His third appearance was in another 1939 cartoon, Hare-um Scare-um, directed by Dalton and Hardaway. This short, the first where he was depicted as a gray bunny instead of a white one, is also notable both for the rabbit's first singing role. Charlie Thorson, lead animator on the short, was the first to give the character a name. He had written "Bugs' Bunny" on the model sheet that he drew for Hardaway, implying that he considered the rabbit model sheet to be Hardaway's property. In promotional material for the short (such as a surviving 1939 presskit), the name on the model sheet was altered to become the rabbit's own name: "Bugs" Bunny (quotation marks only used at the very beginning), evidently named in honor of "Bugs" Hardaway.
In Chuck Jones' Elmer's Candid Camera the rabbit first encounters Elmer Fudd. This rabbit has more of a physical resemblance to the present-day Bugs, being taller and having a more similar face. The voice for this rabbit, however, was not similar to the well-known Brooklyn-Bronx accent, but spoke in a rural drawl. In Robert Clampett's 1940 Patient Porky, a similar rabbit appears to trick the audience into thinking that 750 rabbits have been born (however the design is of the earlier white rabbit).
In his later years, Mel Blanc stated that a proposed name was "Happy Rabbit". Ironically, the only time the name "Happy" was used was in reference to Bugs Hardaway. In the cartoon Hare-um Scare-um, the newspaper headline reads, "Happy Hardaway".
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