Good morning, Whitewater.
Midweek in town will be sunny, bringing later a chance of afternoon thunderstorms, with a high of eighty-nine. Sunrise is 5:24 AM and sunset 8:20 PM, for 14h 37m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 43.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Urban Forestry Commission is scheduled to meet today at 4:30 PM.
Merrie Melodies – A Wild Hare (1940) by Cartoonzof2006
On this day in 1940, Bugs Bunny makes his (generally-regarded) first appearance the Warner Bros. cartoon, A Wild Hare:
A Wild Hare (re-released as The Wild Hare) is a 1940 Warner Bros.Merrie Melodiesanimatedshort film. It was produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions, directed by Tex Avery, and written by Rich Hogan. It was originally released on July 27, 1940. A Wild Hare is considered by most film historians to be the first “official” Bugs Bunny cartoon.[1][2] The title is a play on “wild hair”, the first of many puns between “hare” and “hair” that would appear in Bugs Bunny titles. The pun is carried further by a bar of I’m Just Wild About Harry playing in the underscore of the opening credits. Various directors at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio had been experimenting with cartoons focused on a hunter pursuing a rabbit since 1938, with varied approaches to the characters of both rabbit and hunter.[3]
A Wild Hare is noteworthy as the first true Bugs Bunny cartoon, as well as for settling on the classic voice and appearance of the hunter, Elmer Fudd.[2] Although the animators continued to experiment with Elmer’s design for a few more years, his look here proved the basis for his finalized design.[4] The design and character of Bugs Bunny would continue to be refined over the subsequent years, but the general appearance, voice, and personality of the character were established in this cartoon. The animator of this cartoon, Virgil Ross, gave his first-person account of the creation of the character’s name and personality in an interview published in Animato! Magazine, #19, copyright 1989 Pixar.[5]
Bugs is unnamed in this film, but would be named for the first time in his next short, Elmer’s Pet Rabbit, directed by Chuck Jones. The opening lines of both characters—”Be vewy, vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits” for Elmer, and “Eh, what’s up Doc?” for Bugs Bunny—would become catchphrases throughout their subsequent films.
This cartoon was first theatrically released with the Warner Bros. film Ladies Must Live.
On this day in 1894, fire forces thousands of Wisconsinites to flee:
1894 – Forest Fire Destroys Phillips
On the afternoon of this day, a forest fire swept over the Price Co. town of Phillips from the west, destroying nearly all the buildings and forcing 2,000 people to flee for their lives. When the sun came up the next morning, 13 people had been killed, the entire downtown was in ashes, and exhausted survivors were wandering through the ruins in a daze. The fire ultimately consumed more than 100,000 acres in Price County. Much of the town was rebuilt within a year.
Here is the Wednesday puzzle from JigZone: