Big Chungus

Big Chungus is an exaggeratedly large Bugs Bunny who became famous as the star of a fake PlayStation 4 game. The joke combines a real 1941 cartoon frame, a nonsense word with its own internet history, and the deadpan presentation of a product that never existed.

The body comes from Wabbit Twouble, a Merrie Melodies short released on December 20, 1941 and directed by Bob Clampett. Bugs inflates his torso to mock the heavyset Elmer Fudd, briefly producing the round pose later isolated by meme makers. The cartoon never calls him Chungus.

The word developed separately. Video-game writer Jim Sterling had used “chungus” as a flexible comic noun by 2012. A Second Life user named BigChungus later connected the form to an edited Tumblr line, “I love it when you call me big chungo,” and to other deliberately silly words. None of those uses yet referred to Bugs Bunny.

Redditor GaryTheTaco—whose first name is Braden—joined the pieces on March 20, 2018 while bored in class. He put the stretched Bugs image on a mock PS4 cover labeled Big Chungus, added “Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series,” and sent it privately to a friend. March 20 is therefore the earliest supported creation date; the image did not become public until he posted it to r/comedyheaven on December 1.

The public post gained attention, but the decisive boost came a week later. A GameStop manager, Justin Laufer, shared a story about a customer asking whether the nonexistent game was in stock after seeing it on a child's wish list. Twitter user @fluffypkmn reposted the exchange on December 8, and the screenshot earned more than 13,800 retweets in about two weeks.

The misunderstanding made the cover funnier: Big Chungus now looked like a bootleg product convincing enough to reach a real shop. Reddit users produced sequels for Xbox, Nintendo and imaginary franchises, while r/comedyheaven, r/dankmemes and r/sbubby turned “chungus” into a label for anything oversized or absurdly powerful.

Braden later documented the timeline in an r/BigChungus AMA and showed earlier copies. His account matters because December 1 is the first public post, while March 20 marks the private creation. The meme's breakout belongs to December 2018, not to the 1941 source film.

The joke escaped its fake-game frame. Fans made costumes, 3D models, crossover edits and recursive sizes such as huge, mega and increasingly impossible Chunguses. In October 2019, even the U.S. Army posted a howitzer nicknamed “Chungus,” evidence that the word had become recognizable beyond the original cover.

The strangest turn was official adoption. On March 29, 2021, Looney Tunes World of Mayhem teased the character with “Your world may not be ready for him,” then released Big Chungus in the mobile game. Space Jam: A New Legacy also included a brief transformation gag. A meme built around a fake licensed game had become licensed game content.

Warner Bros. later filed an EU figurative trademark application for BIG CHUNGUS in August 2022. The filing did not by itself promise a MultiVersus fighter, despite online speculation, but it completed the loop: the rights holder was now formally managing a character assembled by fans from one distorted cartoon pose.

Big Chungus survives because the premise needs almost no setup. “Big” plus a grand-sounding nonsense name makes the rabbit feel important for no reason. Every sequel, crossover and official appearance repeats that contrast between enormous presentation and deliberately empty meaning.