Bugs arrived back at Granny’s house with a loud sigh and a stack of papers under his arm, plus the old file on the Warners case. Toon custody papers and all that jazz. The sun was already setting as Bugs approached the front door. He stopped in his tracks when he heard laughter. Children laughter. Curious, he went inside the house unannounced and carefully poked his head into the living room. Granny was sitting in her rocking chair along with Tweety and Sylvester taking a nap by her feet. Yakko, Wakko and Dot were sitting on the floor in front of her, eating dairy free cookies as Granny told them a few stories from their old cartoons. The children laughed every time she told them about Sylvester’s failures. The cat scoffed and ignored them.
Bugs gave them a fond smile.
O
OO
“You are their toon tutor now?” Daffy asked over the phone.
“Yep. Had to pull out the old Disney trick too.” Said Bugs as he took the cable phone with him. After taking the kids from Granny’s, Bugs took the tired kids back to his burrow. Currently, the kids were watching TV in his living room, catching up on some things they had missed.
“Ouch! Wasn’t that a little bit much?”
“Nah! They’ll get over it. Mickey took it well. I think…” Said Bugs as he entered the spare room he had and proceeded to fix the queen-sized bed for the children.
“Maybe you are right. I hope you killed somebody from a heart attack.”
“No, Daffy. But someone seemed to almost have one.”
Daffy chuckled. “Disney trying to buy you off, every executive’s nightmare.”
Bugs chuckled as he finished the bed. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Daffy. I have to get the kids to go to sleep and see what to do tomorrow.”
“Alright. Bye!”
Bugs hung up the phone and went into the living room. “Kids? Time for bedtime.”
Wakko turned off the TV as they stood up and quietly went into the bedroom. Yakko stayed behind and turned to look at Bugs. “Mr. Bunny?”
“Please, Yakko. Call me Bugs. Mr. Bunny was my incredible absent father.”
Yakko arched an eyebrow at the last comment but didn’t say anything about it. “Alright, Bugs. Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“This!” Yakko motioned to his surroundings. “I mean, we really appreciate it, but… we were locked down for being too insane. Are you sure you want to tutor us?”
“Yakko…” Bugs started. “What they did to you was wrong, on so many levels. Besides, all toons are insane! There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Not as insane as us.”
“OK, doc. You’re talking to a rabbit that does drag just for laughs.”
“What?”
Bugs laughed. “It’s one of my things as a toon. I’ll explain later. Now go to sleep and we’ll see tomorrow what you can do. That way I’ll know what to teach you.”
Yakko seemed to be a bit unsure, but at least he seemed a bit more relaxed. “Well, ok.”
“Goodnight.” Said Bugs as he closed the door.
The kids just needed some guidance.
O
OO
OK, correction. THEY WERE INSANE.
That’s what Bugs thought when he took the kids out to an empty practice studio set and told them to go nuts. At first, they were unsure of it, but after getting reassurance from Bugs that nothing bad would happen, just so long as it happened inside the studio set, they were good. He wanted to see what the kids were capable of.
He wasn’t expecting Dot to have such brute strength. He wasn’t expecting Wakko to eat half cardboard movie props laying around. He wasn’t expecting Yakko to summon a world map out of nowhere. He seemed a bit shocked about it but forgot it as soon as Dot started a pie fight with him. They were throwing tomatoes around and summoned mallets and such. Anvils even. But when it came to current technology or proper food, they were lost. Overall, they seemed to be having some fun. It was nice to see their smiles reach their eyes.
Bugs tapped his chin. “Ok, so the problem is not whether or not they can do toon stuff. It’s lack of proper self-care and knowledge of current events.” He saw Wakko swallowing a box of sandwiches (from who knows where he found them) without even munching on them. “…And lack of self-control.”
You see, these factors influenced a lot of a toon’s gag abilities. For example, Dot couldn’t summon a 90s era phone because she had never seen or touched one, she could only summon a 1930s phone. Which was still common among toons, but the problem was still there. At least they all seemed to have some personality trait written into them. Dot was the cute one, Yakko was the one who yaks a lot and Wakko… he had his thing. Apparently, he had a bottomless stomach.
But you know. Toon logic. It never makes sense; you just go with it.
Bugs kept a watchful eye on the trio as they went completely ballistic on the studio set. He argued with himself whether he should tell them to stop or let them have their fun until they tired themselves out. He could see why the executives took the decision to lock them in the tower, even if that was despicable. They were completely out of control. But those were the execs and he was Bugs Bunny! He was the face of the Looney Tunes and they were called looney for a reason. Mickey Mouse had nothing on him. If someone could teach them at least an ounce of self-control and proper care, it was him.
“Alright, kids. That’s enough!” He called. For a moment, he was expecting them to completely ignore him. But to his surprise, they left whatever they were doing and stood in front of him with nervous gazes.
“Well, I can see what’s wrong.” He took out a carrot and munched on it. “You’re lacking self-control and proper knowledge, between other things, but those can be learned with time.”
“You’re not going to kick us out?” Dot asked with adorable eyes.
“What? No! I never said that!” Exclaimed Bugs. “I assumed a responsibility with you guys. But now that I know what you need to learn, it will be easier and before you know it, you won’t feel any need to go insane all over the place. Even if you are insane.”
Wakko raised his hand.
“Yes, Wakko?”
“I scrapped my knee.” He showed the bunny.
Bugs hissed when he saw the scrapped knee. “Let’s go to the nurse’s office. Now let’s go before someone sees us here.”
“We were not supposed to be here?” Yakko asked, a bit nervous as he looked around.
