Marvin the Martian at 75
Still No Evidence of Any Intelligence on the Earth
Seventy-five years ago today, Marvin the Martin made his debut on the Looney Tunes episode “Haredevil Hare.” At the time, he wasn’t given a name, though in “The Hasty Hare” (1952), the second short that featured him, he was referred to as the “Commander of the X2 Vessel.” The character would eventually receive the name “Marvin” more than a quarter-century later in The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979).
When I was growing up, Marvin was my second-favorite among Bugs Bunny’s nemeses, after (of course) the Tasmanian Devil. Voiced by Mel Blanc, the character would appear in two more shorts during the 1950s, “Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century”(1953) and “Hare-Way to the Stars” (1958). In “Hare-Way,” Marvin tells Bugs Bunny that he’s going to blow up the Earth “because it obstructs my view of Venus.”
Blanc would change his vocal characterization of Marvin over time, but in my mind’s ear, he will always sound the way he does in the fifth short, “Mad as a Mars Hare (1963).”
It’s in this episode that Marvin utters his now classic remark, after after getting hit by a rocket from Earth):
“I’m not angry. Just terribly, terribly hurt.”
As “Mars Hare” opens, we find Marvin looking through a telescope:
“Hmm, yes. Very curious. Very interesting. I do so enjoy observing the flora and fauna of that tiny planet. I think Man is the most interesting insect on earth, don’t you?”
He adjusts the telescope and then says:
“There is a growing tendency to think of man as a rational thinking being, which is absurd. There is simply no evidence of any intelligence on the earth.”
I find myself thinking something similar every morning when I read The New York Times.
Here’s my favorite piece of irrationality from this morning’s Times. The headline: “From Twitter to X: Elon Musk Begins Erasing an Iconic Internet Brand.” Here’s the lede:
For more than 10 years, Twitter has been recognizable for its blue and white bird logo, which became a symbol of the social network’s unique culture and lexicon. To “tweet” became a verb. A “tweet” referred to a post. “Tweeps” became the moniker for Twitter employees.
Late on Sunday, Elon Musk began getting rid of it all.
Later in the article we find the reaction from one prominent Twitter-user:
Many Twitter users, who have spent years tweeting and building up their presence on the site, appeared alienated by the shift. “Has everybody seen the (eXecrable) new logo?” the actor Mark Hamill tweeted on Monday, with the hashtag #ByeByeBirdie. Others saw the move as Mr. Musk’s latest blow to the site, with some stubbornly saying they will still call the site Twitter and will continue to “tweet.”
And an assessment of Elon Musk’s brilliant move:
When brands become verbs, it’s the “holy grail,” said Mike Proulx, a vice president and research director at Forrester, because it means they have become part of popular culture.
“The app itself has become a cultural phenomenon in all sorts of ways,” he said. “In one fell sweep, Elon Musk has essentially wiped out 15 years of brand value from Twitter and is now essentially starting from scratch.”
I suspect that Marvin could find ample evidence for his thesis about human beings if he were to have use Twitter as a corpus for his AI, particular if he called its attention to the tweets of President Biden’s predecessor.
The five original Marvin theatrical cartoons are available on the second disc of the Blu-ray collection Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1. (The disc also includes five Tasmanian Devil cartoons!) You can find “Haredevil Hare” these days as part of the Looney Tunes series on the Warner Brothers Max streaming service (Season 13, Episode 11). Nine Marvin episodes—the first five five, plus two made in 1979–80 and two made in 2003—are available for purchase on Amazon Prime under the title Marvin the Martian and Friends.
Cyrus R. K. Patell is Professor of English at New York University. His most recent book is Lucasfilm: Filmmaking, Philosophy, and the Star Wars Universe (Bloomsbury). www.patell.net.
