Happy 75th birthday, Bugs Bunny

What's up, docs, is that one of the seminal characters in all of Western animation turns three-quarters of a century old Monday. Bugs Bunny, the carrot-chomping, cross-dressing champion of wiseacres everywhere, made his official debut 75 years ago, in 1940's Warner Bros. short "A Wild Hare."

Here's what you need to know about the cartoon star on this momentous occasion:

• Note the phrase "official debut" above. Before the wascally wabbit we all know and love took screens by storm, a few lesser hares appeared in Warner Bros. shorts, including an unnamed early version a couple years earlier in the Porky Pig vehicle "Porky's Hare Hunt," according to Comic Book Resources. 

• By the time "A Wild Hare" popped out the rabbit hole, many of the classic elements of Bugs Bunny were present, including his "What's up, Doc?" catchphrase, according to Time. Though the bunny that bedevils Elmer Fudd in the Tex Avery cartoon is unnamed, he soon became the studio's biggest (cell-animated) celebrity. Watch Bugs' first appearance here.

• According to the Wall Street Journal, "A Wild Hare" was nominated at the Academy Awards in the animated short film category. It lost to "The Milky Way" from Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, the first non-Disney short to win that particular Oscar.

• Bugs was first named in 1941's "Elmer's Pet Rabbit," according to Variety, and his popularity only took off from there. (He does have his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, after all.) A 1945 article in the New York Times explains how Bugs got his Brooklyn accent and mischievous tendencies.

• A rabbit by any other name would not be just as sweet (or sour): Mel Blanc, the voice behind the character, claimed that the "Bugs Bunny" name was his idea, according to Time. Blanc said that the character's original name was Happy Rabbit, but that he thought of naming the bunny after an animator named Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. Another theory: An early sketch of the character was labeled "Bugs' bunny," indicating that Hardaway had asked for a drawing of the rabbit, according to Time.

• Unfortunately, like many wartime cartoon characters, Bugs was occasionally featured in cartoons that included racist depictions of Japanese characters.

• Staying in the public consciousness for 75 years is no easy feat. The Christian Science Monitor examines how Bugs Bunny has managed to wreak animated havoc for so long, tracing his appearances from pre-WWII theatrical shorts to Baby Boomer-era television reruns to latter-day features like "Space Jam" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," which helped introduce the character to millennial audiences. More recently, Cartoon Network's "The Looney Tunes" show has kept the buck-toothed dream alive. Later this year, Bugs will star in a new original series called "Wabbit − A Looney Tunes Production" on the Boomerang cable network.

• It would be impossible to narrow down the rabbit's vast filmography to a list of "best" cartoons. But a few notables: 1945's controversial WWII-themed "Herr Meets Hare," in which Bugs took his first "wrong turn at Albuquerque"; 1948's "Haredevil Hare," Bugs' first confrontation with Marvin the Martian; 1950's "Rabbit of Seville," featuring a classic, operatic confrontation between Bugs and Elmer; 1951's "Rabbit Fire," the first of director Chuck Jones' famed "hunting trilogy," which pitted Bugs, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd against each other; a 1957 short called "What's Opera Doc?" that was once named the greatest cartoon of all time; and Bugs' only Oscar-winning short, 1958's "Knighty Knight Bugs."