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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, let's talk today about Bugs Bunny.

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Speaker 1: Although a Bugs esque character appeared in the cartoon in

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Speaker 1: Night Bugs as would recognize him today, first appeared on

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Speaker 1: July nine and a cartoon titled a Wild Hair. His

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Speaker 1: character was well received by children and adults alike. This

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Speaker 1: and the fact that his debut coincided with America's Golden

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Speaker 1: Age of animation helped secure his spot as one of

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Speaker 1: Warner Brothers main cartoon characters. During World War Two, Bugs

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Speaker 1: got another boost the several Air Force troops, including the

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Speaker 1: three eightieth Bombardment Group, shows Bugs as their mascot, and

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Speaker 1: the Marine Corps designated him an honorary Master Sergeant. He

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Speaker 1: starred in propaganda cartoons made specifically for American soldiers stationed

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Speaker 1: in Europe, as well as government and advertisements for wartime bonds.

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Speaker 1: Bugs Bunny went on to star in a hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty films, appear as the first animated character on a

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Speaker 1: postage stamp, receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,

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Speaker 1: and be ranked number one on a list of the

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Speaker 1: fifty Greatest cartoon characters. Compiled by TV Guide. Although many

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Speaker 1: have attempted to identify what sets Bugs Bunny apart from

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Speaker 1: the cartoon crowd, perhaps the late Chuck Jones, the longtime

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Speaker 1: writer and producer of Bugs Bunny, described it best. His

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Speaker 1: daughter Linda Jones Cloud told Smithsonian Magazine, and my father's

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Speaker 1: attitude was that bugs already existed and they were just

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Speaker 1: writing about him. He would come home in the evening

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Speaker 1: and say to my mother, you won't believe what Bugs

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Speaker 1: Bunny said today. What do you mean? She would say,

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Speaker 1: you wrote it. No. I discovered under the circumstances that

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Speaker 1: this is what he would say. Whether Bugs Bunny was

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Speaker 1: conceived as a rabbit or a hare isn't clear. Although

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Speaker 1: the word bunny is part of his name, many of

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Speaker 1: his cart UNEs had hair in the title, including a

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Speaker 1: bill of hair and fallen hair. Of course, that could

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Speaker 1: be wordplay rather than scientific nomenclature. Before we hop to

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Speaker 1: the wrong conclusion, let's take a look at some of

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Speaker 1: the characteristic differences between rabbits and hairs. Although rabbits and

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Speaker 1: hairs are all from the lapoor dae family, they're classified

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Speaker 1: under nine different genera, eight for rabbits and one for hairs.

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Speaker 1: And fifty three species, twenty one for rabbits and thirty

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Speaker 1: two for hairs, and they start life in markedly different ways.

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Speaker 1: Hairs are pregnant for about forty two days and deliver

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Speaker 1: fully developed newborns called leverettes, while bunnies have a thirty

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Speaker 1: day gestational period and give birth to kits that don't

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Speaker 1: yet have for or the ability to regulate their body temperature.

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Speaker 1: Hairs also have jointed skulls, unlike those of any other mammal.

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Speaker 1: This gives them cranial kinesis, which means that their skull

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Speaker 1: bones can move relative to each other in ways that humans,

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Speaker 1: for example, can't. Our jaw is our only movable skull joint.

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Speaker 1: Hairs have an intracranial one that researchers think helps them

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Speaker 1: distribute the impact of long running leaps. Hairs have longer

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Speaker 1: ears and longer legs than rabbits, which seems to tip

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Speaker 1: the scale in favor of bugs. Bunny being a hair,

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Speaker 1: hairs look lanky in ways that rabbits, with their shorter

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Speaker 1: ears and shorter legs, just don't. Also, hairs are more

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Speaker 1: likely to be gray in color, though hairs and rabbits

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Speaker 1: both come in a range of colors and patterns from

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Speaker 1: white to brown to black, with lots of gradients in between.

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Speaker 1: Hairs are also less social than bunnies. Hairs don't hang

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Speaker 1: out with their families, and by all accounts, neither does bugs.

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Speaker 1: But hairs live completely above ground, whereas bugs, bunny lives

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Speaker 1: in a burrow like a rabbit that most bunnies create

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Speaker 1: burrows or warrens in which they live and hide their young.

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Speaker 1: There is one thing that could clear all this up,

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Speaker 1: DNA analysis. Rabbits have forty four chromosomes, while members of

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Speaker 1: the hair genus have so analyss of bugs Bunny, a

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Speaker 1: genetic material would wrap this up once and for all,

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Speaker 1: except that he's not real. So maybe instead of splitting

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Speaker 1: hairs over taxonomy, we should all just relax with a

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Speaker 1: character free and enjoy some classic cartoons. Today's episode is

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Speaker 1: based on the article is bugs, Bunny, a rabbit or

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Speaker 1: a hair? On how stuff Works dot Com? Written by

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Speaker 1: lore L Dove. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and

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Speaker 1: it is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts my

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