merrie Melodies.
One of Egghead's final appearances is in Count Me Out.
Voice actors for Egghead Mel Blanc (as Egghead; Egghead Rides Again, and Egghead when he "woo-hoos" in Daffy Duck & Egghead). Danny Webb (as Egghead; Egghead Rides Again, Daffy Duck & Egghead, A-Lad-In Bagdad, and Count Me Out). Mark Kausler voices Egghead in Daffy Duck's Quackbusters.
Elmer Fudd in his true early years
In 1937, Tex Avery created a very early version of Elmer Fudd and introduced him in Little Red Walking Hood, as a mysterious hero whistling everywhere he goes. In this cartoon, he had a derby hat, small squinty eyes, big reddish nose, a high collar around his neck, a green long sleeve shirt, green pants, and a bald circle-like human head. Avery intended him to be a distinct character from Egghead, making frequent and highly disruptive cameo appearances for the sake of a running gag in cartoons in 1938 such as in The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938), Cinderella Meets Fella (1938), A Feud There Was (the first time he is fully called "Elmer Fudd") (1938), Johnny Smith and Poker-Huntas (1938), Hamateur Night (1939), A Day at the Zoo (1939), and Believe It or Else (1939), mostly as a "running gag" character. In A Feud There Was (1938), Elmer made his entrance riding a motor scooter with the words "Elmer Fudd, Peacemaker" displayed on the side, the first onscreen use of that name. Elmer then appeared on early Looney Tunes merchandise and books in 1938 and 1939, and even on the lobby cards for "The Isle of Pingo Pongo" and for "Cinderella Meets Fella" with his name attached on them.
In the 1939 cartoon Dangerous Dan McFoo, a new voice actor, Arthur Q. Bryan, was hired to provide the voice of the hero dog character. It was in this cartoon that the popular "milk-sop" wabbit voice of Elmer Fudd was created. Sometime later on in this year, some new drawings and redesigns of Elmer Fudd were being created by a character designer, Charlie Thorson.
Elmer emerges
In 1940, Chuck Jones refined the character for Elmer's Candid Camera, his first cartoon to co-star Bugs Bunny, beginning their long-standing rivalry. Later that year, he appeared in Friz Freleng's Confederate Honey (where he is called Ned Cutler) and The Hardship of Miles Standish where his voice and Little Red Walking Hood-like appearance were still the same. Jones would use this Elmer one more time, in 1941's Elmer's Pet Rabbit; its other title character is labeled as Bugs Bunny but is also identical to his prototype in Camera. In the interim, the two starred in A Wild Hare. Elmer has a more refined voice, a trimmer figure (designed by Bob Givens, which would be reused soon later in Jones' Good Night Elmer, this time without a red nose) and his familiar hunting clothes. This design is the most widely used and remains his primary design to this day.
Elmer's role in the two films: that of would-be hunter, dupe and foil for Bugs remained his main role forever afterwards and although Bugs Bunny was called upon to outwit many more worthy opponents, Elmer somehow remained Bugs' classic nemesis, despite (or because of) his legendary gullibility, small size, short temper, and shorter attention span. In Rabbit Fire, he declares himself a vegetarian, hunting for sport only. In future appearances such as Rabbit Rampage (1955), Elmer has professed to hunt Bugs Bunny solely for retribution for his humiliation.Warner Bros. Rabbit Fire. Elmer: I'm a vegetawian. I onwwy hunt for the sport.
Elmer was usually cast as a hapless hunter, armed with a double-barreled shotgun (albeit one which could be fired much more than twice without being reloaded) and creeping through the woods "hunting wabbits". In a few cartoons, though, he assumed a completely different persona—a wealthy industrialist type, occupying a luxurious penthouse, or, in one episode involving a role reversal, a sanitarium — into which Bugs would, of course, somehow find his way. In Dog Gone People, he had an ordinary office job working for demanding boss "Mister Cwabtwee". In another cartoon (A Mutt in a Rut) he appeared to work in an office and had a dog he called "Wover Boy", whom he took hunting, though Bugs did not appear. (Elmer also has a hunting dog in To Duck or Not to Duck; in that film, the dog is named Laramore.)
Elmer has occasionally outwitted Bugs Bunny and humiliated him in return, especially when brainwashing is involved. In The Hare-Brained Hypnotist (1942), he hypnotizes Bugs into thinking he is an airplane and literally flying off while being oblivious to his condition. In Hare Brush (1956), a millionaire Elmer feigns insanity by impersonating a rabbit in order to avoid punishment from tax evasion; he manipulates Bugs Bunny into impersonating him through hypnosis, ultimately having Bugs arrested by the Internal Revenue Service for his crimes.
Fat Elmer For a short time in the 1941–1942 season, Avery redesigned Elmer into a heavy-set, beer-bellied character, patterned after Arthur Q. Bryan's real-life appearance. This redesign persisted for five cartoons: Wabbit Twouble, The Wacky Wabbit, The Wabbit Who Came to Supper, Any Bonds Today? and Fresh Hare. He was also modified to carry no ill will towards Bugs, who in turn provokes Elmer purely for his own amusement. This redesign was not popular and was quickly reverted.
Elmer-speak He nearly always mispronounced consonants [r] and [l], pronouncing them as [w] instead (a trait that also characterized Tweety) when he would talk in his slightly raspy voice. This trait was prevalent in the Elmer's Candid Camera and Elmer's Pet Rabbit cartoons, where the writers would give him exaggerated lines such as "My, that weawwy was a dewicious weg of wamb," to further exaggerate his qualities as a harmless nebbish. The writers often gave him lines filled with those letters, such as doing Shakespeare's Romeo as "What wight thwough yonduh window bweaks!" or Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries as "Kiww the wabbit, kiww the wabbit, kiww the wabbit...!" or "The Beautifuw Bwue Danube, by Johann Stwauss", Stage Door Cartoons line "Oh, you dubbuh-cwossing wabbit! You tweachewous miscweant!" or the name of actress "Owivia deHaviwwand".
Later appearances Arthur Q. Bryan died in 1959, but the character was not completely retired from the Golden Age of Animation until Crows' Feat (1962). Elmer made appearances in several television specials in the 1970s and 1980s, and some cameo roles in two of the Looney Tunes feature-film compilations. Elmer made a brief headshot cameo appearance in the final scene of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) with the other famous characters.