Bugs raised a dismissive hand. “This place is used for toons to let off some steam. No movies are filmed here. But since you are on thin ice with the upper heads, it’s better for them not to see you doing toon stuff for some time.”
O
OO
While sitting at the nurse office and waited for the nurse to come and tend to Wakko’s knee, Bugs was already making a mental list in his head of the things the kids would have to learn. He also made a separate list of things that were significant to the Warners’ characters as toons. Dot being cute, Yakko yaks and Wakko eats were in that list. But that was mostly it. He basically knew nothing of what the kids could do that defined their personalities.
He thought about the world map Yakko summoned and added it to the list. He would ask the kid about it later. Who knows, maybe they were meant to be educational toons and just didn’t know it.
The nurse finally appeared. A beautiful blonde woman with eye catching figure.
Way too eye catching.
It was then that Yakko and Wakko did something bold. It surprised the rabbit since he had only seen them be shy around people.
After a classic catcall, the boys did a 180 degree on what so far had seemed a shy personality. “HELLOOOOOO NURSE!!!” Their eyes were heart-shaped, and their tongues rolled out in a comical way. They even wagged their tails like dogs. Dot seemed surprised at her brothers’ behavior, but when a male nurse passed by, she completely lost it as well. “HEEEELLLLLLOOOO NURSE!!!”
Bugs stared. “What the f—” He shook his head. “Hey, kids! Snap out of it!” he clapped his hands in front of them.
The Warners shook their heads, finally coming back to their senses. They looked at each other and then at Bugs for an explanation. “What just happened?” Yakko asked.
Hello Nurse stared at them with an exasperated gaze, like she was used to being cat-called. Bugs laughed behind his hand. “I think that’s part of your character.”
The kids blushed with embarrassment.
O
OO
OK, so now the list was starting to grow. Bugs had to admit, the “Hello Nurse” thing was hilarious. Though, the rabbit now found himself asking: why does Yakko have baloney in his pants?
They came back from the nurse office and started to prepare some lunch. Turned out, they were out of any ham and Yakko, like on instinct, reached into his slacks, and pulled out, you guessed it, baloney. He brought the question to the kid, to which Yakko replied that he didn’t know. It was something he was always able to do and thus, was one of the things they could eat. The kids ate their sandwiches like Yakko just hadn’t pulled the baloney they were eating from his pants.
There was an incident with Dot a few days later. She, out of the Warner siblings, seemed to have the most strength when it came to physical comedy. Which was fine for a toon, but her real strength was in her cuteness. That girl could weaponize cuteness to levels Bugs had never seen. Tweety was cute, but Dot? If Bugs hadn’t seen her technically convince the Tasmanian Devil to stop wreaking havoc near them with her super charged cuteness, he would never believe it. Though, he had a sneaking suspicion she did it so none of the blame fell upon her or her siblings. Understandable.
Wakko, being the quietest out of the three, surprised the rabbit. The kid seemed to be the one with most talent for gag comedy. One day, the kid took off his red hat to scratch his head and suddenly, a brown bag fell from it. Wakko had turned his head towards Bugs. “I’ve never seen that before.” The kid told him. Wakko, in his curious nature, looked inside the gag bag and pulled many… gag things. You can imagine.
Then Bugs started to notice a pattern, or to say, another problem. The kids had all these unique abilities to their characterization, and they had no idea what to do with them.
It was two weeks after the children were officially living under his roof that Bugs sat down one night and compiled his observations into a proper paper list.
BUGS BUNNY’S (That’s me, doc) WARNER OBSERVATIONS LIST:
Yakko can pull baloney from his slacks.
Dot has way too much cuteness.
Wakko does have a gag bag. (Is he more talented in silent comedy???)
Yakko seems to have a vast knowledge of history and many academic subjects.
Also, he made a song about the countries of the world. (The kid is a wordsmith!)
Dot has great toon strength.
All three seem to have a thing for calling handsome people “nurse”. (Next time, I’ll bunk them to horny jail)
For being kids, they sure know a lot about adult jokes (Ask Pepe Le Pew how to handle this? Maybe not…)
How are they bursting into musical numbers at random times without rehearsals?! (IT WAS 2 AM!!!)
Wakko can play the violin.
Bugs sat there as he looked at his list. A few things he had suspected were true, like the facts that they were probably educational toons, but what surprised him was that they also seemed to be able to handle comedy for adults as well.
For the last two weeks, he had been teaching them simple toon stuff every toon should know. But he knew he had to teach them how to be their toons sooner rather than later. He didn’t want them to run into trouble with the execs again… he would not know how to bounce back from that one, his Disney trick had been used already. A second time would not work, and he doubted Mickey would help him with that one. At least he had some solid ground on what to start from.
Bugs let his mind drift away for a moment. The kids seemed to be growing a bit into themselves, but not fully. They were scared, he could tell, only seemed to trust him. Daffy… let’s just say he had become their primary prank target. Daffy took it like a champ, though. He didn’t mind; he shared some tips and tricks even! The duck proclaimed the pranks were some of the most creative he had ever seen. Aside from Daffy, who the Warner siblings knew wouldn’t throw them under the bus, only Porky they seemed to like. Granny and Tweety as well. But no one else. They were still scared. Bugs didn’t want them to feel that way, but he also didn’t want to pressure them. They needed time and patience.
…And patience was something not a lot of people had for them.
Now the question was, how was he supposed to help them? He was no trauma counselor or anything---
--That’s it!
B
ugs smirked and made a quick call to the nurse office. “Hello? Nurse? Yeah, what’s up, doc? I would like to schedule an appointment with Dr. Scratchansniff.” He smiled. “Yeah, tomorrow sounds ok.”