Question #32652. Asked by
Star.
Last updated Jul 24 2021.
Some on Earth may insist that Honey Bunny is not a real Looney Tunes character, because her existence came about though the comic book medium, which consists of stories and events that are, by definition, fictional. This statement is completely valid. A comic book story has as much a chance of being true as Wile E. Coyote's middle name is 'Ethelbert' - there is none at all. To most toons, Earth comics are likened to tabloid magazines, full of malformed facts and buzz news, not worthy of serious consideration, but always good for a laugh. Honey Bunny, however, is more than a comic book character. She has been officially recognized by Warner Brothers, legally licensed by them, and she had appeared publicly with Bugs for a good two decades before Lola came. Her past may be a mite sorted (sic), but her mutual love with Bugs cannot be contested.
But it has just been brought to my attention that more than a thousand websites say the Coyote's middle name is Ethelbert. The source for this is a 1973 story that appeared in the comic book, Beep Beep the Road Runner, published by Western Publishing Company under its Gold Key imprint.
In the story, which was called "The Greatest of E's," Wile E. Coyote realizes he doesn't know and gathers together some of his relatives to answer the question. One is an uncle named Kraft E. Coyote who informs him and the world that the "E" stands for Ethelbert. That is, as far as I know, the only piece of fiction licensed or otherwise blessed by the Warner Brothers company that ever said such a thing.
It said the "E" stood for Ethelbert in one comic book story but that's just one obscure comic book story...and even the guy who wrote it didn't intend it as anything more than one joke on one page of one story in one issue.
How do I know this? Because, as some of you may have guessed by now, I was that guy. I wrote that story. I think I was around twenty years old at the time. I'm pretty sure, by the way, that that one was conceived in a lecture hall at U.C.L.A. while I was simultaneously jotting down script ideas and feigning attention to what a tedious Anthropology professor was teaching. Mike Maltese had been occasionally writing the comics in semi-retirement before me...but when he dropped the "semi" part, I got the job and that was one of the plots I came up with. For the record, the story was drawn by a terrific artist named Jack Manning, and Mr. Maltese complimented me on it.
Still, I wouldn't take that as any official endorsement of the Coyote's middle name. If you want to say the Coyote's middle name is Ethelbert, fine. I mean, it's not like someone's going to suddenly whip out Wile E.'s actual birth certificate and yell, "Aha! Here's incontrovertible proof!" But like I said, I never imagined anyone would take it as part of the official "canon" of the character. If I had, I'd have said the "E" stood for Evanier.