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Elmer's role in these two films, that of would-be hunter, dupe and foil for Bugs, remains his main role forever after, but for a short time in the 1940s. Elmer became a heavy-set, beer-belly character (still chasing Bugs). Audiences didn't initially accept a fat Fudd, so ultimately the slimmer version returned for good. Although Bugs Bunny was called upon to outwit many more worthy opponents, Elmer somehow remained Bugs' classic nemesis, despite (or because of) his legendary gullibility, small size, short temper, and shorter attention span. Somehow knowing, not only that Elmer would lose, but knowing how he would lose, made the confrontation, counterintuitively, more delicious.

Fudd was originally voiced by the radio actor Arthur Q. Bryan, but after Bryan's death in 1959, was reluctantly assumed as yet another voice by the versatile Mel Blanc (although other voice actors have alternated as Fudd's voice). The best known Elmer Fudd cartoons include Chuck Jones' masterpiece What's Opera, Doc?, (one of the few times Fudd succeeded in getting Bugs), the Rossini parody Rabbit of Seville, and the "Hunter Trilogy" of "Rabbit Season/Duck Season" shorts with Fudd himself, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck.

He always misplaces r and l with a w when he talks.