Batter up! It’s Baseball Season.

Directed by Friz Freleng and written by Michael Maltese, “Baseball Bugs” was released on February 07, 1946, during an era when baseball was indisputably considered the most popular sport in the US and major league attendance nearly doubled its turnstile count from the previous year.

The animated short was loaded with hilarious gags (remember the screaming line drive??), clever puns, imaginative scenes, and colorful phrases. Today, it’s still considered one of the best Looney Tunes cartoons.

The cheeky, heckling Bugs Bunny single-handedly beats a team of oversized, cigar-smoking, Gashouse Gorillas at the Polo Grounds in New York. Capturing the imagination of an audience at a time when New York’s own three teams dominated the national pastime.

The actual term “baseball bugs” once referred to baseball fanatics who were so caught up in the sport that they were said to have caught the “bug”. And it doesn’t stop there. Remember the classic scene when Bugs served a pitch sooo slow that three batters struck out on the same one? That moment is said to have inspired one of the most colorful phrases in sports … the “Bugs Bunny change-up” — referring to an especially effective off-speed pitch, that’s much slower than the pitcher’s fastball.

Check out our vintage original production art and hand-painted limited edition cels that celebrate America’s favorite pastime, baseball HERE.

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