Editing Tex Avery (section)

===Creation of Looney Tunes stars===
Avery, with the assistance of Clampett, Jones, and the new associate director [[Frank Tashlin]], laid the foundation for a style of animation that rivaled [[The Walt Disney Company|The Walt Disney Studio]] as the leader in animated short films, and created a group of cartoon characters that are still known today. Avery, in particular, was deeply involved. He crafted gags for the shorts, and sometimes provided voices for them (including his trademark belly laugh) and held such control over the timing of the shorts that he would add or cut frames out of the final negative if he felt a gag's timing was not quite right.

''[[Porky's Duck Hunt]]'' (1937) introduced the character of [[Daffy Duck]], who possessed a new form of "lunacy" and zaniness that had not been seen before in animated cartoons. Daffy was an almost completely crazy "darn fool duck" who frequently bounced around the film frame in double-speed, screaming "Hoo-hoo!" in a high-pitched, sped-up voice provided by voice artist [[Mel Blanc]], who, with this cartoon, also took over providing the voice of [[Porky Pig]]. Avery directed two more Daffy Duck cartoons: ''[[Daffy Duck & Egghead]]'' and ''[[Daffy Duck in Hollywood]]''. Egghead was a character inspired by comedian [[Joe Penner]] and first appeared in Avery's ''[[Egghead Rides Again]]''.{{Sfn|Sigall|2005|p=30}}{{sfn|Sigall|2005|p=35-37}}<ref>{{Cite book |title=Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon |last=Klein |first=Norman |publisher=Verso Books |year=1993 |isbn=978-1859841501 |pages=21}}</ref>

''[[Little Red Walking Hood]]'' first introduced the early character of [[Elmer Fudd]] as a character mostly taking part of some running gag. Elmer in this early form had green clothes, a brown bowler hat, and a pink nose. He was also named "Elmer" on the lobby cards for "''[[The Isle of Pingo Pongo]]''" (1938), his second appearance, ''[[Cinderella Meets Fella]]'' (1938), his third appearance, and was fully called "Elmer Fudd" on screen in "''[[A Feud There Was]]''" (1938), also his fourth appearance. Elmer even appears on early merchandise and in the early Looney Tunes books in 1938 and 1939 and was later promoted as "Egghead's Brother" on the Vitaphone Release Sheet for ''Cinderella Meets Fella'' because Elmer was also voiced by [[Danny Webb (American actor)|Danny Webb]] in his [[Joe Penner]] voice that was also use for Egghead.<ref>{{cite web|last=Barrier|first=Michael|date=June 25, 2009|title=Summer Slumber|url=http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Home%20Page/WhatsNewArchivesJune09.htm#summerslumber|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090901013816/http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Home%20Page/WhatsNewArchivesJune09.htm|archive-date=September 1, 2009|access-date=February 3, 2013|publisher=MichaelBarrier.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.cartoonbrew.com/advertising/vintage-ice-cream-packages-14033.html | title=Vintage Cartoon Ice Cream Packages | date=May 30, 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/rare-1938-looney-tunes-book-found-5389.html | title=Rare 1939 Looney Tunes Book found! | date=April 3, 2008 }}</ref>

[[Ben Hardaway]], [[Cal Dalton]], and Chuck Jones directed a series of shorts that featured a Daffy Duck-like rabbit, created by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. As is the case with most directors, each puts his own personal stamp on the characters, stories, and overall feel of a short. So, each of these cartoons treated the rabbit differently. The next to try out the rabbit, known around Termite Terrace as "Bugs' bunny" (named after Hardaway), was Avery. Since the recycling of storylines among the directors was commonplace, ''[[A Wild Hare]]'' was a double throwback. Avery had directed the short ''Porky's Duck Hunt'' featuring Porky Pig, which also introduced Daffy Duck.{{sfn|Sigall|2005|p=32}}

