Taz History

The Tasmanian Devil is one of the most popular Warner Brothers cartoon characters. Merchandise based on him, is available on at least an equal basis as memorabilia involving any other Looney Tunes character, including calendars, plush toys & T-shirts. He is the star of a 1990s television series, Taz-Mania, which run first on the Fox Network and now in syndication. Yet, the Tasmanian Devil was never a regular performer in cartoon shorts during the classic era of Warner Brothers animation.
There were only 5 classic era cartoons featuring the diminutive but fierce juggernaut from down-under, with a sixth cartoon short produced for Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales in 1979, a minor role as Yosemite Sam's stooge in the 1983 feature film, Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island, and a few appearances in between-cartoon stage scenes on the 1960-2 Bugs Bunny Show.
These appearances were not initially popular with critics and audiences. So, why has Taz become a lucrative signature character for Warner Brothers animation, almost second to Bugs?
Conceived in 1954 by director Robert McKimson and writer Sid Marcus, the Tasmanian Devil was the brainstorm for a new opponent for Bugs Bunny. One of them remarked that practically every animal in existence had been turned into a cartoon character by the combined talents of animators at the studio and all that was left was a Tasmanian Devil. From this remark, came a creature shorter than Bugs and whose body was dominated by his stomach and mouth cavity and whose rather feeble-looking legs and arms powered a spinning juggernaut that terrified animals of all shapes and sizes. This creature was what we have all come to know as Taz.
Taz's first cartoon, "Devil May Hare" (1954), involves the creature from down-under somehow escaping captivity and instilling frantic fear in the animals of a typical American forest, all of whom stampede past Bugs' hole. Bugs stops a turtle, (one of the fleeing critters) and asks what the commotion is about, and the turtle replies that, "The Tasmanian Devil is on the loose! Run! Run! Run for your lives! Run!" Bugs does not know what a Tasmanian Devil is and must consult an encyclopaedia, which tells him that the Tasmanian Devil is a carnivore with no limit to what it eats. Taz casts his eager eyes on Bugs, but Bugs deflects Taz's attention by promising to prepare for the Devil a feast with an animal with more meat on its bones. Bugs uses Taz's hungry gullibility to trick him into attempting to dig for ground hogs, to slingshot a wooden deer, and to eat a bubble gum chicken and an inflatable raft adjusted by Bugs to look ridiculously like a pig.
This scenario was essentially repeated in "Bedevilled Rabbit" in 1957, the only significant difference being that instead of the Tasmanian Devil wreaking havoc in Bugs' territory, this time Bugs is in Tasmania, airdropped there in a crate of carrots. And, of course, the Tasmanian Devil, in his native habitat, is just as ferociously hungry. These two films established the short-lived, very formulaic series, in which nearly every cartoon involves panic of animals or men, all fleeing the on-the-loose Devil, Taz encountering Bugs and craving the bunny as a meal, and Bugs outwitting the not-very-astute beast, usually by appealing to his gastronomic urges for other types of fauna.
"Devil May Hare" did not attract the enthusiastic laughter from theatre audiences that were hoped-for; this caused a three-year time passage between the first two films. General producer Eddie Selzer, ordered McKimson not to make any more cartoons with the bizarre Tasmanian creature. But in 1956, studio mogul Jack Warner asked Selzer what had become of the Tasmanian Devil, and Selzer replied that Taz had just been a one-cartoon character. Warner commanded more films with Taz to be produced and Selzer passed the edict to McKimson, who, with writer Tedd Pierce, resumed Taz's career with "Bedevilled Rabbit" and shortly thereafter with "Ducking the Devil" (1957), pairing Taz with Daffy Duck.
"Ducking the Devil" aptly combines the ferocity of Taz with the cowardliness and avarice of Daffy Duck, making it one of McKimson's most successful films, Daffy learns that if he can lure the Devil back to a zoo in a city, he can collect a cash reward of $5,000. But, Taz can only be rendered docile enough to be lured anywhere by the use of music. Daffy scrambles to provide music for this task, first from a radio whose plug cord is not sufficiently long, next from a trombone that comes apart, then from his own, drying vocal chords, each time finding a solution at the last possible moment before Taz devours him.
Taz then disappeared, until 1962's "Bill of Hare", in which he returned to confront Bugs Bunny, who again deflects the attention of the on-the-loose carnivore by promising to help him to procure meat from other animals. He tricks Taz into hunting for a moose on a train track and into swallowing shish kabob made of dynamite.
In 1964, "Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare" reused the idea of a stampede of animals; all fleeing the wrath of the ravenous Tasmanian Devil, this time the setting is a jungle of unnamed location. Most of the gags in this cartoon transpire in a Medical hut, where Bugs pretends to be a doctor concerned for Taz's health and gives to him nitro-glycerine medicine and a Freudian psychoanalysis.