In the late 1930s Givens and two other noted cartoonists, Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, developed a character that had appeared in a few short films already: a wise-cracking rabbit that was proving very popular with audiences and which had appeared in the film Porky’s Hare Hunt.

But this early version of Bugs was “too cute – so Tex asked me to do another one,” Givens told Michael Barrier, author of Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation In Its Golden Age.

Givens produced a new version, keeping the old one’s whiskers and naturalistic nose but adding higher cheekbones and toning down the teeth.

An animated icon was born. Robert Herman Givens was born in Hopkins County, Kentucky, one of twin boys.

The family then moved to Southern California when he was young in the hope it would improve the health of his father, a horse breeder and rancher. 

He showed his talent for drawing from an early age, leaving Alhambra High School to go straight into work at a Hollywood studio, although he also continued his art training at Bistram School, New York Art Students League and Jepson School in Los Angeles.

He began to make his name after working on Disney’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs before moving on to the animation unit at Warner Brothers, which was to be his first stint at the studio.

The new version of Bugs Bunny made his first appearance in the 1940 feature film A Wild Hare, which also introduced a redesigned version of Lives remembered Elmer Fudd, another of the most famous Looney Tunes characters and Bugs’s sworn enemy, as well as the voice of Mel Blanc, who voiced the famous line: “What’s up, Doc?”

This proved an immediate hit with the public who loved the flippant Bugs, with his Brooklyn accent and rabbity trickster act.

Givens left the studio with the advent of the Second World War and during his time in the military worked with another Warner Bros animator, Rudolf Ising, on military training films.

He returned to Warner Bros in the 1950s, staying until the studio temporarily closed in 1954, after which he worked on cartoons including Daffy Duck, Tom And Jerry, Popeye, Alvin And The Chipmunks and Garfield.

Givens contributed to children’s books and various comics for Western Publishing. He continued to work into the 21st century, with his last animation credit on Timber Wolf in 2001, as well as teaching a new generation of animators, despite being in his 90s.

Givens died of acute respiratory failure at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. Married twice, he is survived by a daughter, son and two stepdaughters.