Hardaway remade it as ''[[Porky's Hare Hunt]]'', introducing the rabbit. So, Avery went back to the "hunter and prey" framework, incorporating Jones's ''[[Elmer's Candid Camera]]'' gag for gag and altering the new design of Elmer Fudd, polishing the timing, and expanding the [[Groucho Marx]] smart-aleck attitude already present in ''Porky's Hare Hunt''; he  made Bugs a kind of slick Brooklynesque rabbit who was always in control of the situation. Avery has stated that it was very common to refer to folks in Texas as "doc", much like "pal", "dude", or "bud". In ''A Wild Hare'', Bugs adopts this colloquialism when he casually walks up to Elmer, who is "hunting wabbits" and while carefully inspecting a rabbit hole, shotgun in hand, the first words out of Bugs's mouth is a coolly calm, "What's up, doc?" Audiences reacted riotously to the juxtaposition of Bugs's nonchalance and the potentially dangerous situation. "What's up, doc?" instantly became the rabbit's [[catchphrase]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=The great cartoon directors |last=Lenburg |first=Jeff |publisher=[[Da Capo Press]] |year=1993 |isbn=978-0306805219 |pages=130–131 |url=https://archive.org/details/greatcartoondire00lenb/}}</ref> Originally, Avery wanted Bugs Bunny to be called Jack E. Rabbit because he hunted for [[Black-tailed jackrabbit|jack rabbits]] when he was a kid. Numerous suggestions for names came up, but publicist Rose Horsely liked the name that was on Thorson's model sheet, saying that it was cute and they will "play it two ways." Avery argued on his stance for the name "Jack E. Rabbit" saying that "Mine's a rabbit! A tall, lanky, mean rabbit. He isn't a fuzzy little bunny." He also said the name Bugs Bunny sounded like a Disney character. Nevertheless, Schlesinger settled on Bugs Bunny.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Remember Mortimer Mouse?|url=https://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2024/Olean%20NY%20Times%20Herald/Olean%20NY%20Times%20Herald%201983/Olean%20NY%20Times%20Herald%201983%20A%20-%200218.pdf|page=12|access-date=December 27, 2021|work=[[Olean Times Harold]]|publisher=[[UPI]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Cartoon monickers : an insight into the animation industry|last=Brasch|first=Walter|publisher=[[University of Wisconsin Press]]|year=1983|isbn=0879722436|pages=83–84|url=https://archive.org/details/cartoonmonickers0000bras/}}</ref>

Avery ended up directing only four Bugs Bunny cartoons: ''[[A Wild Hare]]'', ''[[Tortoise Beats Hare]]'', ''[[The Heckling Hare]]'', and ''[[All This and Rabbit Stew]]''. During this period, he also directed a number of one-shot shorts, including [[travelogue (films)|travelogue]] [[parody]] (''[[The Isle of Pingo Pongo]]'', which is the second cartoon to feature an early character that evolved into Elmer Fudd); fractured [[fairy-tale]]s (''The Bear's Tale''); Hollywood caricature films (''[[Hollywood Steps Out]]''); and cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny clones (''The Crackpot Quail'').<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Animated Short Films: A Critical Index to Theatrical Cartoons|author=Borowiec, P.|date=1998|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=9780810835030|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zFs5evuicXwC|page=47|access-date=October 10, 2014}}</ref>

Avery's tenure at the Schlesinger studio ended in late 1941 when the producer and he quarreled over the ending to ''The Heckling Hare''. In Avery's original version, Bugs and the hunting dog were to fall off a cliff ''three times'', making it an early example of the wild take. According to a DVD commentary for the cartoon, historian and animator [[Greg Ford]] explained that the problem Schlesinger had with the ending was that, just before falling off the third time, Bugs and the dog were to turn to the screen, with Bugs saying, "Hold on to your hats, folks, here we go again!", a punchline to a potentially risqué joke of the day.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vsZYihpCoHMC&q=%22the+mountaineer+and+his+wife%22&pg=PA59 |title=Rationale of the Dirty Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor - G. Legman - Google Books |date= November 1, 2007|access-date=March 14, 2018|isbn=9781416595731 |last1=Legman |first1=G. |publisher=Simon and Schuster }}</ref> However, Barrier uncovered a typewritten dialogue transcript of the cartoon that mentions the three falls at the end, but the "Hold on to your hats" line is absent, with the rest of the dialogue in the cartoon transcribed accurately. This inferred that Avery either misremembered or embellished the story and Schlesinger made the cut not because of any risqué content, but because he did not think that it was funny that Avery was killing Bugs three times, and the ending simply dragged on for too long.<ref name="Ending">{{cite web|title=Merrie Melodies 1940-41: The Care and Feeding of a New Cartoon Star (Part 2)|url=https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/merrie-melodies-1940-41-the-care-and-feeding-of-a-new-cartoon-star-part-2/|website=cartoonresearch.com|access-date=November 29, 2020|date=August 4, 2020}}</ref> ''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]'' reported on the quarrel on July 2, 1941. Avery was slapped with a four-week, unpaid suspension.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Young|first=Frank M.|date=October 21, 2019|title=Supervised By Fred Avery: Tex Avery's Warner Brothers Cartoons: The Heckling Hare: "Cartoon Man Walks Out"|url=https://texaveryatwb.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-heckling-hare-cartoon-man-walks-out.html|access-date=November 16, 2021|website=Supervised By Fred Avery}}</ref>