Warner Bros Files To Trademark Heavily-Memed ‘Big Chungus’ Bugs Bunny
Video screenshot via WB Kids
Eh… what’s up, Doc? Warner Bros has applied to trademark a version of Bugs Bunny that’s colloquially known by the internet as ‘Big Chungus’, for reasons that are still unclear.
First appearing in a 1941 Looney Tunes short called Wabbit Twouble, the momentarily chunky Bugs Bunny has taken a permanent spot in memedom after making his rounds on 4chan and Reddit, where the silly moniker “Big Chungus” was coined.
According to Motherboard, ‘Big Chungus’ truly beefed up attention in 2018 after a customer purportedly entered a GameStop store asking to buy a fake PlayStation 4 game starring the character.
While Warner Bros owns the rights to Bugs Bunny and the historic animated episode, it quietly filed a trademark for the plus-sized character himself with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) on August 26.
The studio, too, calls large Bugs Bunny ‘Big Chungus’ in its documentation, and hopes to protect the character’s likeness across products and services like films, clothing, video games, NFTs, toys, and many more.
The timing of this application and its coverage for “video and computer game programs” have been points of fixation for gamers, who believe Warner Bros could be bringing in‘Big Chungus’ as a character for MultiVersus, its free-to-play fighting game.
It’s worth noting that Bugs Bunny already exists in the game and is customizable in various skins, so ‘Big Chungus’ could easily slip in as just another look.
If it all pans out,‘Big Chungus’ could join—and clash with—a healthy roster of Warner Bros-owned characters, such as Tom and Jerry, the Tasmanian Devil, Batman, Superman, Shaggy and Velma from Scooby-Doo, Rick and Morty, Finn and Jake from Adventure Time, Daenerys from Game of Thrones, Wonder Woman, and Joker and Harley Quinn.
Warner Bros. trademark Big Chungus for use of a video game. pic.twitter.com/T9tTg9jrko
— Andrew Marmo (@the_marmolade) August 27, 2022
[via Motherboard and GAMINGbible, images via various sources]
