Elmer J. Fudd is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies series and the archenemy of Bugs Bunny. His aim is to hunt Bugs, but he usually ends up seriously injuring himself and other antagonizing characters. He speaks in an unusual way, replacing his Rs and Ls with Ws, so he often refers to Bugs Bunny as a "scwewy" or "wascawwy (rascally) wabbit". Elmer's signature catchphrase is, "Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits", as well as his trademark laughter.
The best known Elmer Fudd cartoons include Chuck Jones' work What's Opera, Doc? (one of the few times Fudd bested Bugs, though he felt bad about it), the Rossini parody Rabbit of Seville, and the "Hunting Trilogy" of "Rabbit Season/Duck Season" shorts (Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit, Duck!) with Fudd, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck. An earlier prototype of character named Elmer set some of the recognizable Elmer's aspects before the character's more conspicuous features were set.
Egghead
Tex Avery introduced a new character in his cartoon short Egghead Rides Again, released July 17, 1937. Egghead initially was depicted as having a bulbous nose, a voice like Joe Penner (provided by radio mimic Danny Webb) and an egg-shaped head. Many cartoon historians believe that Egghead evolved into Elmer over a period of a couple of years. However, animation historian Michael Barrier asserts, that "Elmer Fudd was not a modified version of his fellow Warner Bros. character Egghead" and that "the two characters were always distinct. That was evidenced by Elmer's early prototype being identified in a Warner publicity sheet for Cinderella Meets Fella (filed with the Library of Congress as a copyright description) as 'Egghead's brother.'" and that "The Egghead-Elmer story is actually a little messy, my sense being that most of the people involved, whether they were making the films or publicizing them, not only had trouble telling the characters apart but had no idea why they should bother trying."
Egghead made his second appearance in 1938's Daffy Duck & Egghead and was teamed with Warner Bros.' newest cartoon star Daffy Duck. Egghead continued to make appearances in the Warner cartoons in 1938, such as in A-Lad-In Bagdad (1938), and in Count Me Out (1938). Egghead shifts from being bald, to having a Moe Howard haircut. and always has a huge egg-shaped head. Egghead returned decades later in the compilation film Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, while going back to being bald again and redesigned into looking like Elmer Fudd and wearing Elmer Fudd's Clothes and Derby Hat. More recently, he also made a cameo appearance at the end of Looney Tunes: Back in Action and was also given in his own story, which starred him alongside Pete Puma, in the Looney Tunes comic book.
One animation history suggests that the Egghead character was based on Ripley's Believe It or Not! cartoonist and entertainer Robert Ripley.
Egghead has the distinction of being the first recurring character created for Leon Schlesinger's Merrie Melodies series (to be followed by such characters as Sniffles, Inki, Elmer Fudd, and even Bugs Bunny), which had previously contained only one-shot characters, although during the Harman-Ising era, Foxy, Goopy Geer, and Piggy each appeared in a few Merrie Melodies.
One of Egghead's final appearances is Count Me Out.
Voice actors for Egghead
Mel Blanc (as Egghead; Egghead Rides Again, and Egghead when he "woo-hoos" in Daffy Duck & Egghead). Danny Webb (as Egghead; Egghead Rides Again, Daffy Duck & Egghead, A-Lad-In Bagdad, and Count Me Out). Mark Kausler voices Egghead in Daffy Duck's Quackbusters.