The Bugs Bunny Show (partially lost animated TV series; 1960-2000)

A color still of the intro from the 1960's run.

Status: Partially Lost

The Bugs Bunny Show (also called The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes 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 11, 1960 and would go on to be the longest running cartoon series in history, ending on September 2, 2000. It has attamed a large amount of episodes throughout it's forty year run. While the 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 10, 1960 to August 7, 1962 for 52 episodes^[1] before being reran in black and white until September 10, 1966 when the show started being broadcasted in color. The show would move from Prime Time to Saturday Mornings in late August 1968 and would stay on ABC until September 8, 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 4, 1971 when The Road Runner Show was dropped by CBS and the show went back to it's old name. The Bugs Bunny Show moved back to ABC on September 8, 1973 and on September 6, 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 Runny/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 Hour'. This moniker lasted only a year and was renamed one last time 'The Bugs Bunny and 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 25, 2000 and reruns ran on ABC until September 2, 2000, when Warner Brothers' library of Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies shorts became available on Cartoon Network.^[2]

Later Reruns

After the show ended it 2000, it was never seen or mentioned again until Spring 2002, when Teletoon aired a episode of The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show from the 1980's 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 1980's as part of the block's schedule. When the block was expanded to it's 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 favor 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 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 released around the same time. Episodes of the 1960's 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 the 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 and are unrecoverable.^[6]

Four Canadian airings of The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show were uploaded to the Internet Archive on Christmas Day 2020.